America's #1 Cash Crop? Cannibis!

[The Painter]

It is the leading cash crop in 12 states, and one of the top five crops in 39 states.

Hmmmm, 39 + 12 = 51

According to the NZ Herald the USA has 51 states. This is quite the reliable source. Maybe it's the number 1 crop in their office

 

[The Atheist]

So now because some is grown outside in California, that somehow means most is? Are you really that thick? Apparently, you are.

Next time you jump to half-assed conclusions you might want to use that matter between your ears you apparently don't think you have any use for.

You're a riot!

I'm not sure why you decided to come and make a complete fool of yourself by accusing me of saying something I demonstrably did not say, but thanks for playing!

Read this really slowly and you might begin to understand - this is a direct quote of what I said earlier, check it out:

It surprised me that so much was grown outside, actually.

I even made it easier for you the first time you erroneously claimed I said anything about "most marijuana", when I asked:

Where did I ever say "most of it was grown outside"?

Clearly, lots of it is grown outside - or at least in the mind of whoever wrote the article, which says...

Now, you come in and call me thick for saying "most dope is grown outside"!



Mate, you are simply awful at this.

For you to call me thick and use it as an attack, it is incumbent upon you to use my actual words. Making things up to put them into my mouth so you can attack me for it is a bit silly, isn't it?

Are you an emergent user of English, maybe? If so, you need to be aware that "so much" is no relation to "most".

Either way, I really do suggest keeping your fingers off the keyboard until you understand what is actually being said, because charging off and calling someone "thick" really does have a nasty tendency to rebound when you have clearly got it completely wrong.

Run along now...

 

[The Atheist]

Hmmmm, 39 + 12 = 51

According to the NZ Herald the USA has 51 states. This is quite the reliable source. Maybe it's the number 1 crop in their office

Oops!

Not in the Herald office, but maybe in yours?

This is actually quite simple and has nothing at all to do with 12+39 - I'll run you through it carefully:

In 39 states, dope is one of the top five cash crops. Got that?

In twelve of those 39 states, it is the number one cash crop.

Do you see how that works now? If it's number one in a state, that means it obviously has to be in the top five in that state.

Statistics can be a little confusing for the uninitiated, but the Herald has made no comment on the other eleven states.

Always glad to help.

 

[WildCat]

You're a riot!

I'm not sure why you decided to come and make a complete fool of yourself by accusing me of saying something I demonstrably did not say, but thanks for playing!

Read this really slowly and you might begin to understand - this is a direct quote of what I said earlier, check it out:



I even made it easier for you the first time you erroneously claimed I said anything about "most marijuana", when I asked:



Now, you come in and call me thick for saying "most dope is grown outside"!



Mate, you are simply awful at this.

For you to call me thick and use it as an attack, it is incumbent upon you to use my actual words. Making things up to put them into my mouth so you can attack me for it is a bit silly, isn't it?

Are you an emergent user of English, maybe? If so, you need to be aware that "so much" is no relation to "most".

Either way, I really do suggest keeping your fingers off the keyboard until you understand what is actually being said, because charging off and calling someone "thick" really does have a nasty tendency to rebound when you have clearly got it completely wrong.

Run along now...

Awww, did someone get caught expressing amazement that pot is actually grown in America, and is the biggest cash crop? Something that's been well-known for the last 25 years or so...

It surprised me that so much was grown outside, actually. USA must be the last bastion of outdoor dope - referred to by hydro connoisseurs contemptibly as "bush".

How much is "so much"? Do you have a number? Surely, you must have a number in mind, you wouldn't just stuff your foot in your mouth like that would you? Why, of course you would! Because you misread the article and thought it meant that outdoor-grown marijuana was the number 1 cash crop. You could put on your big-boy pants and admit you goofed, but instead you revert to the clueless Kiwi asshat role you've worked so hard to cultivate here.

 

[WildCat]

And WildCat's still a dick!

There's some sig material! Nothing screams "defeated" like an ad-hom right off the bat...

 

[The Atheist]

There's some sig material! Nothing screams "defeated" like an ad-hom right off the bat...

Well, if that's the case, you'd need to look at your first post in the thread.

