Dec 23, 2006

hash crop a cash crop: part II

Early this year I noticed a report putting the value of seized weed in Washington at around $270 million. That's only about a quarter of the actual value of all the weed in the state, according to the now-infamous Gettman report.
Washington is among the top five pot-producing states, producing a $1 billion-a-year crop that is second in value only to the state's famed apple harvest, according to an analysis released this week by a public-policy researcher....

It's among the top three cash crops in 30 states, Gettman said. He said Washington is the nation's fifth-largest producer, behind California, Tennessee, Kentucky and Hawaii.
Most inane response by a government official:
"You can look at anything being a cash crop if you don't want to make any conclusions about the damage it does," said Dave Rodriguez, the director of the Northwest High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area program, a Seattle-based division of the Office of National Drug Control Policy.
Sure. Anything is a potential cash crop. In fact, several of my neighbors are running a meth farm in the woods behind the Chehalis Western Trail. They harvest crank as feed for their LSD ranch. There's nothing like the endless mooing and barking of LSD to keep you awake at night.

2 comments:

Kelsey said...

It's interesting you let the techniques of the report go unhindered, Mr. Anderson. The researchers used a federal statistic on weed and then some fancy math based on how much pot was seized in each state to indicate how much is grown there. However, this could just mean that Washington is the fifth best at seizing pot, reversing the findings.

Jim Anderson said...

I didn't want to face the possibility that we could be number one. Remember what Spiderman said.