[420 Girl]

Ah, summertime! Hot dogs on the grill, kids splashing in the pool ... and federal choppers flying overhead to sniff out outdoor growing operations that are starting to mature.

The outdoor growing season is in full swing, and so too are federal efforts to hunt down and destroy the crops.

The first of what will surely be many large-scale eradication operations went down in Stevenson, California last week when state and federal drug enforcement agents discovered a 9,000-plus-plant pot farm located on an island in the San Joaquin River. It took the officers eight hours to destroy the plants. Discovered nearby was a campsite believed to be used by the growers, some of whom were seen fleeing the area as officers swooped in.

The Merced County Sheriff's Office said the grow might be linked to Mexican drug cartels, which have taken to growing marijuana inside the U.S. border, often on remote national forest land, to reduce the risks of smuggling baled marijuana from Mexico.

One interesting aspect of the bust was the realistic value of the marijuana estimated by the drug task force. As regular readers of this dscriber.com blog know, pointing out the folly of astronomical "street values" is something of a pastime here, but the officers who busted the Stevenson grow seem to have used some common sense, putting the value at about $1,000 per plant for a total of $9 million and change. Those numbers estimate that each plant will produce a reasonable 2.5 usable ounces of marijuana sold at $400 per ounce. Of course it also assumes that every plant is female (and that it's actually marijuana and not hemp) and that each plant will survive until harvest. Should this crop be destined for a medical marijuana co-op or dispensary, wholesale prices would reduce the value by about half.

Still, compared to other busts, this one is at least somewhat in the realm of reality -- a bust in Philadelphia a few weeks ago estimated each plant at being worth around $10,000, and another in Michigan estimated that plants would each yield 2.2 pounds of marijuana.


NewsHawk: Ganjarden: 420 MAGAZINE
Source: dscriber
Author: Greg Campbell
Contact: dscriber
Copyright: 2010 dscriber Media, LLC
Website: Newsflash: Value of California marijuana bust not exaggerated by authorities

* Thanks to MedicalNeed for submitting this article


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