And "hissy fit"? Dear, oh dear. I was just pointing out the obvious. Thanks for putting it in your sig, though. I have nothing in this thread to defend and I'm very happy to let people see how the "discussion" has progressed.

Awww, did someone get caught expressing amazement that pot is actually grown in America, and is the biggest cash crop? Something that's been well-known for the last 25 years or so...

Well, as I've noted already, since I don't live in USA, or know anything about dope-smoking statistics, I have no problem to admitting ignorance on the subject. Interesting that other people who do live in USA weren't aware of the issue as well. Maybe you know more about dope-smoking than many of your countrymen? Having made the statement about marijuana being the biggest cash crop for 25 years and that the fact is "well-known", I imagine you'd be able to back that up with actual evidence?

You could put on your big-boy pants and admit you goofed, but instead you revert to the clueless Kiwi asshat role you've worked so hard to cultivate here.

Glad to see you continuing down the same fallacious trail, trying desperately to defend your initial fallacy by adding a few more.

 

[The Atheist]

Goddam. Yanks are so ignorant of what goes on inside their own country! Not only posters in this thread found the news to be news, but so do the following, all of which have reported the fact about the size of USA's marijuana crop value in the past 18 months:

ABC December 2006

Reason.com April 2007*

Encyclopedia.com December 2006

Guardian, UK December 2006

*This will make an interesting comparison for the "25 year-old news", since Reason.com cites Jon Gettman of Bulletin of Cannibis Review as claiming the crop harvest increased tenfold in the past 25 years.

 

[President Bush]

My wife called me a few weeks ago, as I lay sleeping in an Indianapolis motel room, to tell me our house in Tucson had been broken into. As I recall one of the first things I asked was had she checked the second drawer of the bedroom dresser.

That's where I'd left half a roach of some very very nice marijuana along with a spot of high-quality homemade hash. She told me that she thought it was gone.

Got home about a week later and saw the police report from the Pima County Sheriff's Department where a deputy had left it on that very same dresser.

Immediately checked the second drawer. Guess what I'm smoking now? HAHAHAHAHA

 

[WildCat]

Goddam. Yanks are so ignorant of what goes on inside their own country! Not only posters in this thread found the news to be news, but so do the following, all of which have reported the fact about the size of USA's marijuana crop value in the past 18 months:

ABC December 2006

Reason.com April 2007*

Encyclopedia.com December 2006

Guardian, UK December 2006

*This will make an interesting comparison for the "25 year-old news", since Reason.com cites Jon Gettman of Bulletin of Cannibis Review as claiming the crop harvest increased tenfold in the past 25 years.

Hmmmmmm...

Estimated Agricultural Crop Values In The United States, 1985

Crop $ Value of Production

1 Marijuana* 18,600,000,000
2 Corn for Grain 18,582,500,000
3 Soybeans 10,183,500,000
4 Hay 9,980,500,000
5 Wheat 7,256,500,000
6 Sorghum 3,820,500,000
7 Cotton 3,705,100,000
8 Tobacco 2,744,800,000
9 Potatoes 1,363,400,000
10 Rice 1,014,000,000

Source: U.S. Department of Agriculture - Crop Reporting Board,
Agricultural Prices, Washington, D.C., October 31, 1985.

Keep digging that hole, maybe you can escape out the other side!

 

[President Bush]

Yadda-yadda... mine was free. Twice!

 

[Puppycow]

4 Hay 9,980,500,000

Wow. Maybe that shouldn't suprise me either, but it kind of does.

I'm a little amused that this has turned into a flame war.

 

[The Atheist]

Immediately checked the second drawer. Guess what I'm smoking now? HAHAHAHAHA

Is there a thumbs-up smiley somewhere? Seems like most of the sales here are done in small tinfoil-wrapped bits for $20, which makes about 3 joints?

Keep digging that hole, maybe you can escape out the other side!

OMG! At last I found one funny enough to not be able to convey it by smiley! Honest to god, when I checked the link, I had tears streaming down my cheeks I was laughing so hard. I was only pointing out that lots of major organisations saw the fact as news recently, but your link was indeed a winner.

