California's Annual Fiasco Resumes; One Dead Already

California's annual exercise in futility known as the Campaign Against Marijuana Planting -- a marijuana "eradication" program that regularly announces record plant seizures without having any discernible effect on the state's marijuana supply -- has begun for another year. According to news reports today, at least one man is already dead in a CAMP raid.

The circumstances of the shooting remain unclear, so it's possible the dead man fired first. Clearly, there are some unsavory characters involved in marijuana production. But California is a major producer of another psychoactive drug that's much more likely to induce violence and aggression -- a drug known as "wine" -- and yet this industry seems to have no such problems. If California regulated its marijuana industry as it regulated its wine industry, the problems associated with marijuana cultivation would vanish.

Last year, MPP sent a letter to California Attorney General Jerry Brown, who oversees CAMP, asking him to provide evidence that CAMP has reduced the state's marijuana supply, cut teenagers' access to marijuana, reduced the involvement of criminal gangs in marijuana production, or curbed environmental damage caused by marijuana production. Brown did not reply.