Up to 80,000 wild cannabis plants pulled in St. Lawrence County sweep
A county drug task force with DEA agents, state police and National Guard troops harvested and destroyed between 75,000 and 80,000 cannabis plants across northern St. Lawrence County on 10 September 2003. The sheriff could not say whether the plants were sown or growing wild, and no arrests were made.
🇺🇸 Northern St. Lawrence County, New York · New York, United States
On Wednesday 10 September 2003, the St. Lawrence County drug task force joined
Drug Enforcement Administration agents, state police, environmental conservation
officers and National Guard troops to harvest and destroy between 75,000 and
80,000 marijuana plants found within about a mile of each other in the northern
part of the county.[1][2]Crews cut plants some seven feet tall, hauled them
away in dump trucks and burned them.[2][3]
Officials valued the haul at $30 to $80 million, at $400 to $1,000 a plant, with
one investigator calling it among the largest single seizures he had seen.[1]But Sheriff Gary Jarvis said the plants had not been properly cultivated,
and that at $80 million only if they had been.[3]He said he could not tell
whether they had been sown where found or were growing wild.[3]A Cornell
Cooperative Extension examination of a sample concluded it was not really
marijuana but some sort of native hemp, and the sheriff agreed the harvest
looked like wild plants with low levels of THC, the compound prized in
marijuana.[3]
No arrests were made, and the sheriff said none were expected, with no
indication the landowners had planted the crop.[2][3]Samples were sent to a
Drug Enforcement Administration laboratory to test drug quality and fix a real
street value.[3]
Case data
Every number and detail the sources state, with the sources that state it.
The sheriff could not determine whether the plants were sown where found or growing wild, and a Cornell extension examination of a sample suggested native hemp.
Samples were sent for laboratory testing to establish drug quality and street value, with results still pending at publication.
One account says National Guard troops carried six truckloads while another says the harvest filled seven dump trucks.
The reported $30 to $80 million valuation assumed properly cultivated plants at $400 to $1,000 each, which these neglected plants were not.
No photograph of the harvest or the fields 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
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