Lanterna Rally

Author: United States. Congress. House. Committee on Government Operations. Government Information, Justice, and Agriculture Subcommittee

Publisher:

Published: 1983

Total Pages: 196

ISBN-13:

Examines "the domestic commercial cultivation and trafficking in high grade marihuana. Unfortunately, many people consider this to be a benign sort of problem--just a few good old boys raising a little pot, sort of like those romantic old bootleggers of the Prohibition days. This lax attitude has caused us to lose any early advantage which we might have gained, because the good old boys commercialized. It is now big business. Time magazine says marihuana is America's fourth largest cash crop, right behind corn, soybeans, and wheat. Our national forests and parks are plagued by illegal marihuana operations; campers and hikers are being routed at gunpoint by these criminals. Plots are often guarded by lethal booby traps. Our forest rangers are threatened in their work. The Drug Enforcement Administration candidly admits that the scope of the problem has caught them unprepared. For example, quoting from DEA's 1982 Domestic Marihuana Eradication/Suppression Program Final Report, they say: One can compare the 1,653 metric tons of domestic marihuana eradicated in 1982 with the top estimate of domestic marihuana production for 1981, i.e., 1,200 metric tons. It can be seen that in 1982, 38 percent more domestic marihuana was eradicated than was previously believed to exist"--Pages 1/2.