To view something awesomely strange...
On 17 August 2004 CNN waxed indignant about Washington State schoolchildren being informally employed to Officially haul incredible tonnages of BC Bud and hydroponic Northern Lights to desperate US consumers, in their book bags. Is making a fat bundle of folding green off the books better than a newspaper route? Is it better than risking sexually transmitted diseases and pimps? Is it better than being a programmer outsourced to India? Moving Canukistani boo to Washington State is like earning your present salary but not also simultaneously supporting a ravenous clan of slum bunnies plus a geriatric ward by order of jackbooted State compassion and 15 April.
The Official Truth: 880 to 2,200 tons of marijuana/year are grown in Canada. 90% of the crop ends up in the US as 5% of US pot overall. Official street value ranges from $5 billion to $25 billion for a $3000-$10,000/lb price. BC Bud (or Northern Lights hydroponic boo from Victoria, BC) is 25 wt-% /_\-9-THC versus 0.2-0.5 wt-% for Michigan ditchweed in the 1960s.
Running the extrema gives $1263-$15,822/lb. The middle ground seems reasonable. Call it 90% of 1500 tons of boo at $6000/lb or $16.2 billion dollars in American street trade. There are 290 million US residents. Every man, woman, and child then spends $55.86/year for pot, or a few bucks/week for real users. It seems reasonable.
No, it does not seem reasonable. Canukistani boo is Officially 5% of US marijuana trade. Does a family of four typically spend $4469/year on pot? Does the US as a whole spend $324 billion/year on pot? The entire annual planetary trade in illicit recreational pharmaceuticals is United Nations' estimated to be $400 billion/year. US auto exports are $270 billion/year. In 2004 US imported 11.5 million bbl of petroleum/day at $40/bbl or $168 billion/year of oil.
The Office of National Drug Control Policy says Americans in 2000 spent $64 billion buying recreational pharmaceuticals:
$34 billion/cocaine
$12 billion/marijuana
$10 billion/heroin
$ 5 billion/methamphetamine
$ 3 billion/hallucinogens, depressants, and miscellaneous.
----------
$49 billion/gasoline
$ 3 billion/Prozac
$ 2 billion/Viagra
$ 1 billion/acetaminophen
Acetaminophen (Tylenol) elicits more than 100,000 calls/year to Poison Control Centers, 56,000 emergency room visits/year, 2600 hospitalizations/year, and at least 458 deaths/year due to acute liver failure. Marijuana fuels unbridled junk food purchases.
Methamphetamine is as popular as being chemically happified, stiffied, and relieved of muscle aches and pains all taken together. Kick in a purely huge number of juvenile prescriptions for Adderall and that is an awful lot of speed being smoked, snorted, and swallowed.
The Officially proffered numbers for Canadian marijuana trafficking are fairy dust. The most popular ethical pharmaceuticals are pixies compared to recreational pharmaceuticals. The Drug Enforcement Agency spends approximately $500,000 to identify, capture, and imprison one druggie. The 2002 War on Drugs admitted budget was $17.6 billion. The National Science Foundation, supporting all physical science research in the United States, got $4.7 billion - and the NSF had to keep records.
Federal education subsidy of the Gifted in 2002 was $11.25 million (with an "m" and including everything - just over $3.75/kid-year). Federal 2002 education subsidy of cripples, idiots, and illegal aliens: $1855 million, which does not include permanent programs like Project Head Start ($1200 million), Title One ($1500 million)... It is a toxic culture of fools and madmen. An advocate makes virtue of failure. The worse the cure the better the treatment - and the more that is required. Republicans steal from what you have, Democrats steal from what you might have. The difference is hunger versus famine. Kill an economy and the entire population surrenders. Vote for Kerry! Pull America's plug and have done with it.
Have you used an airport recently, you CRIMINAL! Look up that constitutional bit in the Bill of Rights about illegal search and seizure, court-ordered search warrants limiting the scope and range of police inquiry, and other suspended inconveniences. Do not buy your prescription pharmaceuticals in Mexico at Mexican prices, for you will be arrested. Do not buy your prescription pharmaceuticals in Canada at Canadian prices, for you will be arrested. You are paying $3.50/gallon to Halliburton so Iraqis can purchase gasoline for $0.30/gallon. Sucker.
If you decided to wholesale merchandise contraband, steal identities, perpetrate Internet fraud by phishing, output a billion e-mail spams/day... or spend $25 million plus shipping ($40/gram on the Space Scuttle, if and when) on a viewing dome for International Space Station Freedom FUBAR Space Hole One Alpha, all that is A-OK. You are part of the system. Law enforcement is retail trade only.
49.9 million hectares of land in British Columbia, Canuckistan are considered productive forest land. In 2000, the timber harvest clearcutting square miles of trees down to mud was 77.0 million cubic meters for a total of $16.3 billion in wood, pulp, and paper products. Hydroponic Northern Lights boo was $3.2 billion in exports, grown on an Officially total acreage of zero - in closets with grow lights. How do you think the Warlette on Drugs and the War on Citizenry will progress?
To return to Uncle Al Outrage Central, click here
To view something awesomely strange...