# Pot pondering... **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [October 14, 2005, 12:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pot-pondering/326209 "2005-10-14T12:41:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![ComeToTheDarkSideWeHaveCookies](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e9bcb4/32.png) [@ComeToTheDarkSideWeHaveCookies](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ComeToTheDarkSideWeHaveCookies)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2005, 12:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pot-pondering/326209/1 "2005-10-14T12:41:35Z")
Looks like my “hometown” (more of a region, really) is making the news again. [Drug agents can’t keep up with pot growers](http://news.yahoo.com/s/usatoday/20051013/ts_usatoday/drugagentscantkeepupwithpotgrowers) [Marijuana compound spurs brain cell growth](http://www.forbes.com/lifestyle/health/feeds/hscout/2005/10/13/hscout528519.html) Things that make you go “hmmmmm…” :eek: 😕😉😃 ---
**Author:** ![ComeToTheDarkSideWeHaveCookies](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e9bcb4/32.png) [@ComeToTheDarkSideWeHaveCookies](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ComeToTheDarkSideWeHaveCookies)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2005, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pot-pondering/326209/2 "2005-10-14T19:29:29Z")
Mayhaps a bit early in the day to post this? Here are a few quote nibbles in case the taglines alone (which are verbatim, btw) aren’t enough lure to read the articles. > [@](#): > > In the 2005 growing season, CAMP says it so far has destroyed more plants than ever - 1.1 million worth $4.5 billion on the street, up from 621,000 plants last year. But agents still lost ground to growers. No longer is marijuana cultivation the cottage industry that flourished in the 1960s and '70s after waves of counterculture migrants bought cheap land in the northern California mountains and grew pot for their own use and extra income. > > Mexican criminals using sophisticated methods have spread the marijuana industry across California, traditionally the nation’s main domestic source because of a mild climate and vast stretches of isolated landscape ideal for clandestine growing, say the authorities. > [@](#): > > But CAMP has made little headway penetrating and prosecuting the Mexican hierarchies allegedly behind most of the busted gardens. “They’re similar to al-Qaeda, they’re cells,” says Sgt. James “Rusty” Noe of the Mendocino County sheriff’s office. “We go out and find some guy in the garden and we arrest him, he’s not going to know anything.” > > Since last year, two CAMP investigative teams have concentrated on tracking the Mexican drug bosses, and arrests have been made in Fresno and Redding. Parker says he’ll ask for three more investigative units for 2006. The “al-Queda Mexican Drug Cartel” angle is an interesting twist to the old CAMP party line, and I find it all a bit :dubious:. They’ve been distributing flyers and posters for many years, warning hikers of booby traps and armed gunmen haunting the forest. I can buy the idea that there are migrant farm workers who are willing to take jobs guarding gardens, but Mexican terrorist drug lords reigning over the forested hills of Northern California? Smells a bit like inflated budget rationalization to me, and I’m not alone as far as some local (and signifigantly more conservative) viewpoints go: > [@](#): > > Roger Rodoni is a cattle rancher and registered Republican who has represented a conservative district in Humboldt County - conservative by local standards, anyway - on the board of supervisors since 1997. He calls CAMP “an exercise in futility.” > > “It’s a vast expenditure of public funds that for all practical purposes does no good,” Rodoni, 65, says. Demand for marijuana keeps growing, and CAMP has done little to stem the supply, he says. As evidence he points to a drop in the price of “the quality stuff’” from $6,000 a pound a few years ago to $3,000 today. > > A June report for Taxpayers for Common Sense by Harvard economist Jeffrey Miron found that despite billions of dollars spent on marijuana suppression - nearly $4 billion by the federal government in 2004 alone - usage is about the same as 30 years ago. ---
**Author:** ![marque\_elf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/71c47a/32.png) [@marque\_elf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/marque_elf)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2005, 9:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pot-pondering/326209/3 "2005-10-14T21:28:13Z")
Someone, I’ve got no cite for this, proposed a while back that rather trying to suppress marijuana farmers and consumers form doing what they want to do, it should be legalized and taxed like liquor and tobacco instead. This probably is too logical to a government that thinks in narrow terms of booze=good and pot=bad. Why not convert a losing struggle and a black hole in the federal budget into a revenue generator instead? I’d happily pay taxes to get a readily available supply and some quality control. ---
**Author:** ![AskNott](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asknott/32/5790_2.png) [@AskNott](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AskNott)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2005, 9:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pot-pondering/326209/4 "2005-10-14T21:44:42Z")
I won’t post any direct links, but you know how to tack on dotcom and dotorg, right? NORML and MPP are folks who fight the brainless drug tsar. ---
**Author:** ![Cranky\_Hermit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/13edae/32.png) [@Cranky\_Hermit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cranky_Hermit)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2005, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pot-pondering/326209/5 "2005-10-14T21:48:20Z")
**Marque Elf** , I agree with you. I’ve wondered the same thing for years. We could wipe out the National Debt! ---
**Author:** ![MaxTheVool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc29f/32.png) [@MaxTheVool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaxTheVool)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2005, 10:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pot-pondering/326209/6 "2005-10-14T22:58:01Z")
> [@honeydewgrrl](#): > > Looks like my “hometown” (more of a region, really) is making the news again. Hey… where are you from, specifically? Do you know anyone from Petrolia? ---
**Author:** ![ComeToTheDarkSideWeHaveCookies](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e9bcb4/32.png) [@ComeToTheDarkSideWeHaveCookies](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ComeToTheDarkSideWeHaveCookies)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2005, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pot-pondering/326209/7 "2005-10-14T23:26:55Z")
> [@MaxTheVool](#): > > Hey… where are you from, specifically? Do you know anyone from Petrolia? I’m from near Honeydew, (didn’t see that one coming did you?) which is about 30 miles upriver from Petrolia. I attended elementary school from pre-school through 8th grade in Petrolia, including the 45 minute (one way) bumpy, winding mountain road schoolbus ride. Though I had to “move away” when I was 12 (1987) to go to High School in Ferndale back in the day (there is now a tiny elementary school in Honeydew, as well as a tiny credited High School that serves the greater Mattole Valley), my family all still lives there. So yeah…I, by extension of my mom, brother, and sister-in-law (who works at the Petrolia General Store), know all of the residents of the Petrolia area. All 200 or so of them. 😃 How are you familiar with such an obscure corner of the world, Max? ---
**Author:** ![MaxTheVool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc29f/32.png) [@MaxTheVool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaxTheVool)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2005, 12:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pot-pondering/326209/8 "2005-10-15T00:59:13Z")
> [@honeydewgrrl](#): > > I’m from near Honeydew, (didn’t see that one coming did you?) which is about 30 miles upriver from Petrolia. I attended elementary school from pre-school through 8th grade in Petrolia, including the 45 minute (one way) bumpy, winding mountain road schoolbus ride. Though I had to “move away” when I was 12 (1987) to go to High School in Ferndale back in the day (there is now a tiny elementary school in Honeydew, as well as a tiny credited High School that serves the greater Mattole Valley), my family all still lives there. So yeah…I, by extension of my mom, brother, and sister-in-law (who works at the Petrolia General Store), know all of the residents of the Petrolia area. All 200 or so of them. 😃 > > How are you familiar with such an obscure corner of the world, Max? I’m David Simpson’s first cousin, once removed. I’ve been to Petrolia 5 or 6 times. It’s an amazing place.