California’s Attorney General Rob Bonta announced a year-round campaign to crack down on the illegal cannabis market, with an emphasis on environmental damage, tax evasion, and organized crime
The effort stems from the California Department of Justice’s annual Campaign Against Marijuana Planting (CAMP) 13-week program. Since it was established in 1983, CAMP has eradicated more than 33 million illegal cannabis plants.
According to Bonta’s office, the seasonal eradication program will transition into a year-round task force dubbed the Eradication and Prevention of Illicit Cannabis (EPIC). The new task force aims to build out its cannabis enforcement work and investigate and prosecute civil and criminal cases with a focus on environmental, economic, and labor impacts from illegal cultivation.
“California has the largest safe, legal, and regulated cannabis market in the world, but unfortunately illegal and unlicensed grows continue to proliferate,” said Attorney General Rob Bonta. “The California Department of Justice's CAMP task force works tirelessly each year to eradicate illegal grows and reclaim our public lands, but shutting down these grow is no longer enough. With the transition to EPIC, we're taking the next step and building out our efforts to address the environmental and economic harms and labor exploitation associated with this underground market.”
CAMP operations have seized nearly one million illegally cultivated cannabis plants, more than 200,000 pounds of illegally processed cannabis, and 184 weapons seized across 449 operations in 26 counties around the state.
Authorities have also removed nearly 67,000 pounds of cultivation infrastructure, containers of toxic chemicals, and illegal fertilizers.
“Illegal cultivation of marijuana on public lands continues to be a major problem for California. These illegal operations have a devastating impact on our environment and the health and safety of communities and public land users,”
said Karen Mouritsen, California State Director for the Bureau of Land Management.
San Diego County saw CAMP operation seizures in 2022. CAMP operations seized two sites in the region, where 1,510 plants were eradicated.
