INFLATION IS ALIVE & WELL -- IN POLICE DRUG SQUAD REPORTS

As the saying goes, there are lies, damned lies, statistics ... and then
there are police drug squad press releases.

For example, police raided two "home-grow" operations in Colborne recently,
seizing about 500 marijuana plants in one house and 1000 plants in another.
The reports estimated the value of the seized plants at about $500,000 in
the first operation, a cool $1 million in the second.

To understand the valuation method used here, it may help to consider the
following, just slightly surreal, press release:
"On April 1, 2002, the OPP-RCMP Joint Corn Theft Squad will hold a press
conference to discuss the recent arrests, in the case of the hijacking of a
truck from a farm field in Northumberland County last November. The truck
was loaded with 700 bushels of freshly picked and shelled corn. Police
estimate the value of the stolen corn at $1.25 million."

How can we be sure this is a joke. After all, the math works out. Corn
currently brings a farmer only about $2 per bushel, but the same corn could
be processed into "gourmet" corn chips, packaged in one-ounce bags, and
sold for $2 a bag in the stands at a major sporting event.

Let's see ... 56 pounds per bushel times 700 bushels = 39,200 pounds,
multiplied by 16 ounces, gives us 627,200 bags of chips, with a total
"street" value of $1,254,400. In other words, this corn is priced using the
same sort of accounting principles police use for marijuana -- figuring out
what the raw crop will be worth, if it is grown to prime quality, broken
into small lots by a whole hierarchy of distributors, and eventually sold
in quantities of a gram or two at grossly inflated prices.

Mathematics aside, though, we can immediately recognize the Joint Corn
Theft Squad story as fiction -- simply because corn is not a banned
substance. There is no black market in corn, so there is little incentive
for criminals to steal corn. There is no call for a special Joint Corn
Theft Squad, and no corresponding need for such a squad to issue press
releases which stretch the numbers, in order to impress the public with the
scale of crimes which their tax dollars are being used to fight.

Sadly, back in the real world, the results of our drug policy are more
bizarre and destructive than any mere April Fool's joke. Our tax dollars,
in financing the apparatus of prohibition, have created a huge black market
for marijuana, which is heavily influenced by ruthless and violent
organizations. And the police practice, of reporting the sky-high "street
value" of seized plants, just encourages more "home grow" operations, by
grossly exaggerating the profits that would-be herb farmers might hope to earn.