Marijuana Top U.S. Cash Crop at $35 Billion

NewsMax ^ | Dec. 18, 2006 | Reuters

[Phantom Lord]

It was 4 or 5 years ago, so my memory is no good. But I want to say it was a town in Minnesota or one of the Dakotas.

[Phantom Lord]

Marijuana use in the UK drops after laws liberalized

[VirginiaConstitutionalist]

Now wait a minute. I clearly remember the White House telling me that if you buy marijuana you are funding the international terrorists who grow it.

The government wouldn't lie, would they?

[Vaquero]

I'm done now with this thread.....smoke em if you got em.

[VirginiaConstitutionalist]

Yeah they might be in those joke money machine treatment centers, but doing what? Attempting to break a psychological addiction. Hahahahaha!

Most don't even have an addiction. Most are there because a judge ordered them to be there. Just like how people are sent to AA meetings after getting pulled over after downing a beer at the company Christmas party and driving home.

[Sarvana]

I was under the assumption that the state government sold all medical marijuana in California, so could the price not plummeting be due to the government monopoly on marijuana?

[mugs99]

to bad it causes psychotic episodes in too many people

LOL!
"Marijuana is an addictive drug which produces in its users insanity, criminality, and death."

"Reefer makes darkies think they're as good as white men."

"You smoke a joint and you're likely to kill your brother."

Harry J. Anslinger, dirctor of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics.
.

[robertpaulsen]

I already debunked that thread -- I see no reason to do it again on this one.

[PaxMacian]

"10-fold increase in U.S. marijuana production, from 1,000 metric tons in 1981 to 10,000 metric tons in 2006, showed the country was failing to control marijuana by making its cultivation and use illegal."

The government is failing to do its duty to regulate commerce and protect
the general welfare through proper regulation. It should not be conducting
an unholy war of terror upon its own citizenry forcing them to follow their
state mandated heretical religion which sees evil incarnate in substance.
Evil has no substance, it is manifested in action which is adverse to the will
of God.

GOD MADE HERB
GOD SAW THAT IT WAS GOOD
GOD GAVE IT TO MAN

Genesis 1:11
Then God said, "Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb that yields seed, and the fruit tree that yields fruit according to its kind, whose seed is in itself, on the earth"; and it was so.

Genesis 1:12
And the earth brought forth grass, the herb that yields seed according to its kind, and the tree that yields fruit, whose seed is in itself according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.

Genesis 1:29
And God said, "See, I have given you every herb that yields seed which is on the face of all the earth, and every tree whose fruit yields seed; to you it shall be for food.

[Wolfie]

Finally! A Farm Program that works!

[Lady Jag]

Oddly, I heard that same fact 30 years ago. Apparently it has been the US's biggest cash crop just about forever.

As it grew wild here in the States, in many countries it's a weed which will even grown in the desert.

[headsonpikes]

Finally! A Farm Program that works!

Thanks for that, Wolfie.

This thread has lacked a certain joie de vivre!

[Wolfie]

Yeah, I read back over the nastiness. I'm guessing a lot of people had their girlfriends stolen by stoners back in college.

[SouthTexas]

It was a loooong time ago. :)

[TKDietz]

"I thought most of the grass was imported because the U.S. grown wild variety doesn't produce enough of the whoopie on its own.

In other words, perhaps the author of the study was a little toked up when he knocked it out."

I think most available on our streets probably imported from Mexico, but not because American grown marijuana doesn't contain enough "whoopie." American grown marijuana can be very strong, as strong as any grown in the world. That that is available on the market is rarely wild ditch weed, volunteer plants still popping up from the days when hemp was a major crop in this country. Marijuana growers though choose good seeds and breed and cultivate their product to be strong. The indoor stuff especially can be really powerful. It's harder to get away with growing marijuana here than it is in Mexico. Down there they can just bribe the local police and grow big fields of it. They focus on quantity rather than quality. After they harvest and dry their product, they compress the heck out of it shrinking it to a fraction of the size of uncompressed bud, and then smuggle it into this country. Compressing it and sealing it in airtight bundles may make it easier to smuggle and it may keep it fresher longer but knocks the street price they'll be able to get way down. They don't really care though because they are dealing in such huge quantities. They want something easy to transport and something that will stay relatively fresh for months and months because what is harvested this fall has to last until the new harvests start coming in.

Most of the marijuana seized in this country comes from Mexico. I don't know exactly how much they seize because state and local police don't keep very good records, but it has to be at least a couple of thousand metric tons a year. The feds alone will seize somewhere around 1,300 metric tons or so in a year at and around the border. The last time the government made an estimate on how much marijuana is available in this country in a given year they pegged the amount at between 12,000 and 25,000 metric tons. I don't know where the author of this article is getting his numbers, but if the actual number of metric tons available here is closer to the higher end of the government estimates his number could be right and still most of the marijuana in this country will have been imported. It is very difficult to determine the accuracy of these estimates though because of course this is an underground business and there aren't exactly a lot of solid records being kept and shared with the government.

I work as a public defender in a county with a major interstate highway running through it. Our local prosecutors and law in enforcement clean up in the asset forfeiture game so we always have several officers and a canine unit working our little patch of highway, pulling over its seems as many vehicles as they can (especially vehicles with plates from western states driven by Hispanics) and running the dogs around them. We get an awful lot of drug mule cases. I've handled thousands of pounds worth of pot cases over the years. Most of the mules are Hispanic, and almost all of the pot seized is Mexican. I am not in a border state. It's a couple of days drive from here to the Mexican border. Still, what we see most part is Mexican pot. We might see a guy caught on the highway with an ounce or two of expensive fluffy American bud, maybe even a pound or two, but the big loads are always dirt cheap compressed Mexican "brick weed." Even in misdemeanor court, when average Joe's are busted with pot what the officers have in their little clear plastic evidence bags is almost always that same old compressed Mexican pot that usually has at least some seeds in it. From what I understand it goes for an average of $600 a pound around here, and retail amounts are cheap as well compared to the expensive indoor stuff.

