Calif. Marijuana Seizures Up 20 Percent

http://www.telegram.com/ ^ | 8 28 05 | The Associated Press

[freepatriot32]

SACRAMENTO, Calif.— Agents have seized more than $2.6 billion worth of marijuana plants this year, already surpassing last year's season total by 20 percent, authorities said.

The state Department of Justice's annual Campaign Against Marijuana Planting, or CAMP, is still a month away from wrapping up operations after the season peak at the end of September.

The raids, many in remote, forested terrain, pit agents against often heavily armed guards protecting their marijuana plots.

About three weeks ago, a grower was shot dead and a state Fish and Game warden was wounded during a raid on a 22,000-plant pot farm in the hills above Los Gatos. It was the fourth death in a marijuana raid shootout with authorities in the past three years and the first time a law enforcement officer has been shot in CAMP's 22-year history.

[Moonman62]

Sorry if pot-lovers must suffer for it, but whatever locks away criminals is a good thing.

I won't feel sorry for pot lovers until they realize that their criminal activity leads to other criminal activity that gets people shot an killed.

[SunTzuWu]

Undoubtedly the price will fall some. BTW your price of $10-$12 per gram is overvalued by at least x2. It would be even lower for purchases of over .25oz. (so I'm told)

[bigsigh]

I don't think they want you to feel sorry for them. I think they want you and the cops to mind your own damn business and take care of something more important.

[mvpel]

I think I was using a price graph that only went out to 2002 - it was graphed in constant 2002 dollars. Though you'd think that if the amount of pot seizures was going up and indicating a "victory" in Drug War parlance, the price would be going up as well, not dropping by half.

[WhiteGuy]

Cops have the best dope!

[Moonman62]

In other words, they don't want the law enforced, and they won't take responsibility for their actions.

[bigsigh]

They are not the only ones who don't want the law enforced. Those of us who don't like our tax money wasted by the government trying to stop people from getting high, while others can get intoxicated, want this hypocritical and wasteful failed government policies to stop. Those of you who want government to stop this type of behavior should donate more taxes so the rest of us can have our money used for something worthwhile.

[bigsigh]

I think they're too loaded in Sacramento to figure it out.

[Moonman62]

You are entitled to your political opinion, but pot users should either abide by the law, or accept the cosequences of breaking it, which includes the capital crimes of their suppliers.

[TKDietz]

Mvpel says pot is far easier to grow and process than tobacco. I doubt that's true. Tobacco can be mechanically harvested. Marijuana has to be picked at just the right time to be at maximum potency and not all plants or even all parts of plants mature at the same time. Also, pot needs to be both dried and cured like tobacco to get rid of the green taste. Additionally, it needs to be manicured, the buds removed from the stems and the leaves growing from the buds trimmed. All of this is a labor intensive process. It would probably always be more expensive to produce than tobacco, not anywhere near several hundred times as expensive to produce, but it seems to me that it would always be more expensive to produce.

According to the government, it is estimated that in 2002 there were between 12,000 and 25,000 metric tons of marijuana available on the American market. This is after law enforcement seized all it seized that year and I think between state and federal law enforcement in the neighborhood of 2,500 metric tons were seized in 2002. Even though they seized that much, there were still apparently between 12,000 and 25,000 metric tons on the market. A metric ton is one million grams. Imagine the tax revenues that could be collected if this stuff were taxed at 30% or more like cigarettes are. Even at an average price of just $5.00 per gram, at 30% tax that would be between 18 billion and 37.5 billion dollars a year. Even if half the people grew their own or bought from illicit sources it would be between 9 billion and 18.79 billion.

[bigsigh]

I am more than entitled to my opinion. I am entitled to ask the government to change a failed policy which they continue to enforce with my tax money. You just don't get it do you?

[SteveMcKing]

I want these men dead or in jail. If we have to ban milk to do it, then milk-lovers should sacrifice.

[mvpel]

Well, at least you're willing to openly admit that you are ready to disembowel common sense and the individual liberty for which generations of Americans have fought and died, upon the altar of the almighty Drug War.

Since we have no common premises on which to base our discussion, not even the premise of common sense, it would seem that further debate on this issue between you and I, and anyone who still values the principles of the Constitution, is utterly pointless.

One thing that occurs to me, though - perhaps if California firearms carry laws weren't so strict, so that criminals lived in fear of the law-abiding instead of the other way around, then men like the one you pictured wouldn't live long enough to get so many tattoos.

[Trailerpark Badass]

I want these men dead or in jail. If we have to ban milk to do it, then milk-lovers should sacrifice.

Ban milk, and you'll have more little clones of that fellow jumping in to profit from the lucrative black-market milk trade, or is that too sophisticated a point for you to comprehend?

These people aren't killing themselves and others for POT, they're doing it for MONEY.

[SteveMcKing]

"These people aren't killing themselves and others for POT, they're doing it for MONEY."

Yes, and if pot were legal they would increase their other crimes to make up for losing that market. They will never go legitimate; we need as many excuses as possible to get rid of them.

mvpel rightly points out that California law forbids the proper disposal of criminals, but that's why this is a broader war about culture, not about the drugs themselves that are not necessarily a threat to anyone.

[bigsigh]

obviously a pothead!

[Trailerpark Badass]

Yes, and if pot were legal they would increase their other crimes to make up for losing that market. They will never go legitimate; we need as many excuses as possible to get rid of them.

Then clearly, we need to make EVERYTHING illegal to give our police the tools they need to REALLY take out the trash!

[Know your rights]

if pot were legal they would increase their other crimes to make up for losing that market.

Other crimes have actual victims that avoid and resist them.

They will never go legitimate; we need as many excuses as possible to get rid of them.

OK, let's criminalize everything YOU enjoy to make more excuses.

[SteveMcKing]

"Other crimes have actual victims that avoid and resist them."

One cannot well avoid and resist determined criminals. They take cowardly cheap-shots, use surprize, fear, and overwhelming force. I believe in deadly weapons to help even the odds, but it's better to simply erase criminals to begin with. Drugs are one mechanism.

"OK, let's criminalize everything YOU enjoy to make more excuses."

I suggested milk as an illustration, but if there is a better thing than drugs to target, then I am open to reason.

[Know your rights]

One cannot well avoid and resist determined criminals.

Nonsense; with a very few exceptions I've avoided them my whole life (most of it spent in big cities).

I believe in deadly weapons to help even the odds, but it's better to simply erase criminals to begin with.

No, in a free country it's NOT "better" to invent crimes to erase criminals and noncriminals alike.