Hemp: DEA Has Spent $175 Million Eradicating "Ditch Weed" Plants That Don't Get You High
In the past two decades, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) has spent at least $175 million in direct spending and grants to the states to eradicate feral hemp plants, popularly known as "ditch weed." The plants, the hardy descendants of hemp plants grown by farmers at the federal government's request during World War II, do not contain enough THC, the primary psychoactive ingredient in marijuana, to get people high.
chart by Jon Gettman for Vote Hemp
While the DEA is spending millions of tax payer dollars, including $11 million in 2005, to wipe out hemp plants, farmers in Canada and European countries are making millions growing hemp for use in a wide variety of food, clothing, and other products. Manufacturers of hemp products in the United States must import their hemp from countries with more enlightened policies.
chart by Jon Gettman for Vote Hemp
DEA officials regularly argue that there is no difference between hemp and marijuana, but their own statistics belie that claim. In its reports on the domestic eradication program, the agency clearly differentiates between ditch weed and "cultivated marijuana."
Not only is the ditch weed eradication program a waste of money, it may even be counterproductive, said Vote Hemp national outreach coordinator Tom Murphy. "Much of the ditch weed eradicated is believed to be burned, turning a carbon consuming plant into a contributor of Greenhouse gasses," said Murphy in a post-Christmas press release. "For all the effort to find and destroy these harmless wild hemp plants they are coming back year after year. It is likely that the eradication programs help re-seed the locations were ditch weed is found. The late summer timing and removal method causes countless ripe seeds to fall to the ground where they will sprout again the following year."
Your tax dollars at work.
digg
redditsokeing weed
Comment posted by Anonymous on Sun, 01/07/2007 - 3:26pmMarijunua is the best then out thee for us people to smoke , But people make it to big of a deal when it comes to Mariojunua if people can use it for medacel use's only well life is pertty stressing and people out in the world are depressed and manicdepressence so what about those people ?.. so get onit we need it lehalized Now...........
damn dude, you're stupid
Comment posted by Anonymous on Mon, 01/08/2007 - 2:28am"Marijunua is the best then out thee for us people to smoke , But people make it to big of a deal when it comes to Mariojunua if people can use it for medacel use's only well life is pertty stressing and people out in the world are depressed and manicdepressence so what about those people ?.. so get onit we need it lehalized Now..........."
I love pot, but I think you are sniffing gas or something.
RE: "sniffing gas"
Comment posted by Anonymous on Sun, 06/10/2007 - 9:30pmThats one of the things I used to do (gas) and it's pretty stupid, but he must have been drunk or homeless or maybe smoked salvia or something....
Free Weed In Kansas
Comment posted by Anonymous on Mon, 01/08/2007 - 11:04amHeard about pot growing free in Kansas when I was a hippie kid. Drove all the way up from Texas and actually found a big patch near some railroad tracks. In less than two hours we cut enough to stuff the trunk of my Chevy Impala. When we got back to Texas and dried it out, we couldn't get $10 a pound for it. Like most everything else the DEA says about pot, the ditch weed is worthless as a psychoactive agent. Now I smoke KB that I can't get a joint of for $10.
Fort Riley Green
Comment posted by Anonymous on Wed, 01/10/2007 - 2:27amNot from the mid west but always heard (about feral hemp) "you have to smoke a shoebox full just to get a headache".
Not True-while performing some contract work at the above referenced military installation some of that feral hemp got mysteriously stuck in the fender of a competitors vehicle who happened to be staying at the same hotel as our crew.
Not wanting to see them get in any trouble we removed it-good eye!- and proceeded to "destroy" it in the hotel room microwave ovens.This wasn't leaf but mature seeded buds.Somehow the leaf and most stems "fell off" the plant before it got stuck to their vehicle.After careful microwaving failed to destroy the noxious weed we resorted to burning it in rolled torn pages from the gideon bibles in the nightstand.As it didn't burn too well we pulled air through the rolled tubes in an effort to provide adequate oxygen to the combustion process.Thankfully,this destroyed the illegal substance although the process did take several hours.
Long story short,I've paid for worse.We got high as a motherfucker.Everyone involved had much prior "youthful indiscretion"
and all agreed that while of inferior quality-sometimes quantity IS quality.Reasonably smooth and deceptively tasty- big Rasta style spliffs did the trick.All in all a quality smoking experience.I would say destroying such feral plant is a waste of the taxpayers dollar though.It would only have significant market value in a "drought".
Does get you high though-very high if you don't have anything else and you smoke enough of it.
SOME IS AND SOME AIN'T
Comment posted by Anonymous on Sun, 02/11/2007 - 2:46amI've stumbled into "wild"patches of track weed off the beaten path. It might have been somebody's garden of cloned female indica plants that were by chance polinated by rogue males and voluntarily seeded the following year. At any rate some of these finds have been better gauge than pinch bags copped for $5 a gram. I knew a fellow who spent a week and a couple hundred bucks worth of chemicals to extract about enough "hash oil" to get a fly hi. This was from roughly 200 lbs of green loco-weed. Sad state of affairs when a person has to go to such measures to have a little europhia...
Good on ya DWC! My check is in the mail.
Uncle Buster
Weed
Comment posted by Anonymous on Tue, 04/17/2007 - 5:41amWeed gets me high and i like the fealing.So thusforth bringing me to my point..Legalize this shit duuuude..
sticking it to them
Comment posted by Anonymous on Tue, 05/01/2007 - 7:14pmwhy not stick it to them come up with a beautiful unstopable hybrid
losers will give them fight that they cant win RUDERALIS of siberia
american ditch weed hybrid then will work on the thc levels i dont even
smoke but most of america does for the people by the people
im just talking out my ass i dont know if its possible but if it is
maybe thats why they 're tying to get rid of it
I live in kansas and around
Comment posted by Anonymous on Mon, 09/03/2007 - 12:00pmI live in kansas and around here there is ditch weed. Some of it isnt worth messing with and some of it will bud up real big and have white hairs (flowers) and have visible cannaboid crystals. and if dried and cured properly is just as good as some regular stuff you get off the streets.
welove to get high and smoke
Comment posted by Anonymous on Sun, 12/02/2007 - 9:13pmwelove to get high and smoke weed
crack
Comment posted by Anonymous on Tue, 02/12/2008 - 7:00pmlets all buck on the system and become crackheads.
CRACK IS BACK.
btter app(roach)
Comment posted by Anonymous on Thu, 02/28/2008 - 11:06ami think w all nd to recognise it as an illigal substance befor the DEA calm down about it. im all for th legalisation of weed but thrs a right and wrong way to go about it
ditch weed is wisconsin
Comment posted by Anonymous on Mon, 06/16/2008 - 12:23amGO ME HIGH AS FUCK I HAD A SHIT LOAD AND SOLD IT FOR 20 A G.. IT WAS SOME FLAME ASS DANK.. JUST MAKE SURE YOU GET THERE B4 THE MALES TAKE OVER
saw it happen
Comment posted by Anonymous on Sat, 01/06/2007 - 11:40pmI first saw this when I was 13-14 and the DEA came to my Dad's pasture to eradicate a half-acre hemp patch. I don't know if he called them or what. There were 3 or 4 uniformed agents who spent half a day there. These guys were not getting minimum wage by any means. I remember even then wondering what that would cost and why they would bother. The patch was maybe 1/3 smaller the next year and it is still there today.