Why are politicians so short-sighted to keep our number 1 cash crop illegal?
Back in the late ’80s, early ’90s, farmers in California were under the biggest financial cloud since the Great Depression. The pressure eased slightly through the late ’90s and early 2000s, but of course, it has resumed with a vengeance with the current Bush-Obama financial crisis. I remember in ’89? ’90? ’91? — sometime around then — seeing an SF Chronicle headline about California’s farm troubles, and ONLY TWO COLUMNS OVER ON THE SAME PAGE there was an article about the drug trade, where they admitted that if police claims about the value of JUST seized marijuana was true, it was the state’s number one cash crop. I remember saying to someone, “Look at this. What kind of idiots enforce bans on a state’s number one cash crop in the middle of a farm crisis?” The answer today is the same as it was then. The answer is, of course, is that our political rulers are NOT (just) bumbling idiots. There is a multi-billion-dollar industry based on surveillance, prosecution, and imprisoning peop
