Pot Farming On The Increase
According to the Christian Science Monitor, in the first eight months of this year, local, state, and federal police chopped down 8 million marijuana plants worth about $22 billion on the street – a 14 percent increase from last year.
With the economy in free fall for the past several months, there has been a surge in marijuana acreage in the country’s chief pot-growing regions. Unfortunately, there has not been any increase in overall enforcement efforts or funding.
The market for pot appears to be driven by tough times, especially high unemployment. The CSM reported the following:
Especially in east Tennessee, Kentucky, and West Virginia, tough economic times may be motivating descendants of moonshiners to take the high risk and put spades in the earth.
Pocketing a street value of up to $2,000 per plant, a successful grower can quickly rise in local prominence – new trucks and boats popping up in poor areas are often a sign of successful cultivators, police say.
The illegal American pot harvest is worth about $35 billion a year, according to government estimates. In comparison, the 2007 bumper corn crop in the US was worth approximately $45 billion.
The US Department of Health and Human Services reported Thursday in the annual National Survey on Drug Use and Health that the number of Americans who report “current use” of pot rose from 14.4 million in 2007 to 15.2 million in 2008.
