Police In Small Wyoming Town Discover That Someone Planted Marijuana In City’s Downtown Flower Pots
Police in a small Wyoming town made an odd discovery this week: a little pot growing in some big pots downtown.
Officers in the city of Powell discovered that someone had planted marijuana plants in the three of the city’s decorative 100-gallon flower pots that line downtown streets. The pots were originally filled with marigolds and zinnias, but Fox News reported that someone snuck a new plant in alongside them.
City employees recognized the invasive species as a marijuana plant once the leaves started to grow, Powell Police Chief Roy Eckert told the Powell Tribune. The plants were not that easy to spot at first; pictures shared in local newspaper showed that they tended to blend in with the colorful flowers and leafy greens around them.
The strange story made headlines across the country, attracting some laughs at what was widely seen as a prank. But it is illegal nonetheless, as Wyoming is one of an increasingly shrinking number of states where marijuana remains strictly illegal. There is no recreational marijuana or even medical marijuana, and it is illegal to grow and harvest in the state.
Prankster plants #marijuana in #Wyoming town's flower pots https://t.co/1yk0XX38yw pic.twitter.com/FVEm9Zldea
— Billings Gazette (@billingsgazette) July 13, 2018
Though the sneaky marijuana farmers in the small Wyoming town may be getting a kick out of their planting, marijuana harvesting has actually become a major problem on public lands. As CNN reported, some Mexican drug cartels have moved north of the border to grow marijuana in California, using the state’s public lands to do so.
“This is not a bunch of people growing marijuana in the woods,” said U.S. Attorney McGregor Scott. “This is people who are using chemicals and causing manifest environmental damage to a crown jewel of the United States — our federal public lands.”
Authorities said these marijuana growers divert water sources and pollute the land with chemicals needed to treat the marijuana plants. As the report noted, the U.S. Forest Service estimated that close to 1.4 million illegal marijuana plants were found in California last year alone.
“Our national parks and forests are priceless treasures… but these assets are being destroyed by criminal organizations that cultivate millions of marijuana plants on these lands each year for profit,” Scott told CNN.
Police in Powell, Wyoming, said this isn’t the first time that someone has planted marijuana in the city’s decorative flower pots. Del Barton, head of the city’s parks department, said that some local pranksters find it funny to plant marijuana in the 100-gallon pots. Police have not said if they have any suspects in mind.
