GROUP CALLS MARIJUANA STATE'S TOP CASH CROP

$4.7b Estimate Exceeds Top 3 Legal Crops

Tennessee's biggest cash crop isn't cotton or soybeans or
corn.

It's marijuana.

State officials have known this for years and responded with an
ever-escalating war on the drug -- patrolling the skies, searching
remote mountainsides with heat sensors, sending in the National Guard,
burning the crops to the ground and casting a wide net to catch the
drug as it moves across the state.

Using law enforcement's own records of marijuana seizures, a group
dedicated to the legalization of marijuana has released a new report,
ranking Tennessee number two in the nation in marijuana
cultivation.

"You have a very big state that's also very rugged," said the report's
author, public policy expert Jon Gettman. "The climate lends itself to
cultivation, and marijuana thrives in marginal areas like fence lines,
mountainous areas, places that don't get a lot of heat and light."

Gettman is the former publisher of High Times magazine and past
president of NORML, The National Organization for the Reform of
Marijuana Laws. He also holds a doctorate in public policy.

The study, which ran in the December issue of The Bulletin of Cannabis
Reform, looked at the amount of marijuana seized by law enforcement
officials in each state and used that figure to estimate the total
amount being grown and sold.

Gettman's report concluded that marijuana is a $35 billion a year
business in the United States. That would make it the most lucrative
crop in the nation, worth more than all the corn and wheat crops combined.

In Tennessee, he estimates there are 6.7 billion marijuana plants
growing either in the fields or indoors. The state produces 2.9
million pounds of the drug, with an estimated value of $4.7 billion.

By contrast, the value of the state's top three legal cash crops --
cotton, soybeans and hay -- comes to barely $1 billion combined.

Drug enforcement agencies are skeptical about Gettman's dollar figure.
It's hard to prove a negative -- the number of marijuana plants out
there that haven't been found. But many of Gettman's findings match
law enforcement's beliefs, including Tennessee's high ranking among
marijuana-producing states.

"We are part of a group of seven states that have the highest
marijuana production rates," said T.J. Jordan, a special agent with
the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation who heads the Governor's Task
Force on Marijuana Eradication. The other members of the so-called
Marijuana Seven -- also known as the Mary Seven and M7 -- are
Washington, Oregon, California, Hawaii, Kentucky and West Virginia.

Jordan was particularly un-impressed by the economic argument in favor
of legalizing marijuana. "We see it as a gateway drug that's easily
accessible to children," he said.