REPORT SAYS POT IS BIGGEST U.S. CASH CROP

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 to be 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, which 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.

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 treat cannabis like tobacco and alcohol
by legalizing it and reaping a tax windfall, while controlling
production and distribution to better restrict use by teens.

Gettman's report cites figures in a 2005 State Department report
estimating U.S. cannabis cultivation at 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.