Bloomberg.com:
Arts and Culture
Dec. 1 (Bloomberg) — Here’s some holiday cheer: At least one U.S. industry is not only booming but avoids government intervention like the plague. When these folks need a bailout they call their lawyers, not their lobbyists.
“Marijuana Nation,” which airs tomorrow on National Geographic Channel at 10 p.m. New York time, is an intriguing look at the U.S. marijuana business, estimated to turn a tidy $65 billion annual profit despite an often perilous sales environment.
Anchored by Lisa Ling, former co-host of “The View,” this hour-long show presents enough market stats to make an analyst salivate.
Marijuana, first used as an intoxicant in China some 5,000 years ago, is now the most widely used illegal substance in the world, according to Ling. About 200 million people use pot in one form or another and the market is growing steadily, with 2 million Americans projected to try it for the first time this year.
California is also benefiting from sales of medical marijuana, which brought an estimated $3 million in tax revenue to Oakland in 2003.
Ling dons a helmet and fatigues to join a bust deep inside California’s Sequoia National Forest, where she rappels from a helicopter like a special-ops warrior. Public land is popular with pot farmers; in 2007 more than 250,000 plants were seized in this forest alone.
Yet these efforts seem futile. Law-enforcement officials say growers often plant five plots, assuming two will be seized by police and/or “pot pirates” while animals will eat the equivalent of another. That leaves two plots that can produce millions in profits.
Remember that Alcohol Prohibition ended not necessarily because there was a recognition of Prohibition’s failure. Â That was widely understood, but it was the economic desperation of the Depression that finally nudged Americans to repeal Prohibition – we just couldn’t afford it.
I don’t think the drug war will end, but I do think it will shift. Â As the Mexican border becomes more dangerous from cocaine, heroin, and meth trafficking, and as US cities and states begin to see these drugs as a bigger scourge (especially meth), I think the attitude will change to reflect that we can’t afford to aggressively police marijuana when resources are scarce to fight those other drugs.
Topics:
Bloomberg,
Lisa Ling,
Marijuana Nation
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