Carroll County Sheriff Randy Mayfield held a press briefing Friday, July 14, to show off a heaping pile of marijuana plants found growing wild in the southeastern part of Carroll County.
Mayfield said he flew in an Arkansas National Guard helicopter to this location because CCSO had found cultivated plants growing in this vicinity last year. To his surprise, there were more plants in the area this year although he is convinced they were not being cultivated but growing wild. He estimated there were 40,000 plants growing in an eight to ten-acre plot. This was possibly the largest haul in Carroll County history.
“I could smell them from two hundred feet in the air,” Mayfield stated.
The operation recovered 3600 plants and destroyed the rest by bush-hogging and applying herbicide. Only a portion of the recovered plants were on display.
Mayfield said he expects no charges will be filed because they found no evidence the area was being cultivated.
He said last year the individual who had purchased the land saw people in the evening carrying away black trash bags, and once he discovered what was growing called CCSO. Mayfield said they recovered some and destroyed what they thought were the rest, but this year they made a more concerted effort to destroy more plants so they will not self-sow again.
Mayfield said he has seen fewer and fewer marijuana plots in the county over the years because it is easier and safer to import the finished product.
Three helicopters flew over the entire county, but no other plots were discovered. One other possible sighting in the north part of the county turned out to be ragweed.
Regardless of the law legalizing medicinal marijuana, Mayfield said it is still illegal to grow marijuana in Arkansas, “so until that changes, we’ll still eradicate it when we can.”
CCSO conducted the eradication program in cooperation with the United States Drug Enforcement Agency, Arkansas Game & Fish and the Arkansas National Guard.
For such a non-dangerous “drug”, there is so much useless regulation!