Federal statistics show steady increase in indoor growing, as authorities sweep suburban grows in NorCal.
SACRAMENTO– The Sacramento Bee last week reported that data released by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency indicates a continued, increasing trend for expanding indoor cannabis growing in California. This may come as no surprise as California gears up to become the largest recreational market in the U.S., as of January 1, 2018.
According to the report, authorities seized 313,000 plants from indoor grows in 2016, accounting for only eight percent of seizures in California for the year. The number of plants represents 75 percent of all confiscated cannabis nationwide but is the highest total for California in the last eight years. The number is also more than double the amount of 153,820 indoor-grown plants seized in 2009.
In 2016, cannabis plants seized from outdoor grows in California numbered 3,465,028; down from 7,365,760 in 2009. Arrests for cannabis cultivation remained relatively level from 2009-2016, with just more than 2,000 arrests last year.
The report comes after recent sweeps by legal authorities of suburban indoor grows and rural locations in Yolo, Merced, Placer, and Sacramento Counties:
- On September 5, police in Roseville, California, arrested three people and seized more than 1,100 plants at a Placer County address.
- In early September, Sacramento County police seized 2,800 plants and 50 pounds of trimmed marijuana from an address in the Elk Grove neighborhood of Franklin.
- On September 19, Yolo County sheriffs seized 2,227 plants and 41 pounds of marijuana at an address on Highway 16. Five men were arrested.
- Also in Yolo County, sheriffs seized a reported $8 million in plants from three addresses in Dunnigan. More than 2,200 plants were seized.
- On October 5, Merced County sheriffs confiscated 1,692 plants and more than 1,000 pounds of marijuana from an address in Delhi; a bust they called the “largest” in years.
- Within 24 hours of the October 5 bust, Merced County sheriffs seized nearly 1,600 pounds of processed marijuana at another Delhi address, were a woman was booked on misdemeanor marijuana charges and felony charges of conspiracy to commit a crime and child endangerment. Later the same afternoon, sheriffs confiscated around 800 pound of marijuana from an address in nearby Atwater.
