The head of Russia’s Siberian republic of Buryatia has criticized the local government's campaign last year to eliminate cannabis plantations in the republic and ordered a renewed effort to wipe out the weed.

Buryatia, a sparsely populated republic of around one million residents, bordering Mongolia, has a favorable climate and terrain for cannabis. Every sixth marijuana plant in Russia grows in Buryatia.

Vyacheslav Nagovitsyn said that in numerous cases last year efforts to destroy cannabis plantations were carried out behind schedule.

The head of Nagovitsyn’s administration, Pyotr Mordovskoi, said, “All marijuana plantations were destroyed, but the work was often conducted late, when cannabis seeds were ripe and provided for future harvests,” he said.

In mid-September, Mordovskoi said, meter-high bushes of wild cannabis were growing freely along a federal highway in the Baikal region, but those responsible for destroying the weeds have remained unpunished.

Some 3.3 metric tons of drugs were confiscated in Buryatia last year of which cannabis made up to 95 percent. Cannabis covered an area of 3,400 hectares in the republic last year, 150 hectares more than in 2010.