Missing the Forest for the Trees?
Bruce Ross at the Redding Record Searchlight takes issue with my post about a recent Wall Street Journal article, which showed once again how marijuana eradication efforts are counterproductive, but that law enforcement engage in them still because the federal government pays them to. I’ll reserve further comment, and let readers reach their own conclusions. You can read our back-and-forth exchange below:
Bruce Ross: “It’s not about the money.”
Mike Meno of the Marijuana Policy Project reads this weekend’s Wall St. Journal story about how Shasta County is continuing — using federal money — its campaign against marijuana growing to mean that the county is only doing it for the money, arguing that it’s a minor problem and a law the sheriff wouldn’t even be enforcing but for the federal dollars.
Well, he gets paid to argue for the legalization of marijuana, so of course he’d think that. But if he knew a bit of the history that any attentive county resident would have picked up over the past decade, he’d know that illegal marijuana growing has mushroomed beyond all previous records in recent years. I vividly recall how in 2005, the Colorado-based environmental magazine High Country News ran a cover article about remote public forests being exploited by growers — Ground Zero for the trend? Shasta County.
That year, the Campaign Against Marijuana Planting uprooted more than million plants statewide, doubling its haul from the previous year, and about three-quarters of that was on public lands, including national parks. Shasta County was the No. 1 county for seizures of illegal pot, with more than 200,000 plants found.
That was ’05. And in 2009? The haul was more than 600,000 plants. And growers are still planting mega-gardens.
In other words, there’s a very large problem. Overwhelmed federal land managers and local authorities lobbied their bosses and Rep. Wally Herger to supply more federal resources to fight the problem. The facts made persuasive arguments. That is why the federal government is devoting substantial money to fighting marijuana in Shasta County. And they’re not using that money to hassle individual smokers or those growing and using under Prop. 215′s medicinal guidelines.
Would this problem largely disappear if marijuana could be grown legally? Probably so, and I’ve written as much a few times.
But the implication that it’s not a real problem in our woods today, and that Tom Bosenko’s crews are mercenaries who are only chasing pot growers for the federal cash, is ignorant and dishonest.
And here was my response:
Bruce,
Of course I agree that illegal marijuana grows are “a very large problem,” but even the least astute observer would realize it’s a problem law enforcement cannot—and more importantly, have failed to—solve through eradication. The figures you cite prove my point. Each year officers go into the woods to find and dig up more marijuana, and each year criminals are simply encouraged to grow more, thereby worsening the problem. Repeating an action again and again while expecting different results, the maxim goes, is the very definition of insanity. This is why it’s so outrageous that the federal government continues to throw money at such counterproductive efforts. As you (correctly) pointed out, the only true solution is to regulate marijuana and eliminate the need for illegal grows altogether.
It’s also interesting that you leveled the charge of being “ignorant and dishonest” at someone who simply blogged about the story, rather than at the story’s actual author—a writer at the esteemed Wall Street Journal—whose excellent reporting left no doubt whatsoever that police continually engage in this Quixotic quest simply to obtain federal funds that help them keep their departments afloat. Just take the story’s first two paragraphs:
IGO, Calif.—Shasta County Sheriff Tom Bosenko, his budget under pressure in a weak economy, has laid off staff, reduced patrols and even released jail inmates. But there’s one mission on which he’s spending more than in recent years: pot busts.
The reason is simple: If he steps up his pursuit of marijuana growers, his department is eligible for roughly half a million dollars a year in federal anti-drug funding, helping save some jobs. The majority of the funding would have to be used to fight pot. Marijuana may not be the county’s most pressing crime problem, the sheriff says, but “it’s where the money is.”
Seriously, did you even bother to read the article before writing your post? Sheriff Bosenko himself says the eradication funds are “$340,000 I could use somewhere else in my organization … That could fund three officers’ salaries and benefits, and we could have them out on our streets doing patrol.” Instead he’s obligated to spend those funds on an objective he knows is unreachable and that he himself says is not as important as the many other issues he needs to focus on. Let that sink in: The sheriff himself (not me) is saying he’d like to focus on other problems and—in direct contradiction to what you wrote—the only reason he’s “chasing pot growers” is for the money. Is the sheriff being “ignorant and dishonest” as well?
Your beef is not with me, Bruce. It’s with the wasteful and irrational policies that allow these illegal grows to continue.
And then his response to my response:
Mr. Meno,
Pardon my ill temper. I’ve never met you. I have no reason to think you’re anything but an honest guy.
But you also don’t know what you’re talking about if you think the feds just showed up one day offering money if local sheriffs wanted to chase pot growers out in the woods. The pressure was very much from the ground — and not just from law enforcement but even more so from the local heads of federal land-management agencies who saw a long-standing problem spread beyond their abilities to control.