Tip, WildCat: When failing miserably, it's not the best link to figures which say the following:

Estimated Agricultural Crop Values In The United States, 1985

(You do know what "estimated" means, eh? You struggled with "so much", so I'm just checking.)

And who, pray tell provided the estimate?

Why NORML, of course!

Do you do religion at all? That's kind of like KuriousKathy linking to the Creation Institute to prove her point.

Classic!

I'm a little amused that this has turned into a flame war.

Flame? Barely simmering, I would have said. Gimme some opposition, fer chrissakes.

 

[Drudgewire]

I'm a little amused that this has turned into a flame war.

Seriously. This wouldn't happen if we just rolled one up and passed it around.

 

[madurobob]

Estimated Agricultural Crop Values In The United States, 1985

(You do know what "estimated" means, eh? You struggled with "so much", so I'm just checking.)

And who, pray tell provided the estimate?

Why NORML, of course!

Excuse me for jumping in, but you've hit on a key point. For most of our cash crops we know the annual value to a good degree of precision. For marijuana its an estimate - a very rough estimate depending on the source.

It appears the US Gov't estimate is based on their estimate of the street price and another estimate of volume. Thats a straight forward PXQ, except we have no evidence of how they estimated either the P or the Q. 25 years ago when I used to work for a NORML attorney the standard line was that in drug busts the government ALWAYS increased their street value estimate by an order of magnitude for publicity purposes. I wonder why we don't take that into consideration with government estimates of the overall annual value? Does someone here have an axe to grind?

I'm sure there is a large dollar value on the overall marijuana market in the US, but I don't trust the data as quoted/used in the story.

 

[meg]

I think Madurobob makes a very good point.

In Gettman's report:
http://www.drugscience.org/Archive/bcr2/MJCropReport_2006.pdf

Mr Gettman makes several assumptions, and I cant figure out where he got his numbers.

He makes a value assumption of $1606/lb

He states a 7 oz/per plant harvest assumption, but then the numbers he shows represent the DOJ's assumption of 1 lb/plant.

He states that seizures of outdoor cultivated marijuana represent only 8% of all outdoor cultivated plants, and that indoor cultivated plant seizures represent by 2% of all indoor plants, but then makes an overall production estimate of 10,000 metric tons, which jibes with the DOJ estimate (based on a 30% eradication rate).


The department of Justice report 2007
http://www.usdoj.gov/ndic/pubs22/22486/22486p/22486p.pdf

DOJ statistics show 6.3 million plants eradicated in 2006

DOJ assumes 1 lb per plant, which then comes to 2825 metric tons of pot destroyed (which, if that represents 30% of total cultivated comes to 9478 metric tons)

DOJ indicates that eradication programs destroy between 30-50% of all cultivated marijuana

DOJ estimates overall production from 5650 to 9417 metric tons

DOJ quotes prices as $700 - $750 per lb for outdoor cultivated pot
high potency indoor cultivated sold for $2500 - $6000 per lb

From Norml's website: http://norml.org/index.cfm?Group_ID=4444

It should be noted that law enforcement's model when estimating marijuana's weight and value differs from the above paradigm. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) officials have long argued that a typical marijuana plant grown to harvest yields one pound (454 grams) of marijuana. However, most experts argue that this estimate is highly unrealistic. For example, data gathered by the United States Sentencing Commission supported the conclusion that the actual average yield of marijuana plants is 100 grams. [1] Government-sponsored studies conducted at the University of Mississippi calculated the amount of dry, smokable material at a maximum of 177 grams for an indoor marijuana plant and 412 grams for an outdoor plant. [2] The ten ounce estimate used by The NORML Foundation in this report reflects this data as well as the premise that most U.S. marijuana is densely grown in gardens of nine square feet or less. Under such conditions, DEA publications admit that one marijuana plant will likely yield approximately 224 grams of marijuana.

so... trying to work some of the same numbers

If 6.3 million plants eradicated represents 30% of total cultivated, that comes to around 20.9 million plants total cultivated.

