Siskiyou County Sheriff Jon Lopey is making it clear that the decriminalization of recreational marijuana use in California will not slow down his department’s aggressive eradication policy. On Tuesday Siskiyou County’s Interagency Marijuana Task Force made their first big raid of the season, targeting five adjacent parcels in the Klamath River Country Estates subdivision. A combined total of 727 plants in various stages of growth was seized from the 5 sites, along with 80 pounds of processed bud preserved in one-pound bags. The only firearm found was a 20 gauge shotgun, and it was seized. Two men and a woman were booked into jail, leaving an infant with no supervision, so the county took custody of the baby.
150 criminal cultivation cases from last year’s cannabis season are still awaiting court action. Last year the county task force acquired 188 search warrants and seized around 28,000 plants, along with 17,000 pounds, all from private property. A separate state and federal task force working public lands in Siskiyou County seized more than 106,000 plants and nearly 6,000 pounds of processed bud. The county board of supervisors has again, as they did last year, declared a local state of emergency due to what they call an overwhelming volume of cannabis cultivation.