U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency Silliness Continued: Ditchweed Eradication
During WWII, farmers in the U.S. were encouraged to grow hemp for fibre to help in the war effort. Since then, Feral hemp or "Ditchweed" grows wild across the country. Although I'm sure many have tried, you will not get high from Ditchweed, given that it contains only trace amounts of THC. Since the 1970s, an annual sporting event, otherwise known as the Domestic Cannabis Eradication Suppression Program" (or "DCE/SP"), begins in early Summer. Typically, interns are coupled with (underutilized) police officers and embark on an epic summer experience. In the case of Indiana in 2001, it used it's share of the DEA funds to "employ a state trooper, a local farmer, and a crew of college students to patrol the fields of Nothwest Indiana." In 1998, the Vermont State Auditor reported that 99 percent of the plants "seized" as part of the DEA's nationwide eradication program were Ditchweed.
The program encourages participants to actively seek out Ditchweed along with illegally cultivated Cannabis. At the end of each year, the number or seized plants are dutifully reported by the participating states to the DEA. In Table 4.38 of the current DEA Sourcebook, it states that in 2003 some 243,430,664 Ditchweed plants were "seized", whereas in that same year 3,427,923 "cultivated" plants were seized. I'll do the math for you...that's a 1.39 percent success rate.
But wait, it gets even sillier...because a footnote next to "cultivated" caught my eye. The footnote reads: "May include tended ditchweed". In other words, let's say the DEA encroaches Native American lands and destroys fields of cultivated Ditchweed, then that counts too! I was unable to find the amount of money spent by the DEA on Domestic Cannabis Eradication Suppression Program in 2003, but in 2001 it spent 13 million dollars. Now isn't that silly?