Marijuana sales top other crops in county, nationwide
Marijuana sales top other crops in county, nationwide
San Benito County’s economy thrives on agriculture – but the top crop in this county isn’t something shoppers will find on the produce aisle.
The United Narcotics Enforcement Team confiscated or destroyed 15 tons of marijuana in 2006, according to UNET Taskforce Commander Mark Colla.
Colla estimated last month that the street value of the marijuana UNET had confiscated was between $1,000 and $2,000 per pound in 2005.
Between $30 million and $60 million worth of marijuana crops were discovered in the county. It is unknown how much more of the crop was not discovered, but Colla said with the size of San Benito County, they know they missed some gardens.
Part of the problem, according to Colla, is that there has been a rise in indoor gardens. During 2005, UNET discovered 7 indoor marijuana groves. Lately, UNET officers are seeing more and more indoor residences that have been converted into pot houses. Growers are also getting more methodical with how they hide their crops from authorities. For instance, growers might find a grove of trees, cut off the canopy and plant the pot in a spot that is invisible by air.
If $40 million were the total amount of marijuana grown in the county last year, it would easily be several million dollars greater than any of the top legal crops grown. Salad lettuce, the top cash crop in San Benito County, had an estimated cash value of nearly $36 million in 2005. The second top-crop was nursery stock, which had an estimated cash value of $33 million.
Back in 1999 San Benito County had the most plants seized of any region in the state. That year police confiscated $330 million worth of marijuana, according to San Benito County Sheriff Curtis Hill.
“That was the biggest cash crop in California at that time,” Hill said. “The numbers have decreased significantly since then and UNET has done a significant job of eradicating the problem of marijuana here.”
A study released earlier this month by Jon Gettman, a marijuana public policy analyst and leader of the Coalition of Rescheduling Cannabis, cited that the market value of marijuana in the United States exceeds $35 billion – far more than the crop value of such items as corn, soybeans and hay, which are the top legal crops nationwide.
The report estimated that marijuana production has increased tenfold in the past quarter century despite exhaustive anti-drug efforts by law enforcement.
In California the Campaign Against Marijuana Planting (CAMP) – seized nearly 1.7 million plants this year, triple the numbers from 2005, with an estimated street value of more than $6.7 billion. CAMP is a multi-agency law enforcement task force managed by the California Bureau of Narcotic Enforcement composed of local, state and federal agencies and organized expressly to eradicate illegal cannabis cultivation and trafficking in California.
Gettman argued in his report that the data supports his push to begin treating cannabis like tobacco and alcohol. Legalizing it would allow the state to reap a tax windfall from it, while controlling production and distribution to better restrict use by teenagers, he said.
So far the state has only legalized marijuana for medical use and limits the amount of dried leaves or number of plants a prescribed user can have.
Illegal growers pose a threat to some residents. Ranchers in San Benito County are finding it increasingly common to discover marijuana crops hidden deep within private ranches and are having to take precautions to avoid conflict with drug cultivators.
Many of these growers are armed and reportedly willing to do whatever is necessary to protect their crops, Colla said.
Patrick O’Donnell can be reached at
po*******@pi**********.com
.
