How Farmers Could Win the Drug War

Marijuana is too expensive. An acre of mellow sublimity could run you $300,000 wholesale; a reflection of inadequate production and transport difficulties. If the government was serious about reducing the profit incentive for criminal agrarians, they would do two things: 1) legalize pot production, sale, and consumption; 2) hand oversight of all marijuana production programs to the the Dept. of Agriculture.

Here's how it would play out. It would take a couple of years to ramp up production, so the farmers who get in on it early would realize terrific profits; but we soon would develop new equipment making large-scale production possible. The next thing we know, we're seeing semi-loads of 1 ton dope bales being hauled from farm to market. Within 5 years, wholesale prices would drop below the cost of production (app. $200/ton), and the next farm bill would include price floors and a govn't buyout provision for surplus production. This surplus could then be included in our foreign aid packages thereby solving our popularity problems in the third-world.

It's sad that we won't look at ways to effectively use government ineptitude for good.