DEA reports 5.3 million cannabis plants destroyed in 2024 and 5,764 arrests
The Drug Enforcement Administration reported that it and its partners destroyed about 5.3 million cultivated cannabis plants in 2024 and made 5,764 marijuana-related arrests, with 35 states taking part. Its 2024 data put the enforcement effort slightly below 2022 and 2021 and counted 16,330 eradicated grow sites.
🇺🇸 United States (35 states in the DEA eradication programme) · United States
Federal agents and their state and local partners uprooted and destroyed about
5.3 million cultivated cannabis plants in 2024 under the Drug Enforcement
Administration’s Domestic Cannabis Eradication/Suppression Program.[1]The
programme’s enforcement actions in 2024 led to 5,764 marijuana-related arrests.[1]
The 2024 total was slightly below the 5.7 million plants reported for 2022 and
the 5.5 million for 2021.[1]Thirty-five states took part in the eradication
programme last year.[1]
The DEA counted 16,330 cultivation sites eradicated in 2024, including 14,904
outdoor sites and 1,426 indoor ones.[2]The DEA isolated 15 of the year’s grow
operations as what it labels Chinese grows.[1]
Officers also seized 3,125 weapons during the 2024 operations.[2]Federal
marijuana arrests fell from 8,501 in 2011 to fewer than 5,000 in 2020 before
rising again, while the FBI counted 217,150 state and local marijuana arrests in
2023.[1]NORML deputy director Paul Armentano said considerable time and
resources still go to enforcing and prosecuting under federal marijuana
prohibition.[1]
Case data
Every number and detail the sources state, with the sources that state it.
California's Unified Cannabis Enforcement Task Force seized or destroyed 55,308 pounds of illicit cannabis and eradicated 108,226 plants between July and September 2026, Governor Gavin Newsom's office said. The quarter's operations across nine counties led to 14 arrests, nine firearms and $29,215 in cash, and brought the state's nine-month total to more than $230 million in cannabis.
Arrested 14Plants destroyed 108,226Cannabis 25.0873 t
Humboldt County sheriff's deputies eradicated about 3,102 cannabis plants and destroyed about 36 pounds of processed cannabis at two unlicensed grows near Alderpoint and Garberville on 5 and 6 October 2026. No arrests were made and the cases were sent to the District Attorney for review.
On 25 September 2026 New Mexico's Regulation and Licensing Department Enforcement Bureau and the Organized Crime Commission raided 102 Howell Road in Estancia, Torrance County, seizing and destroying about 6,300 mature cannabis plants in 21 greenhouses weighing an estimated 21,000 pounds. The case remains open for prosecution.
On 16 September 2026 U.S. Forest Service officers, Glenn County’s Major Crimes Task Force and a Forest Service helicopter team eradicated about 700 cannabis plants from an illegal grow in remote Mendocino National Forest. No arrests were reported.
