eau de porneau.

Pot is called biggest cash crop - Los Angeles Times

A report released today by a marijuana public policy analyst contends that the market value of pot produced in the U.S. exceeds $35 billion — far more than the crop value of such heartland staples as corn, soybeans and hay, which are the top three legal cash crops.

The report estimates that marijuana production has increased tenfold in the past quarter century despite an exhaustive anti-drug effort by law enforcement.

This doesn’t really tell us anything we didn’t already know, it’s just good that someone’s out there crunching the numbers and putting out the figures so everyone knows what’s up. I wonder how he came to that 35 billion? A certain weight of crops times $10 a gram equals $35 billion? Interesting.

Tom Riley, a spokesman for the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, cited examples of foreign countries that have struggled with big crops used to produce cocaine and heroin. “Coca is Colombia’s largest cash crop and that hasn’t worked out for them, and opium poppies are Afghanistan’s largest crop, and that has worked out disastrously for them,” Riley said. “I don’t know why we would venture down that road.”

Judging by this article, they’ve got the Colombia situation sorted. As for Afghanistan? Let’s not forget the fact that we’re allowing something that provides 92% of the world’s heroin to fuel the Taliban while it could be used to make loads of cheap morphine for developing nations.

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