(Courtesy of Oregon State Police)
State police on Tuesday arrested two people and seized over 2,000 plants, 196 pounds of packaged marijuana and cash from what police described as an illegal marijuana grow operation near Jefferson.
Oregon State Police’s NW Region Marijuana Team and the Marion County Sheriff’s Office served a search warrant at the operation Tuesday, according to a Tuesday news release.
The alleged grow operators, Lily An Lee and Yong Sheng Huang, both 54 and of Talbot, were charged with unlawful manufacture of marijuana item, unlawful possession of marijuana item and unlawful production of marijuana.
Both were lodged at the Marion County Jail, the news release said. They were not listed on the jail’s roster as of Wednesday afternoon.
Marijuana has been legal in Oregon for people 21 and older since 2015, but Oregonians can’t possess more than eight ounces of usable marijuana, and growing it requires a license except for personal use growth up to four plants per residence.
Citizen complaints prompted OSP to open the case. “These types of illegal marijuana grows impact communities all across Oregon and contribute to criminal enterprises,” the news release said. “Many other dangerous and illegal activities go hand in hand with these types of illegal grows, such as numerous water diversion issues and dangerous living conditions.”
Sgt. Jeremy Landers, spokesperson for the Marion County Sheriff’s Office, said they haven’t investigated illegal grows until recently.
“We don’t have an active drug team, which limits that capacity,” he said. “In this instance, this was an opportunity for our new directed patrol unit team to work with OSP to gain some insights into ways to investigate them and how to apply them.”
In Polk County, illegal marijuana grow operations are a common occurrence, said Sheriff Mark Garton. The Polk County Sheriff’s Office found operations at three locations at the beginning of September.
On Aug. 24, the sheriff’s office served a search warrant at 7101 Read Prairie Road and found 4,500 marijuana plants in 30 greenhouses on the property, according to court documents.
Sengdara Nakhiengchahn, 54, Sanong Inthavong, 66, and Phetsavanh BolIboun, 52, were arrested and charged with unlawful manufacture of marijuana item and unlawful possession of marijuana.
As large grow operations continue to pop up in southern Oregon, Garton said similar ones have started appearing further north. “Some of the same structures that were built and the way things were done on those grows are identical to other grows in southern Oregon and northern California, and even eastern Oregon. so they’re very typical of what we would expect to see based on what we’re seeing down south.”
He said some people grow small operations outdoors to sell themselves, while others are financed by international drug cartels that send in 20 to 30 people in one small area who can grow 7,000 to 9,000 plants in 40 greenhouses.
Garton said the sheriff’s office has found that some growers in large, illegal marijuana operations are undocumented immigrants who are being trafficked and growing to pay off debts. “Tracking that upwards to try to find the person who’s really responsible is tricky,” he said.
“You hear the term human trafficking, and a lot of people think the way extreme,” he said. “But these are more in the middle where they know what they’re doing, they know what they’re doing is illegal, but they also don’t have money, and this is a quick and easy way to make money or to pay off a debt.”
Marijuana is typically grown outdoors between April and September, and this past summer was the first in which the sheriff’s office has seen a spike in grow operations, Garton said.
“We only have a limited bandwidth to be able to handle things like that because they are very labor intensive to do it safely,” he said, “and to be able to get them all, because it’s not just you go in there and you’re done, you move on to the next one. We spent two days at one at one location disposing and taking care of 50 greenhouses, and that was a relatively easy to get to place.”
Last month, the Polk and Yamhill county sheriff’s offices were awarded a joint $640,000 grant from the Oregon Criminal Justice Commission for each to have a detective that focuses on marijuana for two years. The Polk County Sheriff’s Office will get $315,000, with the first half becoming available on Jan. 1, 2022.
Contact reporter Ardeshir Tabrizian: [email protected] or 503-929-3053.
JUST THE FACTS, FOR SALEM – We report on your community with care and depth, fairness and accuracy. Get local news that matters to you. Subscribe to Salem Reporter starting at $5 a month. Click I want to subscribe!
