Officers from the Midong District public security sub-bureau’s narcotics brigade and the Baiyanghe Kazakh Ethnic Township police station found a large stand of wild cannabis on hillsides around Baiyanghe in Urumqi, Xinjiang, during a routine foot patrol of hills, scrub and slopes.[1] Officers counted more than 200,000 plants growing in one continuous patch.[1] The brigade called in the township government and the Midong District People’s Procuratorate for a joint clearance.[1] The patrol that found the stand took place on 24 June 2026.[2]
Officers pulled the plants up by the root, counted them one by one and sealed them, photographing and filming the work as evidence.[3] Excavators dug out the root systems of the continuous stands, while officers pulled by hand the plants on slopes and in rock crevices that machines could not reach.[2] The work was held to the standard of “not one plant, not one root, not one hidden danger”.[1]
Hemp has been grown in Xinjiang for more than 2,500 years.[3] Seed scattered over that time has reproduced in the wild, forming stable stands.[3] Similar clearances have become routine across the region.[3] At Baiyanghe, officers used the uprooted plants to show herders how to recognise cannabis and to explain the law.[2]