US FARMERS ON HIGH AS MARIJUANA 'BIGGEST CASH CROP'

MARIJUANA is the most valuable cash crop in the United States, worth
more to its growers than corn and wheat combined, according to a new
report that cites the US government's own figures.

Author of the report Jon Gettman, a leading drug-reform lobbyist, says
that marijuana is "larger than cotton in Alabama, larger than grapes,
vegetables and hay in California, larger than peanuts in Georgia, and
larger than tobacco in both South Carolina and North Carolina".

Decades of government efforts to crack down on both the cultivation
and consumption of pot have had, if anything, a counter-productive
effect, since even the most conservative government estimates suggest
that domestic marijuana production has increased tenfold in the past
25 years.

It is the leading cash crop in 12 states, and California, where
marijuana cultivation first thrived in the US, accounts for almost a
third of all production in the country. It is no secret that the drug
is a major economic force, especially in the redwood forests in the
north, where the smell of weed wafts unmistakably down the streets of
several towns. Marijuana remains popular with the baby boomer
generation, who first experimented with it on a wide scale in the
1950s and 1960s. And its use is booming among teenagers and young
adults, not least because it is often easier to obtain than alcohol.

Altogether, marijuana cultivation in the United States is worth more
than $35bn per year. And that's a conservative estimate, based on
government price surveys, Mr Gettman says. "Despite years of effort by
law enforcement, they're not getting rid of it," Mr Gettman told the
'Los Angeles Times' ahead of his report's publication yesterday in the
Bulletin of Cannabis Reform. "To say the genie is out of the bottle is
a profound understatement."

Figures from the state department and other government agencies show
that production has increased from an estimated two million pounds in
1981 to at least 22 million now.

Since the presidency of George Bush Sr, official policy has been one
of zero tolerance of all illegal narcotics. In recent years, the
federal government has been particularly unforgiving of the medical
marijuana movement that has spread from state to state, and federal
agents have staged numerous raids on marijuana farms that were fully
licensed under state law. Mr Gettman and other activists argue that it
might be time to legalise, control and tax the entire industry, much
as was done with alcohol in the wake of the Prohibition period, or
tobacco.