If there’s ever been an argument for donning a reflective orange vest and giving back to your community by picking up trash on the side of the highway, it’s definitely this one. On what was supposed to be a routine highway cleanup outing on Southern California’s 210 freeway, helpful citizen, and L.A. City Council member, Mike Classens stumbled across two trash bags that smelled a lot better than garbage. 

According to the L.A. Times, Classens found 15 pounds of freshly cut cannabis trim, or by our estimations, about enough plant to process into one pound of cannabis concentrate or a whole lot of infused butter.

“I could tell immediately it was full of marijuana. It emitted a really strong odor, no question about it,” Classens said. “It was quite a lot of marijuana. I’ve never seen so much.”

Classens, obviously familiar with the smell of ganja, added that it’s not uncommon to see cannabis packaging or paraphernalia during the community service cleanups, but the crop itself is a different story. 

After coming across the first bag of bud, Classens was on his way to alert a friend of his find when he found a second, almost identical bag of flower 20 feet up the road. 

Being the responsible public servant that Classens is, L.A. County Sheriffs were on the scene shortly after the discovery. And while it’s still not known who dropped the freeway trim, Lt. Mark Slater told reporters that the office would do their best to find the responsible party, even if it’s unlikely they come back with the culprit. 

“We’ll make an attempt at trying to find out who the owner is, but the likelihood of that happening is very slim,” Slater said.

Even if the plants were produced under California’s fully legal medical marijuana program, Slater noted that anyone found responsible for the littered weed would be charged, at the very least, with illegal trash dumping. 

Still, under California’s newly functioning recreational legalization framework, Councilman Classens could have grabbed at least an ounce of the trim for his own personal cooking or processing purposes. Instead, the weed will most likely remain unclaimed and be incinerated by the L.A. County Sheriffs.