by Jack
The story opens like this, “Butte County and U.S. Forest Service agents raided an illegal marijuana grow Tuesday morning, confiscating 1,271 plants from the Plumas National Forest, northeast of Oroville near Berry Creek.
The plants had an estimated value of $1.9 million, said John Heil, a spokesman for the Forest Service. ”
Imagine $1.9 million! Wow, no wonder they’re growing this stuff everywhere with profits like that, right? Well, guess what bunky, this story is not exactly true.
For about the last 40 years or so, since the very beginning of illicit crank labs and small marijuana grow sites that led to police raids and seizures, there has been a desire by law enforcement to use drug valuations to get headlines. This is great for public relations. Law enforcement looks good and they’re hoping this publicity will have a certain deterrence effect.
Reality is, much of their law enforcement’s budget depends on good will from that public that is created by the public’s perception of law enforcement effectiveness. Naturally, it’s good PR to say you’ve seized millions of dollars worth of an illegal narcotic and put dangerous criminals out of business. But, how law enforcement arrives at this high dollar number is often times outrageously wrong and it should stop. They need to set a better example for honesty and use the right numbers.
What law enforcement is doing, and has always done, is to take the estimated weight of the entire seizure and what the weight of the end product would sell for on the street and this determines the value. In this case marijuana, and they have included the roots, seed, dirt and leaf with all its heavy water content, which is considerable, since its coming fresh from the field. Then this estimated total weight is factored against what one dry rolled marijuana joint/cigarette might sell for on the street. Sometimes the value is based on tiny pot plants and what they might have weighed if they had grown to full maturity, but now they’re really stretching it. Haven’t you wondered why law enforcements waits until harvest season is in full swing before they raid pot gardens? Well, now you know.
It’s a safe guess that the leaf of any plant typically makes up about 25% of it’s total weight. And that would be generous no matter what kind of plant it is, be it daises or marijuana plants. When pot is sold right after a grow it must be dried and it’s generally been cleaned of all the stems, twigs and roots. The dry leaf or bud is the only part that is preferred to be smoked. The rest of the plant is more or less junk, unless the grower is into making hemp products and I doubt our local growers are, haven’t seen anyone busted for weaving hemp baskets after a harvest.
It’s more likely that the marijuana noted in the above article with a stated value of $1.9 million really had a much lower value. Perhaps about $80-90,000 to the grower and that’s still a lot of money! This is what the grower might expect to gross after expenses, including any helpers. His net is probably in the range of $60,000. And that’s still a lot of money and great motivation to break the law, because this is tax free money. But, it’s no where near the huge, get rich quick, bonanza, law enforcement would have the public believe and I think this is counterproductive.
Why say it then? Like I said, there’s the PR factor, but it also costs a lot money for a raid team and air support. In order to justify the millions spent there must be a great payoff, a visible, assessable offset by the value of the illegal product being seized.
How long would the C.A.M.P. project have lasted if it was known that law enforcement spent $7 million dollars to seize $8 million dollars worth of pot? It just wouldn’t make a lot of sense to most legislators to continue that funding. But, when you can say you seized $800M in illegal drugs during on grow season at a low cost of merely $7M, it goes down a whole lot easier. Everybody in government looks good and law enforcement can take a bow.
It makes it look like we might be winning the drug war too, for what enemy could sustain such losses? But, in truth we’ve not won a battle since this stupid war began. Pot growing and consumption has been getting worse with every passing year, despite the hundreds of millions spent by law enforcement. Lives have been lost too, on both sides, and we can’t even begin to put a price on that.
So what’s the answer, where are we going with this disclosure? I wish I knew, I only know that it’s time to tell the truth. Hopefully, using real facts and figures will lead to a real solution. But, right now so much of this war is built on trying to justify program expenditures that its led law enforcement down a path of deception. That gets us nowhere, its time to be honest. Lets deal in real facts and develop policies based on that, not on illusions.
“How long would the C.A.M.P. project have lasted if it was known that law enforcement spent $7 million dollars to seize $8 million dollars worth of pot?”
Jack, you been listening to them Libertarians again? There is probably something to this, but I like to hike the Mendocino forests, and I would prefer that gangster pot growers not be able to pursue their craft unmolested. And any Libertarian living in said forest would abandon his principles in a second, iffen he got his leg blown off from happening onto somebody’s pot grow.
So, we’re not going to cease this activity. Now, if you could get your elected representatives to contract for an audit of said activity and then implement some efficiencies … that would be good.
Jack: “…right now so much of this war is built on trying to justify program expenditures…”
You just defined big government and its bureaucracy!
I don’t Jack think had an opinion about enforcing marijuana. What I got from this is he wanted to use accurate numbers., that is all. I am a Libertarian and I can respect that. Libby you would be a lot safer in the woods if growing pot was legal. The only reason it is dangerous is because of the profit motive.
That may well be true. But Jack was going on like, since CAMP fudges its figures, the enterprise should be abandoned, tossing the civic baby with the bath water, which is silly (and if he thinks some private contractor wouldn’t fudge its figures to look good, he’s nutsy). As long a pot is illegal, and we got gangsters on public lands, I want them harassed, by my government, and not some private militia.
Libby, I believe that any government endeavor must be based on reality. Further the means must never justify the end.
If the project is worthwhile, then lets base it on those real things that justify it. For example, protection of campers or hikers who use our national forests is real good reason. Stopping pollution and littering is a real good reason. Stopping an illegal enterprise is a real good reason.
Law enforcement doesn’t need to resort pumping up drug seizure values. This only hurts their credibility when they want to convey their next message to the public.
I believe making inflated dollar values on pot seizures encourages some people to go out and try it for those big bucks and that’s 100% counterproductive to mission.
I hope that explains where I am coming from, it’s all about being honest. -Jack
Libby, my take on a scenario like the one you suggest, ‘If the project is worthwhile, then lets base it on those real things that justify it. For example, protection of campers or hikers who use our national forests is real good reason. Stopping pollution and littering is a real good reason. Stopping an illegal enterprise is a real good reason’. How about you put a call into Obama and ask him to release info about our border protection, so as to help put a end to those issues you mentioned. Just by stopping the illegally migrating people (PC me again) who cross our borders daily will help stop creating those very same conditions that you want controlled. Now Obama may object a bit, because he might lose some Latino support, but think of the protection he will create for you! Hows that for a honest enough explanation of the main cause of the problem!
You want to pony up for the very thorough policing of an umpteen thousand mile border … stations every half-mile? Obama would be only too pleased, as this would put a huge dent in that unemployment number. But you won’t … will you?
Yes Libby I would rather support the wall of necessity you describe rather then the hidden agenda of Holder and Obama with their sweeping the border problem under the rug. I would rather pay to build a wall than ignore the fact that we are losing lives in exchange for votes. I would rather invest in a honest Government that is of, by, and for the people, than liberally twist the facts that Obama does repeatedly. So frequent that most Americans could never understand what truth ‘is’ (Clinton’is’m). What I would rather not do is support a entitlement society that turns a blind eye to the tax spending Administration that is only interested in staying in power by the use of entitlements. Nor could I ever support a campaigning President who’s ‘fund raising’ is more important to him than American lives abroad that are being killed because of his lackadaisical attitude toward Islamic terrorist briefings. Obama is burying American ideals into the ground, executive order by executive privilege daily, and you Liberals just suck up his waste like cheap toilet paper.