34,996 marijuana plants seized in Los Padres National Forest raids
The Santa Barbara County Sheriff's Department and federal partners seized 34,996 marijuana plants valued at nearly 87.5 million dollars in the Los Padres National Forest in late July 2008, making no arrests.
🇺🇸 Los Padres National Forest, Santa Barbara County · California, United States
The Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Department, working with the Campaign Against Marijuana Production task force and the National Forest Service, completed its annual marijuana eradication in late July 2008, seizing 34,996 mature plants.[1]A Drug Enforcement Administration evaluation put their street value at $87,490,000.[1]
All of the grows were inside the Los Padres National Forest: two large sites near Juncal Dam yielding 13,501 plants, three sites in a wilderness area west of Lake Cachuma yielding 18,555 plants, and four sites in Bear Canyon yielding 2,940 plants.[1]Evidence recovered at several of the sites indicated that Mexican nationals had been living near the fields and tending them.[1]No arrests were made during the operation.[1]
Case data
Every number and detail the sources state, with the sources that state it.
The article was published on 5 August and says the operation ended early the previous week, so no exact date for the raids is known and 5 August is the publication date.
Only one source for this event could be found.
No photograph of the operation with a recoverable direct image address was found in the opened source.
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
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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.
