Authorities reported a staggering jump in the number of marijuana plants seized in California's eradication effort, claiming a more than 50 percent jump over the previous year.

The Campaign Against Marijuana Planting seized 4.4 million plants in 2009, up from 2.9 million plants in 2008, according to state Department of Justice figures released Wednesday.

"Mexican drug trafficking organizations are exploiting our pristine public lands with these massive marijuana gardens," said U.S. Attorney Lawrence G. Brown. "It wreaks environmental havoc on public lands and poses a serious danger to hikers and law enforcement personnel alike."

The state has reported a record number of seizures each year since 2002, when more than 354,000 plants were cut down. Agents cracked the one million mark in 2005.

This year's increase was due to the discovery of larger pot gardens and the use of better eradication strategies, state Bureau of Narcotics Enforcement spokeswoman Michelle Gregory said.

Increased use of helicopters is the main factor allowing agents to find and destroy more plants, she said. Officials put the total street value of the plants seized at $17.8 billion.

Some marijuana advocates and policy analysts have long accused the state campaign of inflating estimates of plants seized and their value on the street.

Mark Kleiman, director of the drug policy program at the University of California, Los Angeles, said the quantity of marijuana claimed by CAMP is far more than Californians could ever consume.

Estimating the plants' street value based on sheer quantity also does not reflect the true amount of processed pot the plants could actually yield, Kleiman said. Continued...