Free-ranging Marijuana at Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore

August 28, 3:26 PMNational Parks Recreation ExaminerRandi Minetor

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Question: What’s as laid back as Grateful Dead concert, and more unexpected than the fuzz (the cops, pre-1970) at your basement pot party?

Answer: A patch of marijuana plants growing wild and free somewhere on the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore.

           Discovered recently by rangers and local law enforcement, the crop seems to have appeared there by happenstance, noted park spokesperson Bruce Rowe. “It’s been speculated that it’s been growing for years in that spot,” he said. “It may have been carried there by birds, or it may be overgrowth from an old cultivated crop in the area. It’s somewhat of a mystery.”

            No park-maintained trails lead to the hardy cannabis. Indiana Dunes, skirting the eastern shore of Lake Michigan from Gary to Michigan City, features 15,000 acres of wind-sculpted dunes—some 200 feet high—swamps and bogs, oak savannas, marshes, prairies and forested areas   More than 1,100 plants find hospitable habitat here, so it’s no surprise that stray marijuana seeds managed to germinate. The crop grew in an area where some people go to fish, but it’s not part of the park’s high-use public areas. 

            It’s not uncommon for marijuana to turn up in our national parks, especially the parks in California and the Pacific Northwest—but these plots are deliberately cultivated, according to information from the National Park Service.  

For example, a recent raid in North Cascades National Park in the state of Washington unveiled a crop of more than 16,000 plants.  Similar raids at Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks, Whiskeytown National Recreation Area, Santa Monica National Recreation Area and Point Reyes National Seashore—all in California— unearthed thousands of illegally cultivated plants. In all cases, the plants were collected and summarily destroyed.

            Despite its innocent origin, Indiana Dunes management and the local police are working to collect and destroy the marijuana growing there, with plans to incinerate the entire harvest as soon as possible.  “It’s in a secure storage area, waiting to dry out a little before it’s incinerated,” said Rowe.  “We’re going to use our wild land fire team to burn it safely.”

            You can help with the search! The management is asking that people who find marijuana plants in the park call to report their location.  Should you be in northwest Indiana this weekend and you come across some fresh marijuana growing under your feet, call 800-PARK-TIP to help with the search-and-collect process.

            Has the park been flooded with helpful calls since the first plants turned up?

           “I have not heard of anyone calling at all,” said Rowe.

Fancy that.