Statewide raid seizes
29,000 marijuana plants

Six people are also arrested in
the Green Harvest operation

Federal, state and county law enforcement officers have seized more than 29,000 marijuana plants on the major islands, including about 10,000 from a site on Molokai.

Operation: Green Harvest Here are the numbers of marijuana plants seized by county in the Green Harvest operation: Kauai: 253 Honolulu: 1,503 Maui: 16,869 Hawaii: 10,418

They also found 36 pounds of processed marijuana and arrested six people for drug promotion during a 10-day Green Harvest operation that ended Thursday.

Tony Williams, Drug Enforcement Administration assistant special agent-in-charge, said yesterday that officers were targeting cultivators and not medical-marijuana users. The U.S. Supreme Court upheld this week federal prosecutions of patients who, under state laws, use marijuana recommended by a doctor.

"DEA's mission has not changed due to recent events," Williams said. "We're only looking at the major traffickers, the cultivators. We're not interested in investigating the sick or the dying."

Hawaii is one of 10 states that allow limited use of marijuana for medicinal purposes.

DEA special agent Randy Wagner, who coordinated the operation, said some of the marijuana plants were found on public lands, in state and federal parks and state forests, but that most were found on private land.

More than a third of the plants came from a single site on a private estate on Molokai, Wagner said.

He would not give details on the six arrests other than to say most were on the Big Island.

More than 125 officers from the DEA, U.S. National Parks Service, state Department of Land and Natural Resources, Hawaii National Guard counter-drug unit and the police departments of all four counties participated in the operation.

U.S. Attorney Ed Kubo said Green Harvest is a year-round effort. The last sweep of marijuana plants statewide was in 2002.