REPORT SAYS POT IS KING OF CASH CROPS

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 today 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 states.

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.

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

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.