Americans growing marijuana to beat the recession

(Guardian UK) Law enforcers on the west coast of the US and in the middle states straddled by the foothills of the Appalachian mountains are reporting a common trend. It is boom time for marijuana cultivation, and much of the incentive they say is to beat the recession.

Ed Shemelya, who leads the marijuana eradication programme in the Appalachia region, says a new type of grower is emerging wholly different to the family cartels that have cultivated the drug for generations. “We are seeing a lot more individuals who wouldn’t normally be growing marijuana. They are not your professionals.”

Shemelya puts it down to the dire economy in this part of America. The region is almost entirely dependant for jobs on coal mining, which has suffered severely from the recession.

“People are growing marijuana to supplement their income or support themselves in poor economic times. This is about economic necessity,” he said.

I often wonder how much of the continuance of marijuana prohibition rests on our government’s inability to provide a living wage to the poor.  Prohibition is already a jobs program for cops, lawyers, prosecutors, judges, and prison guards, but how much is it a de facto jobs program for the urban poor in our inner cities and our rural poor in places like Appalachia?  If marijuana were re-legalized, just how high would the unemployment rate rise as unskilled young men in the cities lose their under-the-table weed dealing income?  How bad would the already crippling poverty in Appalachia be without clandestine marijuana growing?

Some people complain about government programs that act as a “redistribution of wealth” from the rich to the poor.  But what is prohibition, if not a Robin Hood that takes the money from the suburban kids and urban professionals who can afford $300-$450 per ounce and gives it to the urban kids and rural folks who are so desperately poor they must risk incarceration to make a decent living?