Marijuana hunters rounded up 1,061 pot plants from Androscoggin, Franklin and Oxford counties during a multiday sweep that ended Thursday.
Maine Drug Enforcement Agency special agent Supervisor Gerry Baril said Friday that he estimated the street value of the eradicated plants to be between $795,000 and nearly $1.6 million.
Each of the 1,061 plants represents about one-quarter pound to one-half pound of useable marijuana, once harvested, dried and processed, Baril said.
The street value of one pound of domestic marijuana cultivated in Maine averages from $2,000 to $3,000 per pound, he said.
Normally law enforcers don’t start the eradication process until late in August, near harvest time, but they started a month earlier due to the number of plants seen last year, Baril said. Last year there wasn’t enough time to get all the plants, and this year for some reason growers are growing more plants in smaller plots, he said.
Generally, the eradication operation gets between 1,500 to 3,000 plants each year, Baril said.
“This year we’ll definitely be closer to 3,000 plants,” he said. “We’re constantly finding more.”
Drug agents were assisted in the collaborative effort with other law enforcement officers by the Maine National Army Guard, which provided a helicopter for aerial surveillance of suspected outdoor growing sites.
State police, Franklin County and Oxford County deputies, and police officers from departments in Jay, Oxford, Paris and Rumford worked the detail. Also helping were agents from the U.S. Border Patrol in Rangeley, who provided personnel and dogs in northern Oxford and Franklin counties near the Canadian border. Agents from the Central Maine Violent Crimes Task Force in Lewiston also helped with the execution of warrants in Oxford County.
One arrest was made on July 21 after a search warrant was executed at a residence on the Jam Hill Road in Oxford where 67 marijuana plants were seized from outside the residence and three small clones were seized from inside the residence, Baril said in a press release.
Gregory Aptt, 32, who was renting the property, was arrested and charged with cultivating marijuana, Baril stated.
Eradication
The number of marijuana plants seized during the recent sweep in Androscoggin, Franklin and Oxford counties was, by town:
Auburn:
Carrabassett Valley:
Lang Township:
Jay:
Madrid:
New Sharon:
New Vineyard:
Otisfield:
Oxford:
Sumner:
Temple:
Upper Cupsuptic:
Waterford:
Weld:
West Paris:
Wyman Township: 144
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