[The D’Alliance] TV Tip: Marijuana in National Parks! Danger!
The latest episode of Outdoor Investigations on the Outdoor Life Network features a profile of the federal Campaign Against Marijuana Planting (CAMP), a collaborative effort between federal authorities and state and local law enforcement to eradicate marijuana planting on public lands. Having viewed it earlier this week, it is little more than a not-so-sensational call for more funding of an ineffective enterprise. The show’s set up online reads:
The Mexican drug cartels have moved into remote portions of our national parks to grow marijuana crops worth billions of dollars. Sequoia National Park in California is getting hit the hardest, and rangers there have taken on responsibilities of drug enforcement agents. It’s big business with a lot at stake for all sides: billions of dollars in profit for the cartels up against the safety of rangers, park visitors and a precious landscape in danger of being destroyed.
Undoubtedly, the federal government has the authority to exercise dominion over lands that it controls. But the analysis must not end there. The primary shortcoming of the show is that it failed to thoroughly investigate the true nature of circumstances taking place in Northern California’s national parks. In short, the whole scenario is a product of the larger failure of marijuana prohibition. The only tangible “solution” to the exaggerated problems posed by the show — from physical harm to park attendees to environmental damage — was more funding. So it is “case closed” for a tidy TV program that sought principally to heighten public anxiety, embellish the “virtues” of government action, and parade those who receive emoluments for their continued participation.
Were marijuana decriminalized, the reality is that there wouldn’t be any Mexican drug cartel operatives “doing business” in our national parks. Period.
Earlier this month, USA Today ran an article on CAMP, painting a fairly clear and balanced portrait of how it operates and with what results. Seizures are up, but so is production. Overall marijuana prices are down, and potency is up.
As such, he government is failing by its own measures of progress. But the only voices to be heard from official quarters are calls for more funding. Indeed, if there is one function government performs supremely well it is the ability to throw taxpayer money down a black hole without restraint.
Dale Gieringer of California NORML notes the ultimate futility of CAMP, calling for an end to marijuana prohibition (which could bring up to $250 million is sales taxes, by his estimate). Humboldt County Supervisor Roger Rodini, a Republican, calls CAMP “a vast expenditure of public funds that for all practical purposes does no good.”
USA Today subsequently published a letter to the editor from James May, a colleague of mine here in Sacramento. He writes, in part:
CAMP’s $1.1 million annual budget would be better spent on proven demand-reduction measures, such as treatment for those addicted to more dangerous drugs such as heroin.
Rational judgment is needed more than ever to combat a federal government gyrating in the throes of its own “reefer madness.”
I couldn’t have said it better myself…
Posted by Nikos Leverenz.
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