On 5 November 2004 Attorney General Bill Lockyer announced that the Campaign Against Marijuana Planting (CAMP) had seized a record 621,315 plants during the 2004 season, 155,000 more than the previous record, with an estimated street value of nearly $2.5 billion.[1][2] A later department release confirmed the 621,315-plant total and the $2.5 billion valuation, and gave the season’s enforcement totals as 757 gardens raided, 41 arrests and 53 weapons seized.[3][4]

Riverside County had the highest county total with 97,104 plants, much of it in avocado groves where officials said Mexican drug cartels set up after enforcement pressure in the northern growing region; Fresno followed with 69,364, Lake with 64,198 and Mendocino with 63,556.[1][2] Some 58 percent of all plants seized were found on public land, and officials said 80 percent of the plants were grown by Mexican drug organizations, with about 500,000 plants attributed to them.[1]

A bigger, more airborne campaign

CAMP added a fourth team in 2004 and worked four regions for months across state and national parks, national forests, ranches, vineyards and timberlands.[1] Almost all raids outside Riverside used helicopters for “short-haul” insertions, with agents dangling from lines to drop onto gardens; only about a fourth of raids had used helicopters five years earlier.[2] Lockyer said the average 2004 raid netted 3,400 plants, against 300 to 500 per garden in 1994.[4] The season saw two officer-involved shootings and no fatalities, down from six fatalities and four non-lethal shootings in 2003.[1]