Autumn 2005. Attorney General Bill Lockyer announced that the 2005 Campaign
Against Marijuana Planting (CAMP) program eradicated a new all-time record
of 1,134,692 plants in California (AG's
release). This yearıs total
far exceeds last yearıs record of 621,315 plants.
Officials
estimated the value of the destroyed crop at $4.5 billion, or $4000 per plant.
This corresponds to about one pound net yield per plant at current
retail prices. (Although it is hard to estimate
average plant yields, one pound seems high under the difficult conditions
faced by illicit growers, according to cultivation expert Chris Conrad. A more realistic yield might be on the
order of three or four ounces, or $1,000 per plant.) In any case, the total economic losses due to CAMP seem
large enough to qualify as a major economic disaster. California NORML estimates
that a legal marijuana market could yield the state some $1 to $2 billion
per year in tax revenues and cost savings.
Shasta
County recorded the most plants seized with 214,319, followed by Lake County
with 133,441 and Tulare County with 133,038. Only 10% of this yearıs take came from the ³Emerald Triangle²
counties of Mendocino, Humboldt and Trinity. Experienced growers there have increasingly
turned toward indoor gardens, which lie largely outside CAMP surveillance.
CAMP
officials say they have seen a "lot of movement to broad expanses of
public lands." They point to an
epidemic of large-scale plantations with tens of thousands of plants grown
by Mexican workers. Authorities
have repeatedly blamed this on Mexican"cartels." However, California NORML disputes this charge, noting that
the definition of a cartel is a combination of producers who conspire to control
the market. "There's no evidence
that the marijuana market is controlled by an organized crime conspiracy,"
says California NORML coordinator Dale Gieringer, "These are just a bunch
of independent Mexican pot growing outfits competing in the black market."