IT'S OFFICIAL: POT IS NO. 1 CASH CROP

SACRAMENTO, Calif. - 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.

"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.

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. "I don't know why we
would venture down that road."

The contention that pot is America's biggest cash crop dates to the
early 1980s, when marijuana legalization advocates began citing Drug
Enforcement Administration estimates suggesting that about 1,000
metric tons of pot were being produced nationwide.

Over the years, marijuana advocates have produced studies estimating
the size and value of the U.S. crop, most recently in 1998.

Gettman's report cites figures in a 2005 State Department report
estimating U.S. cannabis cultivation at 10,000 metric tons, or more
than 22 million pounds - 10 times the 1981 production.

Using data on the number of pounds eradicated by police around the
United States, Gettman produced estimates of the likely size and value
of the cannabis crop in each state. His methodology used what he
described as a conservative value of about $1,600 a pound compared
with the $2,000- to $4,000-a-pound street value often cited by
law-enforcement agencies after busts.

Nationwide, the estimated cannabis production of $35.8 billion exceeds
corn ($23 billion), soybeans ($17.6 billion) and hay ($12.2 billion),
according to Gettman's findings.