steiny@scc.UUCP (Don Steiny) (11/25/84)
***
From the San Francisco Chronicle, Saturday, November 24, 1984:
*U.S. Raising Pot Traffic Figures*
Washington
Government experts said yesterday they are revising estimates of
the size of U.S. marijuana traffic in view of the record 10,000 tons
sized and destroyed in northern Mexico.
The seizures, made on five farms in an isolated section of
Chihuahua state, suggest a 70 percent increase in estimates that total
U.S. consumption was 13,000 to 14,000 tons in 1982. Furthermore, the
seizures add up to nearly eight times the 1300 tons that officials
had calculated Mexico produced in 1983.
"When we look at this 10,000 ton bust, the amount is staggering,"
said Jon R. Thomas, assistant secretary of state for international
narcotics matters. "It's so big that we start out self-
congradulating--but when we step back, we see we still don't know
what it means."
He continued, "We don't know how long they've been growing it and
processing and selling it, or how much has been grown."
The gap between official estimates and reality disclosed by the
mexican raids is so great that officials are reviewing data to
determine whether they have seriously understated the extent of
marijuana use in this country. If so, there is intrest in whether the
miscalculation results from failures in the survey techniques the
government uses to determine how much Americans abuse [sic] all drugs.
The data are compiled by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, a
subsidiary of the National Health Service, on the basis of door-to-
door samplings in which people are asked to fill out and mail in
forms.
The last survey, in which 5624 people were questioned, was made
in 1982, Adams said, and its validity was reviewed last year. Another
survey, set for next year, will be based on 8000 interviews, he said,
but results will not become publically available until about six
months after the field work is done.
David Hoover of the Drug Enforcement Administration reported that
marijuana price trends do not suggest oversupply. In 1982, he said,
the DEA reported the street price of Mexican leaf at retail to be $40
to $50 per ounce, and in 1983 at $40 too $60 an ounce retail and $350
to #550 per pound wholesale.
Los Angeles Times
*************
*************
Knock knock .. "Hi, I'm from the DEA .. Do you use drugs?"
"Me? No way man, I get high on Michael Jackson. I don't
use drugs and noone I know or have ever known uses drugs."
No wonder their estimates are off!! What is mind blowing
is that they think they will get a more accurate picture by scaring
8000 people than they do scaring 5624!
According to the WSJ, since Reagan declared the latest
war on drugs the wholesale price of cocaine has dropped to half
of what it was. In short, the war is being seriously lost.
The state of California makes ridiculous claims about its
CAMP campaign. Their "conservative" estimates that they get
10% of the crop are probably as far off as these figures.
NORMAL thinks they are lucky if they get 2%. Since pot
is the biggest cash crop in California, Hawaii, and possibly
other states, the 10,000 tons from Mexico is probably trivial.
I have not heard of a big drought because of the bust.
What this clearly shows is the fantasy land nature of
the "war on drugs." Reagan is not the first president, nor is
Dukemejian in California the first governor to "declare war
on drugs." It is a bit like the crusades, each crusader
is creamed more throughly than the last. The solution is
to further invade the privacy of individuals, spend enormous
sums of money, alienate the police by forcing them to enforce
senseless laws in the face of rising violence, fill the prisons, and
torture our economy with vast sums flowing in an underground
economy. The war metaphor is carred to bizarre extremes with
para-military teams to raid pot farms, heliocopters, and defoliants.
Yet as the legislators and the police play their little game
they are playing in a fantasyland that has no relationship to
reality.
The most telling point about the article above is that
even if the government were "winning" its "war on drugs" it would
have no way of knowing. The whole thing reminds me a bit
of Werner Erhard's "Hunger Project." We are paying the money
"to focus our attention on the drug problem." There is
absolutely no standard to use to decide if we are successful at it.
They are spending our money on something that we are
never going get any results from. How could they know if
they are getting results?
Tobacco is a drug, and it is a drug with a nasty effect
on health. Its use is going down considerably, even though
it is legal. Cocaine is a drug. It too can have nasty effects
on health. It is illegal, presumably to protect people from its
nasty effects. Its use is going up. In short, education seems
to work, regulation does not.
We are wasting money folks.
--
scc!steiny
Don Steiny - Personetics @ (408) 425-0382
109 Torrey Pine Terr.
Santa Cruz, Calif. 95060
ihnp4!pesnta -\
fortune!idsvax -> scc!steiny
ucbvax!twg -/gino@voder.UUCP (Gino Bloch) (11/26/84)
[no smoking]
> government uses to determine how much Americans abuse [sic] all drugs.
^^^^^
Actually, I've often wondered why we call it `drug abuse' instead of
`self abuse'. Aside from the obvious fact that the term `self abuse' has
been long used for another (quite harmless) activity, I'm serious this time.
--
Gene E. Bloch (...!nsc!voder!gino)