Muskingum County Sheriff’s Office Busts Marijuana Growing Operation

MUSKINGUM COUNTY, Ohio- Throughout the year, the Muskingum County Sheriff’s office is always on the lookout for illegal marijuana plants or groves. While a large illegal marijuana plant bust is rare and in the order of thousands and tens of thousands of plants, even smaller but more frequent busts are just as important.

If taken care of, cultivated, and processed, one marijuana plant can yield around $1,000 of product. Which makes it worthwhile for the sheriff’s office to remove even just one plant from circulation. As a result, the Muskingum County sheriff’s office partners with neighboring counties to search from the skies for illegal marijuana groves.  

“Every year we partner with our Central Ohio Drug Task Force that we’re a part of along with BCI&I out of London, and we do marijuana eradication. So, we’ve used traditionally helicopters from the State Highway Patrol and BCI to fly over different counties and to look for marijuana plants or marijuana groves,” Matt Lutz, Muskingum County Sheriff stated.

Yesterday, the aerial drones and helicopters successfully located marijuana groves in a few spread out locations resulting in a modest but respectable drug bust for the county. 

“Yesterday was just a day that we were actually flying, and we actually found some stuff in our county… We ended up finding 549 marijuana plants, and so we were able to seize those and got information on the property that they were on. And then our drug unit will be following up trying to figure out if we can develop a case against anyone who was cultivating,” Lutz said.

Sheriff Lutz says drug enforcement is a top priority in Muskingum County and the city of Zanesville. Sheriff Lutz also wants to remind the public that they can do their part by reporting suspicious traffic or activity to the sheriff’s department.