To which I say (once again), let’s finally put an end to that longstanding problem, and regulate marijuana.
Tagged with: Bruce Ross and Campaign Against Marijuana Planting and eradication and Record Searchlight and Redding and Wall Street Journal by the author
17 comments
wow, what is this shasta county week at mpp. two stories in one day about my home town. I wonder if Bruce mentioned that the local government in redding also had the tough choice of cutting funds to the local police due to the millions of dollars in deficit that our tax strucure has suffered at the hands of a shrinking economy. If the local government was asked what they consider to be the bigger priority in town cannabis or protecting the citizens from the 100+person gang fight that broke out eariler this year or stopping the drive by shooting that paralyzed the 20yo girl in town i hope the local officials would choose to protect the citizens. If they choose cannabis, then houston we have a big problem. as judge gray would put it, we do in fact have a limited number of law enforcement resources. come on california make the right choice this november!
Right on mike give em hell, sad when they cant even read the material before lashing out
i love you guys
This is starting to sound a lot like, the devil made me do it, scenario. It’s like the cops are saying we’re busting you but we’re made to this and we have no control over this issue. Your last statement in this blog, “The pressure was very much from the ground — and not just from law enforcement but even more so from the local heads of federal land-management agencies who saw a long-standing problem spread beyond their abilities to control,” really gives this whole issue some light on WHO we can boycott and confront WHY we should tolerate such behavior. If this sort of action is NOT in the Standard Operations Manual for Federal Land Management Agencies then we’re just being lead around on the word of renegade law enforcement departments. They’re out of control and the harm they do is their Holy War.
In the end we’ll have no alternative but to fight to protect ourselves and what’s truly right. Don’t think we won’t, America is built with blood and is maintained with the blood of all kinds of wars. This whole marijuana issue is well on it’s way to being a predictable time bomb in itself for many geographic areas like California, Colorado and New Mexico. Who’s next?
Wow you owned that guy.
Holy Smokes! Can you say SPANK! Spank the Money!
Rev.sLeezy
Great response, reads well.
Barack Obama chastised Wall Street as not having adult supervision. Where is the adult supervision on this issue? Clearly the people with the power only make the problem worse due to their method of “fixing” it.
Apparently they subscribe to the Zimbabwe School of Economics. “The people do not have enough money to buy food.” “Then just print more.”
“The cost of food is rising.” “No problem, just print more money.”
“The cost of food is rising.” “No problem, just print more money.”
“The cost of food is rising.” “No problem, just print more money.”
Since Bruce Ross agrees that the problem would largely disappear if weed was legalized, I think this is a pretty limited disagreement, especially after he backed off on the dishonest charge.
Who cares where the pressure for federal money originally came from and what does that have to do with how the sheriff fights his budget woes?
Problem: Illegal grows on public lands.
1. Eradication has failed
2. Try something else !
Federal policies that promote failed strategies need to be changed, not argued about. The most useless argument has got to be why they were implemented in the first place.
600,000 plants in a single county per year. Now, imagine if every county in the US had this many illegal grows going on. Also, imagine how impossible it would be to do anything about it if they were all seeded crops. Just remember, don’t smoke it unless it’s seeded. Seeded crops are the only way to truly overgrow the vote.
Oh yeah, great article. Isn’t it amazing how easy it is to destroy those prohibitionists whenever they choose to rear their ugly, ignorant heads in debate? And yet, our government chooses to have such an obviously tyrannical representative in these areas of our government. Not a mistake, just the true face of government.
Well done Mike.
I bet someone could do some quick math with the budget numbers and the rate of increase, per year, of the number of plants seized….. come up with the theoretical amount of money that would mathematically achieve “complete eradication”….. how far is the exponential increase in plants out-pacing the increase in budget numbers allocated?
I bet it’s a pretty big number. Extrapolated out across 50 states… might be able to show how rediculously impossible it would be to pay out enough money to make an appreciable difference. Why waste a dollar if billions isn’t enough?
I cant wait to shake you hand someday for all your hard work. You da man Mike!
Let me know when you stop in Iowa
Please CALIFORNIA, legalize IT and FORCE the debate! C’mon, you can do it!
600000 shitty pot plants flooding the market
I wonder what impact legalization would have on the tourism industry in California. I’m going.
Holy Smokes. Let’s import tons of Hemp seed and throw it all around and let it grow. City Hall, Police Stations, Parks, along the roadside. Anywhere a weed may take hold a grow. That would F*^K with their minds. (not that I want non-native plants growing in the eco-system).
Stickin’ to the Man. One person at a time.
Remember kids, as the bumper sticker said, “Question Authority.”
Rev.sLeezy
The Universal Life Church of the Holy Smokes
Potland, OR
Leave a Comment