REEFER MADNESS

A few weeks ago, 200 federal, state and local law-enforcement officers
launched a huge marijuana-eradication effort in the mountains of
Sacramento's forested neighbor to the north, Shasta County. The
strike, dubbed Operation Alesia, was so big that even President Bush's
drug czar, John Walters, flew out to Redding on July 12 to kick it
off.

"America's public lands are under attack," Walters said, charging that
heavily armed Mexican drug cartels had turned the national forests
into "ground zero for drug cultivation. These violent drug traffickers
are endangering America's outdoor enthusiasts and sportsmen, and the
sensitive ecosystems of our wilderness."

The week-long operation was a big success, if success is measured by
the number of plants seized, 283,397 in this case. Numerous other
eradication raids--including ones in Calaveras County near Stockton,
and in the Sequoia National Forest and Yosemite--have been executed
across California these last weeks because cannabis plants mature in
late July, early August.

Will all that expenditure of manpower and resources do much good in
the long term? Probably not. Marijuana gardens are low-investment,
high-yield ventures. If they don't produce a crop, little is lost, at
least as far as the cartel bosses are concerned. If some low-paid
workers end up spending 10 years in prison, as could happen to the 16
Mexican nationals arrested during Operation Alesia, the cartels don't
care. They'll just try again next year.

Not long ago, most marijuana growers in California were local people
who cultivated the herb on their own land. Gradually, law enforcement
drove most of them out of business, but demand for the product didn't
go away nor did the lure of high profits. Well-financed Mexican
operators moved in to fill the void.

All the pot seizures in the world aren't going to stop them. According
to an October 2006 press release issued by former state Attorney
General Bill Lockyer, the number of seizures increased by more than
1,200 percent in the past decade and yet marijuana remains
California's No. 1 cash crop, worth almost $14 billion annually.

For more than 30 years government has been trying to convince people
not to use marijuana and spent billions of dollars trying to catch pot
growers, and yet marijuana is still big business. It's crazy to keep
doing something that doesn't work, especially when it's so expensive.
It's time for a new approach, one that acknowledges reality.

We believe marijuana should be legalized and regulated. That's what we
do with wine, for example, and it seems to work. What's more, a 2005
Harvard University study, signed by 500 economists, found that
allowing marijuana to be taxed and regulated would actually lead to
savings and revenue of $10-14 billion.

As Bruce Mirken, of the Marijuana Policy Project, notes, "There's a
reason you never hear about clandestine vineyards hidden in national
parks and forests. If we regulated marijuana as we do wine, the
problem Walters denounces so vehemently would disappear overnight."

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For more information on the eradication raids, check the Web site of
the national Marijuana Policy Project at www.mpp.com