The State - News from Aug. 6, 1986

Government agents seized choice marijuana buds worth $2 million wholesale on the first day of annual raids on California pot farms. The four-year Campaign Against Marijuana Planting (CAMP), waged by a paramilitary organization of about 2,000 federal, state and local law enforcement officers, seized 918 plants that would have yielded about 1,000 pounds of buds, “dripping with the narcotic,” a CAMP spokesman said. Five teams of seven to 12 agents each, using helicopters and trucks, swept the plants from 55 gardens in Humboldt, Mendocino and Butte counties. Although marijuana-spotting aircraft have been fired upon twice, Mike Freer, CAMP commander, said the crash of a reconnaissance plane that killed two deputies and a pilot last week apparently did not result from gunfire from the ground.