Washington destroys more than 130,000 marijuana plants in 2006
Washington law enforcement destroyed more than 130,000 marijuana plants in 2006 under the joint state-federal eradication program, nearly matching the 2005 record. The seizures led to more than 340 arrests and 190 weapons seizures; officials attributed the crop to traffickers moving from Canada.
🇺🇸 Washington (statewide) · Washington, United States
Drug-enforcement officials in Washington said they destroyed more than 130,000
marijuana plants in 2006 as part of a joint state and federal eradication
effort.[1]That was nearly the same as the year before, when a record 135,000
plants were destroyed under the Washington Domestic Cannabis
Eradication/Suppression Program, the Drug Enforcement Administration said in a
news release.[1]
The 2006 seizures led to more than 340 arrests and 190 weapons seizures.[1]Officials attributed the number of destroyed plants to the movement of drug
traffickers from Canada to Washington in an effort to avoid tightened border
security.[1]“Washington state is susceptible to both outdoor marijuana
growers, who typically use and damage public lands to ply their illegal trade,
and previously Canadian-based indoor cultivators attempting to avoid cross-border
detection,” said DEA special agent in charge Rodney Benson.[1]
Agents said growers had dammed streams, clear-cut forest lands, used large
quantities of insecticide and killed wildlife to aid the outdoor growing
operations.[1]
Case data
Every number and detail the sources state, with the sources that state it.
Only a forum mirror of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer account could be opened; the original article page was not recoverable, so the yearly figures rest on a single newsroom account of the authorities' release.
More than 130,000 is a lower bound; no exact plant count was published.
No street-value estimate for the 2006 crop was published in the opened source.
No photograph of the 2006 eradication operations 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
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.
