Four years after weed became legal in California for adult recreational use, state law enforcement officials have doubled the number of illicit marijuana plants seized and eradicated in an annual campaign. California Attorney General Rob Bonta on Monday announced that the California Department of Justice’s annual Campaign Against Marijuana Planting program, also known as CAMP, had eradicated nearly 1.2 million illegally cultivated cannabis plants this year. That’s up from 614,267 plants seized in 2018, the first year that recreational marijuana was legal in California. The CAMP program has steadily ratcheted up enforcement over the years, with 953,459 plants eradicated in 2019 and 1.1 million plants destroyed in 2020. The numbers remain well below what agencies seized during California’s peak enforcement against illegal marijuana grows. In 2009, the CAMP program destroyed some 4.5 million plants, according to records kept by Humboldt State University. $2 for 2 months Subscribe for unlimited access to our website, app, eEdition and more CLAIM OFFER Increased enforcement comes as California’s illicit market cannabis industry is estimated to generate $8 billion in annual sales, compared to the legal market’s $4.4 billion, according to cannabis industry reporting website MJBizDaily.
420 Intel – Marijuana Industry News, 10/18/2021 20:00:00