20,000 marijuana plants destroyed in Palo Alto foothill raids
Officers destroyed about 20,000 marijuana plants, valued by the authorities at about $60 million, in two foothill gardens near Page Mill Road in Palo Alto on 5 August 2009. No one was arrested in the raids, which were part of the county's record summer eradication season.
🇺🇸 Page Mill Road foothills, Palo Alto · California, United States
Officers destroyed about 20,000 marijuana plants, which they valued at about
$60 million, in raids on two foothill gardens near Page Mill Road in Palo Alto
and on Midpeninsula open space on 5 August 2009.[1]Palo Alto police SWAT
officers joined the Santa Clara County sheriff’s marijuana-eradication team and
state fish and game agents to sweep both gardens and remove the plants.[1]No one was arrested; officers found several unoccupied camps, signs of
unauthorised hunting, two bags of ammunition and a Taser-style weapon.[1]
A later account of the county’s summer campaign described a July eradication
off Page Mill Road at the same size and street value, and said the July raid
had turned up a loaded 12-gauge shotgun.[2]The sheriff’s office had already
destroyed about 220,000 plants that season, up from 190,000 the year before.[2]
Case data
Every number and detail the sources state, with the sources that state it.
The follow-up account describes the 20,000-plant Page Mill Road operation as the July eradication while the contemporaneous report dates the raids to Wednesday 5 August, and this report uses 5 August.
Both opened accounts come from Palo Alto Online, and no agency statement or second outlet account of this operation was located.
No arrests were reported in these raids and no court outcome is known.
No photograph of the gardens or the eradication with a recoverable direct image address was found in the opened sources.
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.
Santa Clara County sheriff's deputies eradicated about 720 marijuana plants at an illegal creekside greenhouse grow near Mt. Hamilton Road in September 2026. No suspects were found at the remote site, where officers also reported illegal water diversion from a nearby creek.
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.
