Marijuana In Oregon 2016: Porta Potty Bust Leads To Police Department's Largest Seize

For police in a Southern Oregon town, the decision to open a portable toilet's door recently led to some of the best of luck: the department’s biggest marijuana seizure to date.

A man taking a stroll through a park in Rogue River, Oregon, reportedly spotted the weed-filled portable toilet before reporting it to the police. Rogue River Police Department Chief Ken Lewis told the Associated Press Thursday that they weren’t exactly sure how the pot found its way into the portable potty. It could have been a pick up spot for drug traffickers or it could have been a public display by a disgruntled citizen making a statement to marijuana growers in the area, he said.

Nearby tennis players said they hadn’t noticed anything out of the ordinary before the walker found the weed.

Southern Oregon is one of two portions of the state with high concentrations of marijuana grow sites. Alongside the area to the north is Portland, a major city in the state. The whole state is home to about 123 grow sites, according to the Oregonian, and each grows marijuana for more than 10 patients or customers. Each site is capable of growing hundreds of pounds of weed.

Perhaps more notably, Oregon is also one of a handful of states in the United States that has legalized marijuana for both medical and recreational purposes. Oregon’s legalization has been in effect for just over a year and the state has already experienced positive economic signs as a result. After the first year, residents in western Oregon were reportedly buying enough pot to generate millions of dollars in tax revenue.

The eastern half of the state, a much more conservative block, was not buying it at quite the same rate because the idea of legalized weed isn’t popular there. Oregon also recorded more marijuana impaired driving and more calls to the Oregon Poison Center from people who felt they had overindulged.