Now, from what I understand there is a market for fancy indoor grown marijuana here, and of course we have locally grown outdoor marijuana too in the fall. The indoor stuff is super expensive. One might pay $25 for a quarter of an ounce of Mexican, but to buy a quarter of an ounce of fluffy indoor grown buds he would probably have to spend $100 or more for it. Most people around here don't have that kind of money to spend on marijuana, especially when they could probably get two ounces of Mexican pot for the same price as a quarter ounce of the fancy stuff provided they know the right people. Either not much of the expensive stuff is being sold, or the people that buy it are all the types with nice cars, nice houses, good jobs, and little chance of having contact with the police. Like I said, we almost never see the fancy stuff in court.

Now, things are going to vary a little in other parts of the country. In states that border Canada, people are likely to see a lot more Canadian marijuana. The loads usually aren't that big though. Part of that is because Canadians don't tend to smash their pot with high pressure presses and transport it in hard bricks all wrapped in plastic. You'll see small cars with over 300 pounds of compressed Mexican stuffed in the trunk. They couldn't fit nearly that much uncompressed marijuana in such a small space. Overall though, the government seizes far less Canadian marijuana than Mexican pot. The government estimates that while perhaps most marijuana grown in Canada is destined for this country, what comes in from there is only a small fraction of the amount coming in from Mexico. I bet they're right about that.

I don't know how exactly how they come up with their numbers though. I do know that they are using satellite imagery and areal surveillance to get an idea about how much marijuana is being grown outdoors in Mexico. They also look at their seizure numbers and extrapolate from them, and they gather intelligence from people they catch and from informants working in the industry. Still though this is far from an exact science. They can't really know for instance how much pot is being grown indoors. Most of that is never discovered. They don't even get much of it from the highway because most of it is consumed not too far from where it is grown. A lot of the grows are done in closets, basements, or in small rooms. The growers in many cases are only dealing with a couple of trusted friends, and the product does not change hands that many times before it reaches the end consumer, unlike this Mexican pot that is brought over in large quantities by organized crime and distributed all over the country. I think it would be impossible to get any sort of accurate measure of how much of this stuff is available in this country. Difficulty in making these assessments is why the range the government gives is so broad, between 12,000 and 25,000 metric tons of marijuana available in this country in a year.

My bet is though that probably more Mexican pot is consumed in this country than domestically grown. I'm basing that on government numbers I've seen, what I see at work, and just plain common sense. This Mexican pot is dirt cheap. Outdoor grown American marijuana tends to be a lot more expensive, and indoor grown stuff is just ridiculously expensive. Millions of Americans smoke pot. Drug use in general, including marijuana use, tends to be more prevalent among lower income groups. Obviously plenty of "rich folks" get high, but the government statistics show that a higher percentage of those from the lower middle class on down smoke marijuana compared to those in higher income brackets. Moreover, most pot smokers tend to be young people who haven't really had time to establish themselves and start making good money. Most of these folks do not have the money to buy high dollar "connoisseur grade" marijuana. My bet is that most are smoking the cheapo stuff, which tends to be Mexican. So, my bet is that most marijuana consumed in this country is imported, mostly from Mexico.

[TKDietz]

"Except tobacco is actually a difficult to grow plant. Any idiot can grow smokable marijuana if they have the right seeds."

Any idiot could grow smokable tobacco if he has the right seeds. In either instance though, it takes work and knowhow for people to end up with a final product of high quality. If you ever go peruse any of the pot growing websites you'll see that these people put an enormous amount of effort into producing their product, especially the those growing it indoors. They have to make sure the plants are getting just the right amount of light, water, and nutrients. They have to battle with pests and plant diseases and mold. They have to know how to spot male plants and remove them early only before they release pollen. The indoor growers especially have to learn about cloning plants, growing in alternative growing mediums, dealing with temperature issues, ventilation, and making sure their plants get plenty of CO2. All of them have to learn about proper harvesting techniques, taking the buds at just the right time when potency hits its peak and before it starts degrading. Then they have to manicure the buds, dry them just enough but not too much, cure them properly, and so on. A lot of them fail. They end up with dead plants or moldy worthless buds or lower than expected potency or much lower than expected yields. I don't think it's as easy as a lot of people think it is for these guys to grow a quality product. I have a feeling most people who say this have never had so much as a vegetable garden.

[headsonpikes]

As always, yours are intriguing, fact-filled posts.

I'm surprised that Mexican weed dominates the market.

That's that brown stuff, right?

;^)

[cryptical]

Meaning marijuana represents about 15% of the illegal drug market -- so much for "putting the drug dealers out of business" by legalizing marijuana.

I didn't notice anyone correct this mistake downthread, it should be domestic marijuana is %15 of the total drug market. You'd have to add foreign imports to get the total percentage.

[TKDietz]

It can be brown or green or in between. It usually has at least some seeds if not a lot (much less on average though than several years ago) and it's always compressed. From what I understand these presses are usually made with hydraulic car jacks. They attach the jack to a frame and thick metal plate that presses into the open side of a heavy iron box they've wielded together. They compress it as much as they can although some try not to compress it so much that it will squeeze all the oil out of the seeds and into the product, making it taste and smell bad when burned.

[headsonpikes]

Sounds as if they use a simple brick-making mold, probably supplied by Oxfam. ;^)