20.9 million plants at 7 oz/plant (Gettman's figure) harvested = 7.3 million pounds = 3310 metric tons
7.3 million pounds x $1606/lb = $11,723,800,000 ($11.7 Billion)

20.9 million plants at 10oz/plant (Norml's figure) = 13 million pounds = 5924 metric tons
13 million pounds x $1606/lb = $20.8 Billion

Of course, the figures aren't really true, because 30% or more of the crop was actually destroyed. Assuming it was 30%, the actual "cash crop" for 2007 was around 14.6 million plants worth somewhere between $8.2 billion and $14.5 billion

According to http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&refer=home&sid=aSVTuzqlzaEQ

Corn is the biggest U.S. crop, valued at a record $52.1 billion in 2007, followed by soybeans at $26.8 billion. Wheat was in fourth place, behind hay, with a value of $13.7 billion.

So, in conclusion, pot isn't really the number one cash crop. It's actually third or lower, depending on how you value it. Not so much headline worthy, really.

 

[madurobob]

So, in conclusion, pot isn't really the number one cash crop. It's actually third or lower, depending on how you value it. Not so much headline worthy, really.

Clearly "50 percent of all statistics can be made up" is alive and well both with NORML and the DEA.

I'm still a bit bugged by Gettman's argument that because cannabis is the number one cash crop it should be legalized. Really? Thats the best he can do? I'm in favor of at least some liberal decriminalization, but least among my arguments is "because everyone is doing it".

 

[Zygar]

And you're surprised?

When I saw the thread title, that's exactly what I said.

 

[The Atheist]

So, in conclusion, pot isn't really the number one cash crop. It's actually third or lower, depending on how you value it. Not so much headline worthy, really.

Good on you, Meg - thanks for all that.

I had wondered briefly where the details all came from as I don't imagine dope-growers file returns.

 

[meg]

I'm still a bit bugged by Gettman's argument that because cannabis is the number one cash crop it should be legalized. Really? Thats the best he can do? I'm in favor of at least some liberal decriminalization, but least among my arguments is "because everyone is doing it".

Yup, I agree. It doesn't make much sense.

If you look at the DOJ report, a big chunk of pot seized was planted by Mexican and Asian drug trafficking organizations. And much of it was planted and grown on US public land. Why would one assume that legalization of marijuana would automatically make these people/organizations want to go legit? If they're making billions now without owning any land or paying taxes on the crop, what incentive would they have to buy their own land and pay taxes on the future crop?

Legalization would probably reduce the amount of $$ for DEA personnel and programs, so it would be even easier for these folks to just keep doing what they're doing now.

And, if it were to be legalized and anybody could grow it, which I think is what Norml wants, I think it would be safe to assume that the price would dramatically decrease per pound, and any tax moneys received would also decrease accordingly. Again, his $35 billion cash crop quote would mean absolutely nothing.

 

[The Atheist]

Legalization would probably reduce the amount of $$ for DEA personnel and programs, so it would be even easier for these folks to just keep doing what they're doing now.

You might well be right - as I see it below, I don't think the revenue would be that much after all.

And, if it were to be legalized and anybody could grow it, which I think is what Norml wants, I think it would be safe to assume that the price would dramatically decrease per pound, and any tax moneys received would also decrease accordingly. Again, his $35 billion cash crop quote would mean absolutely nothing.

The price would certainly decrease, but I think you're wrong on the number of people who would actually grow it. Growing dope isn't just throwing a few seeds in the ground any longer - well, not if you want to end up with any kind of smokeable weed, because the THC content of cannibis nowadays is so high that a home-grower may not even get high on his own gear.

Hydroponic growing is the only successful way and the costs involved are reasonably high - power usage is high and so are supervision/maintenance levels. Accordingly, a well-organised and taxed legal system would work simply due to economies of scale.

Just trying to get some numbers into a demand perspective, let's say that 15 million users in USA smoke marijuana daily, with an average daily dosage of two joints. That is - at street values - worth $3-4. Annually, that makes a total market value around $16-17 billion, which is about halfway between your figures and the reported ones. Either way, it's a very big number, but if the price fell by 80%, it would mean a market somewhere in the 1-6 billion range, depending which set of figures you start with. I think that if the price were forced higher, then there would be an incentive to home-grow, but if the total revenue is only a billion, then the available tax isn't that high.