The Green Side of the Sub-Prime Meltdown

Equifax recently announced the latest mortgage default levels: a record 2.87% nationally in the first quarter, with deliquency rates up in 44 of 50 states. Yet somehow, I don't think these particular sub-prime borrowers were in any danger of not meeting their mortgage obligations:

California is in the midst of a major boom in large-scale marijuana cultivation operations run from inside homes, with authorities confiscating more than $100 million worth of pot in the last year alone, including in a series of recent raids in the suburbs of Los Angeles.

Officials with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration say the number of indoor marijuana plants seized by federal, state and local authorities in California has quadrupled in just the last three years, from at least 54,000 plants to nearly 200,000 in 2006.

Many of those seizures have occurred in middle-class and upscale suburbs, where the pot growers took advantage of cheap home financing — and minimal credit checks — to purchase homes and remodel them into sophisticated farms, authorities said.

Our government may be engaged in any number of pointless wars at any period in time. Many would argue that Iraq is the most pointless at the moment, though I would argue that distinction should go to the War on Drugs, specifically the war on marijuana. Aside from the billions spent each year trying to eradicate a weed that grows just about anywhere, think of the ecological damage done by growers who have no regard for the land that produces their bounty:

The discovery of 22,740 marijuana plants growing in and around Point Reyes National Seashore last week wasn't only the biggest pot seizure ever made in Marin County. It was an environmental mess that will take several months and tens of thousands of dollars to clean up.

The crops seized on the steep hillsides overlooking Highway 1 were planted by sophisticated growers who cleared vegetation, terraced land, drew water from streams through miles of irrigation hoses and doused acres of land with hundreds of pounds of fertilizer and pesticides.

Such operations are turning up in greater numbers within state and national parks throughout California. Federal officials estimate the state produces half of all the marijuana seized on public lands nationwide.

Officials at Point Reyes National Seashore have only begun to assess the resulting damage to an area that is habitat for the spotted owl, steelhead trout and coho salmon, and they said it could be months before they know the long-term implications for the ecosystem.

The District Attorney of Mendocino County has it right:

The District Attorney has determined that the following guidelines will be used when making a decision to file charges: 1) Each person so qualified will be allowed to cultivate a one-hundred (100) square foot canopy of mature female cannabis plants, regardless of the number of marijuana plants; 2) Each person so qualified will be allowed two pounds of processed marijuana in their possession. Persons exceeding these guidelines will not necessarily be prosecuted but will receive close review.

Legalize it, tax it, and pour the resources into real problems that don't involve what an adult chooses to put into their body by their own free will.