So happy our tax dollars are being put to good use, eradicating a plant that grows in the wild, without human interference, and of no use to anyone wanting to alter their consciousness. Why can't the DEA eradicate poison ivy or hay fever instead?
More than 98 percent of all of the marijuana plants seized by law enforcement in the United States is feral hemp not cultivated cannabis, according to newly released data by the Drug Enforcement Administration's (DEA) Domestic Cannabis Eradication/Suppression Program and the Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics.
According to the data, available online at: http://www.albany.edu/sourcebook/pdf/t4382005.pdf (PDF), of the estimated 223 million marijuana plants destroyed by law enforcement in 2005, approximately 219 million were classified as "ditchweed," a term the agency uses to define "wild, scattered marijuana plants [with] no evidence of planting, fertilizing, or tending." Unlike cultivated marijuana, feral hemp contains virtually no detectable levels of THC, the psychoactive component in cannabis, and does not contribute to the black market marijuana trade.
[snip]
NORML Executive Director Allen St. Pierre criticized the DEA program for spending millions of taxpayers' dollars to predominantly eradicate wild hemp. "The irony, of course, is that industrial hemp is grown legally throughout most the Western world as a commercial crop for its fiber content," he said. "Yet the US government is spending taxpayers' money to target and eradicate this same agricultural commodity."
According to a 2005 Congressional Research Service report, "The United States is the only developed nation in which industrial hemp is not an established crop."
[From 98 Percent Of All Domestically Eradicated Marijuana Is "Ditchweed," DEA Admits - NORML]
Robert McCormick must be turning over in his grave
