POT IS CALLED BIGGEST CASH CROP

The $35-Billion Market Value Of U.S.-Grown Cannabis Tops That Of Such
Heartland Staples As Corn And Hay, A Marijuana Activist 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 today by a marijuana public policy analyst contends
that the market value of pot produced in the U.S. exceeds $35 billion
- -- far more than the crop value of such heartland staples as corn,
soybeans and hay, which are the top three legal cash crops.

California is responsible for more than a 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 exhaustive 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 -- which are deemed to have no
medicinal value and a high likelihood of abuse -- 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
U.S., 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 to the
$2,000- to $4,000-a-pound street value often cited by law enforcement
agencies after busts.

In California, the state's Campaign Against Marijuana Planting seized
nearly 1.7 million plants this year -- triple the haul in 2005 --
with an estimated street value of more than $6.7 billion. Based on
the seizure rate over the last three years, the study estimates that
California grew more than 21 million marijuana plants in 2006 -- with
a production value nearly triple the next closest state, Tennessee,
which had an estimated $4.7-billion cannabis harvest.

California ranked as the report's top state for both outdoor and
indoor marijuana production. The report estimates that the state had
4.2 million indoor plants valued at nearly $1.5 billion. The state of
Washington was ranked next, with $438 million worth of indoor cannabis plants.

California also is among nine states that produce more cannabis than
residents consumed, Gettman estimates. According to the National
Survey on Drug Use and Health, the state's 3.3 million cannabis users
represent about 13% of the nation's pot smokers. But California
produces more than 38% of the cannabis grown in the country, the
study contends.

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.