ALAMOSA – The Alamosa County Sheriff’s Office (ACSO) received an unusual phone call several weeks ago regarding several items discovered in a ditch.

According to Sheriff Robert Jackson, at 8:45 a.m. on Feb. 14, an individual was operating a road grader in the 11500 block of CR 4 North when he noticed two large black trash bags containing, what appeared to be, a significant number of individually packaged plastic bags filled with marijuana.

ACSO deputies immediately responded to the call and brought the bags back to the sheriff’s office where it was confirmed to be marijuana and subsequently placed in the evidence room.

“I don’t know how much you know about marijuana,” Jackson told the Valley Courier when showing the bags of weed, “but if you look at it, you can see that it’s been cleaned and trimmed. There’s no trash in there — no seeds or stems or anything. And professionally packaged, too.”

Even more surprising, the total amount of weed in the bags came to 52 pounds.

When asked if, in ACSO history, this was an unusual discovery for someone to make, Jackson just smiled. “Unusual but not unheard of.”

The sheriff could only speculate on how 52 pounds of cleaned, trimmed and professionally packaged weed ended up in a ditch in the middle of nowhere.

“Maybe it fell out of the back of someone’s truck on the way to a dispensary or something. We really don’t know,” Jackson said.

Plans are to burn the evidence — in an EPA approved burner — within the next several weeks.