[Alex]
It’s long been a staple of the marijuana legalisation crowd that cannabis is America’s biggest cash crop. Conveniently a new report – produced by a pro-legalisation analyst – assures us that it is iondeed the case and that the value of US-produced pot is somewhere north of $35bn – making cannabis more valuable than corn.
No surprise here:
The report estimates that marijuana production has increased tenfold in the past quarter century despite an exhaustive anti-drug effort by law enforcement.
Nor, sadly, here:
Tom Riley, a spokesman for the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, cited examples of foreign countries that have struggled with big crops used to produce cocaine and heroin. "Coca is Colombia’s largest cash crop and that hasn’t worked out for them, and opium poppies are Afghanistan’s largest crop, and that has worked out disastrously for them," Riley said. "I don’t know why we would venture down that road."
Good grief. Where to begin? How hard can it be to understand that it’s the illegality of coca and poppy production that is primarily responsible for fostering banditry in Colombia and Afghanistan respectively?
I’m entirely persuaded by the philosophical appeal of the libertarian argument on drug policy, but this battle will only be won on practical rather than philosophical or even moral grounds. Alas, the war on the war on drugs shows few signs of being any more successful than the war on drugs itself.
The Dish 