[Editor’s note: This post is excerpted from this week’s forthcoming NORML weekly media advisory. To have NORML’s news alerts and legislative advisories delivered straight to your in-box, sign up here.]
Total seizures of cultivated cannabis plants fell an estimated 35 percent between the years 2010 and 2011, according to statistics provided by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and published in the Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics.
Data for the year 2011 indicates that some 6.7 million cannabis plants were eradicated nationwide under the DEA’s Domestic Cannabis Eradication/Suppression Program, which is active in all 50 states. This figure represents the lowest total of cultivated plants eradicated since 2006, and is a 35 percent decrease from 2010, when the DEA reported eradicating some 10.3 million marijuana plants.
The year-to-year drop was largely a result of a decline in the total number of plants eradicated in California. In 2010, the DEA reported eradicating some 7.4 million plants in California. That number fell to just under 4 million plants in 2011.
Overall, approximately 60 percent of all of the marijuana plants eradicated in the United States in 2011 were from California plots.
The DEA further reported having seized over $11 million in assets associated with its eradication efforts in California. Nationwide, the agency reported seizing over $42 million in assets associated with its Domestic Cannabis Eradication/Suppression Program.
According to a July 2012 Government Accountability Office (GAO) report, the Justice Department’s asset forfeiture fund under President Barack Obama is the largest on record, having grown from $500 million in 2003, to $1.8 billion in 2011. According to the GAO, the fund paid out approximately $79 million to California law enforcement agencies, the most in the nation, for their participation in federal raids and seizures.
In recent months, the Justice Department has targeted numerous properties in California for civil asset forfeiture – including Harborside Health Center, the largest and most prominent medical marijuana dispensary in the state.
Year-to-year cannabis eradication data is available from the Sourcebook here.
Wow how can the feds use state police to inforce a fed law and go againt the states laws. Seems so twisted.
One might infer that the recent emphasis on medical marijuana is part of a strategy to fund the drug war in the face of coming budget constraints forced by the weak economy.
It’s not good enough, it needs to be DOWN 100%
79 million dollars to raid and seize a plant in America? How much do we owe China??? I dont understand this government…….
We have to reschedule marijuana at the Federal level, that’s the only solution that will have any longstanding impact (speaking as someone who lives in California and is a Prop 215 patient). Please join in our discussion: http://weedist.com & join the Facebook Cannabis Voting Bloc: http://www.facebook.com/groups/406405062739233/
One more step to a fascist state. The last step is coming up fast
Sounds like an increase change in the DEA’s policy from weed pulling and social intimidation to hard core looting.
This isn’t hopeless. It IS possible for us to legalize weed. Now like more than 50% of the nation wants it legal. That’s progress. There’s more drugs now and better drugs than when the war started. By God, you can’t keep a good thing down. Look at gays in the military. That just changed. Keep it up. We CAN and WILL win.
$79 Mill, Looks like the Fed`s are paying that as a bribe to the State & Local Police for their help to subvert the will of the voters, What`s next? Pay the Military soldiers bribes to round up citizens that vote against Fascist laws and place them in concentration camps? Who the hell Re-Incarnated Adolph Hitler? Our Government is completely corrupt!
Great so the federal government can just offer state police millions of dollars to help federal police raid patients and med shops.
and p.s. to Don. Our lovely government has already started to restart its japanese camps from WW2 and restocking them with shinny new bracelets for people who dont agree with them.
Let’s not get too worked up over when we’ll become a true fascist state. According to the definition, where the State owns all property and gives the illusion of ownership: that’s Fascism. We have that already. We’re lucky that the President has to be re-elected every 4 years; it cuts down the likelihood of getting a dictator in the process.
It’s already here. Most Americans are either blissfully unaware or apathetic. Me, I’m just not the guy with the guns. They are. I’m not picking ANY fights with them.
Someone educate me here…
How much taxpayer $$ are they spending on this eradication program to make a measly $42 million off cannabis in 2010-11?
Don, after the mafia was dealt a series of dismanlting blows by the feds; I suspect a lot of the kids coming up who might have joined the mob instead joined the Democrats and Republicans. They still think crooked.
Those responsible for gross human rights violations in direct contradiction of freedom and liberty expressly guaranteed in the Constitution of the United States, must be held accountable. Also, full “war” repairations must be paid to all those injured in the un-Godly “war” on drugs. Considering what some true American patriots have paid for freedom and liberty, it is amazing how American citizens continue to allow themselves to be enslaved, robbed, manipulated and exploited. There was a time when there was no illegal drug use in this country. Our current national drug strategy has done nothing but make things much worse in many ways, at a cost this country can not afford to continue to pay.
As an Californian and a Citizen of the U.S., I feel it is impractical to spend millions of dollars on eradicating Marijuana. Marijuana is not the problem, it is society. Millions of tax collected dollars that are being spent to eliminate marijuana; when there are many more millions of dollars that can be earned. It is obvious that it is just as/or more popular than alcohol and much worse when it comes to criminal activities (i.e. fights, domestic violence, DUI’s, and not to mention the environmental impact of sparing cans and bottles for better use. As a U.S. Citizen, I want a government that recognizes the views of which whom they represent and allow for Marijuana to be capitalized, so that the liberties and oppression of the U.S. citizens may be no longer.
Timely discussion , I loved the points ! Does anyone know where my assistant could possibly grab a sample CA PLD-PI-001(1) example to edit ?