Central planning and the eradication of ditch weed

Michael at Vice Squad has an interesting post up on the theme of over-valuation of eradicated cannabis plants. His hometown paper reports Indiana authorities uprooted 21 million plants. The trouble is only just over 31 thousand were of cultivated quality. The other 20 million plus were rope-quality ditchweed that grows wild all over the mid-west having escaped from the great hemp fields that used to provide fiber for ropemaking. Let me remind you that ditchweed will not get you high and the prohibition profiteers only eradicate it to create a facade of success with inflated and meaningless numbers of "busted" plants.

Here's the money quote:

Indiana's program, of course, represents only a relatively small part of the nationwide DEA efforts to eradicate marijuana. According to the same article, the cost of the federal program was $13.5 billion in 2002 alone. That resulted in the seizure of about 300 million plants, 98% of which grow wild and are very low grade.

That's a lot of your tax dollars devoted to sending in law enforcement officers to eradicate essentially useless weeds. Somehow I think they could have sent in a regular highway maintenance crew with a weed whacker for a lot less.