POT A BIG CASH CROP, STUDY SAYS

SACRAMENTO - For years, activists in the marijuana legalization
movement have claimed that cannabis is America's biggest cash crop.
Now they're citing government statistics to prove it.

A report released Monday by a marijuana public policy analyst contends
that the market value of pot produced in the United States exceeds $35
billion -- far more than the crop value of such heartland staples as
corn, soybeans and hay.

California is responsible for more than one-third of the cannabis
harvest, with an estimated production of $13.8 billion that exceeds
the value of the state's grapes, vegetables and hay combined -- and
marijuana is the top cash crop in a dozen states, the report says.

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

Jon Gettman, the report's author, is a public policy consultant and
leading proponent of the push to drop marijuana from the federal list
of hard-core Schedule 1 drugs, such as heroin and LSD. He argues that
the data support his push to begin treating cannabis like tobacco and
alcohol by legalizing and reaping a tax windfall from it, while
controlling production and distribution to better restrict use by teenagers.

"Despite years of effort by law enforcement, they're not getting rid
of it," Gettman said. "Not only is the problem worse in terms of
magnitude of cultivation, but production has spread all around the
country. To say the genie is out of the bottle is a profound
understatement."

While withholding judgment on the study's findings, federal anti-drug
officials took exception to Gettman's conclusions.