The article appeared on the web only, never in a printed paper or web version. Thanks, Globe, for the omission!
"Marijuana farming rebounds in economic hard times" by Roger Alford, Associated Press Writer | September 10, 2009
BARBOURVILLE, Ky. --Machete-wielding police officers have hacked their way through billions of dollars worth of marijuana in the country's top pot-growing states to stave off a bumper crop sprouting in the tough economy.
Why not LEGALIZE it and TAX IT? It would SURE CREATE a LOT of BUSINESSES!
The number of plants seized has jumped this year in California, the nation's top marijuana-growing state, while seizures continue to rise in Washington after nearly doubling the previous year. Growers in a three-state region of central Appalachia also appear to have reversed a decline in pot cultivation over the last two years.
Officers in those areas, the nation's biggest hotbeds for marijuana production, have chopped down plants with a combined street value of around $12 billion in the first eight months of this year. While national numbers aren't yet available this year, officers around the country increased their haul from 7 million plants in 2007 to 8 million in 2008.
"A lot of that, we theorize, is the economy," said Ed Shemelya, head of marijuana eradication for the Office of Drug Control Policy's Appalachian High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area. "Places in east Tennessee, eastern Kentucky and West Virginia are probably feeling the recession a lot more severely than the rest of the country and have probably been in that condition a lot longer than the rest of the country."
Growers in Appalachia are often hard-luck entrepreneurs supplementing their income by growing marijuana, authorities say. Troopers thrashing through the thick mountain brush there typically find plots that could easily be tended by a single grower, while officers in the two western states have focused on larger fields run by Mexican cartels with immigrant labor.
Yeah, they started the fires.
Also see: U.S. Government Brings Drug War to U.S. Cities
The demand for domestically grown marijuana is at a record high, in part because stricter border control has made it more difficult to import pot from Mexico, said Dave Keller, deputy director of the Appalachian High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area. Keller said growers large and small across the country are trying to fill the void.
The ailing economy isn't stopping users from spending money on pot. In fact, Shemelya said the demand appears to be rising with the unemployment rate.
Yeah, because WHO WANTS to be straight and BE MISERABLE when you can GET STONED and BE MISERABLE!
"I've never seen any decline in demand for marijuana in bad economic times," he said. "If anything, it's the opposite. People always seem to find money somewhere to buy drugs."
**************
Judge Kelsey Friend, whose jurisdiction includes some of the most isolated mountain communities in Kentucky, said he believes a huge chunk of the Appalachian marijuana is grown by people so hard-pressed that they're willing to risk freedom to improve their standard of living.
Or EAT!
The ill-gotten gains, Friend said, show up in the form of new pickup trucks, boats and even homes.
That is an INSULT in the face of BANKSTERS, WAR-LOOTERS and BIG PHARMA!
Oh, the GOVERNMENT FACILITATES THOSE GAINS, yeah!
However, only an estimated 20 to 40 percent of the growers in the region manage to harvest and collect their payoff without being detected by modern day G-men assisted by spotters in helicopters....
ALL THIS MONEY and RESOURCES spent on a DOUBLE-DEALING, DOUBLE-CROSSING, DOUBLE-TALKING "DRUG WAR!"
A crackdown begun six years ago had convinced many growers to give up, rather than contend with the helicopters constantly crisscrossing the region in the summer months, authorities said.
But if you see one you are a hallucinating conspiracy theorist!
Better STOP SMOKING POT! You are SEEING THINGS NOW!
"The economy or lack of economy has always driven the marijuana trade," Shemelya said. "It still is the cash cow as far as illicit drugs. It offers the greatest return on investment."
That is BULLSHIT! It is BULKY, STINKY, and LOW RETURN as opposed to COCAINE, POWDER, and the MANUFACTURED DRUGS!!!!
--more--"
