Inside Mexico's Drug Tunnels

David Maung / AP

Entrance
Since 2001, US law enforcement has discovered more than 100 tunnels along the border with Mexico.

Click here to see the full gallery: Inside Mexico's Drug Tunnels

Forget Taxing Marijuana; The Real Money's In Cocaine

From: http://www.npr.org/

Different strains of medical marijuana at Coffeeshop Blue Sky in Oakland, California. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

By Jacob Goldstein

A Harvard economist has estimated how much money states would raise by legalizing and taxing marijuana and cocaine.

In a podcast a while back, Harvard's Jeffrey Miron told us that his estimates for what California would bring in from taxing marijuana are much smaller than some of the numbers that are floating around out there (including a $1.4 billion estimate from state officials).

Since that interview, Miron has come out with a paper estimating, among other things, potential tax revenues from cocaine and marijuana.

It turns out the big tax money is in cocaine.

Sure, legalizing marijuana is highly unlikely and legalizing cocaine isn't even on the table in mainstream politics. Still, it's interesting to know what the numbers would be -- particularly when they're coming from a Harvard economist.

Here's a table that shows Miron's estimates for the annual tax revenues each state would get from marijuana and cocaine. (The figures are in millions; for more details, see the explanation and links after the table.)

State	Marijuana	Cocaine
Alabama	25.59	80.54
Alaska	6.53	16.28
Arizona	41.91	177.67
Arkansas	19.87	54.49
California	201.74	767.73
Colorado	46.97	133.74
Connecticut	22.57	72.53
Delaware	6.07	18.76
Florida	142.05	362.34
Georgia	86.75	213.96
Hawaii	10.09	21.59
Idaho	11.73	22.66
Illinois	83.98	263.93
Indiana	43.44	120.04
Iowa	18.72	45.94
Kansas	16.69	53.95
Kentucky	28.05	77.79
Louisiana	30.02	97.43
Maine	6.64	25.46
Maryland	37.68	113.79
Massachusetts	44.94	167
Michigan	69.04	174.55
Minnesota	45.43	102.31
Mississippi	19.67	41.17
Missouri	54.99	111.28
Montana	7.94	19.29
Nebraska	13.87	29.13
Nevada	13.97	53.19
New Hampshire	9.03	29.18
New Jersey	74.6	140.31
New Mexico	11.92	47.42
New York	136.81	464.05
North Carolina	87.88	191.04
North Dakota	4.02	9.54
Ohio	88.7	248.79
Oklahoma	29.23	58.23
Oregon	24.09	76.88
Pennsylvania	73.73	211.85
Rhode Island	7.75	37.12
South Carolina	26.29	79.71
South Dakota	7.28	11.96
Tennessee	39.94	146.9
Texas	270.39	483.02
Utah	16.34	53.16
Vermont	3.67	15.86
Virginia	53.35	175.63
Washington	35.76	143.55
West Virginia	8.97	36.65
Wisconsin	61.12	114.16
Wyoming	3.72	11.26
DC	4.82	25.94
Total	2,138.47	6,234.11

On top of state revenues, Miron estimates that a federal taxes would amount to $4.28 billion for marijuana and $12.47 billion for cocaine.

Miron figures taxes on the drugs would be comparable to taxes on alcohol and tobacco. His estimates for how many people in each state use marijuana and cocaine are based on a government survey. (He notes that the number of users would likely rise if the drugs were legalized, but his estimates don't account for this.) He estimates that if marijuana and cocaine were legalized, their prices would fall by 50% and 80%, respectively. The research was funded by the Criminal Justice Policy Foundation; here's the foundation's take on drug policy.

categories: Drugs

Marijuana found in another national park

ASSOCIATED PRESS Ash Mountain Helitack Supervisor Carrie Vernon attaches hazardous-material equipment to a helicopter for pesticide removal at a marijuana-growing site near Crystal Cave at Sequoia National Park, Calif. on Thursday.

Ben Conery (Contact)

The Drug Enforcement Administration Friday announced that it found 14,500 marijuana plants growing in a Colorado national park, the latest in a series of such finds in national parks that authorities say are linked to Mexican drug cartels.

Authorities say they have seen an increase in outdoor marijuana operations run by Mexican drug cartels. In the past several months, federal agents have found nearly $55 million worth of pot plants in national parks and on federal lands in California, Colorado and Idaho.

On Thursday, authorities closed a section of Sequoia National Park in California so they could destroy marijuana plants discovered near a cave filled with crystals that is a popular tourist stop. Most of the marijuana already had been harvested. Authorities estimated the plants were worth more than $36 million.

In June, federal authorities seized 2,250 marijuana plants from California's Point Reyes National Seashore and Golden Gate National Recreational Area. That same month, hikers in Idaho found a site with 12,545 pot plants.

In the most recent Colorado case, the marijuana was found in "the remote, rugged terrain" of Pike National Forest, which is about 60 miles southwest of Denver. The DEA said it is the largest outdoor marijuana-growing operation ever found in Colorado, with an estimated value of $5 million.

"The persons who were involved in this criminal activity had no regard for the damage caused to the forest and environment by the waste they left behind," said Jeffrey D. Sweetin, special agent in charge of the DEA's Denver office. "The public's safety is also at risk for those who recreate on our public lands due to these trafficking groups operating there."

Authorities say they learned of the marijuana site from a passer-by. DEA said Mexican migrant workers had been recruited to work at the site and harvest plants, which were between 4 feet and 6 feet high.

Authorities tracked down two men associated with the site and arrested them last week, but have released few details about them, including their names.

Mr. Sweetin said growing marijuana on public land in the United States has become attractive to drug cartels as increased border security has made it more difficult to smuggle large quantities of marijuana into the U.S.

And, he said, outdoor operations can be set up for relatively little money. Typically, the sites are tucked away relatively close to all-terrain-vehicle trails and campsites at the parks.

Stopping the proliferation of these sites has become a priority for the National Park Service, which dedicated $3.3 million this year to stop growers at parks in the West, including Yosemite, Sequoia and Redwood national parks.

"Before this, the [National Park Service] had set aside a modest fund for marijuana interdiction - about $150,000 a year over the past five years - and parks competed for this money," said Jeffrey Olson, a spokesman for the Park Service. "The bulk of it went to the Pacific West Region, where most of the marijuana grow sites have been found."

Authorities are concerned about the legal ramifications of such sites and the environmental consequences, which, they say, are severe.

"The impacts are numerous," said Gill Quintana, head of the U.S. Forest Service's Denver branch.

He said these include "damage to the lands due to clearing the areas to prepare the garden site, trash left behind, chemicals used to grow the crop [seeping] into the watershed, and the public-safety issues associated with the recreating public coming in contact with these organizations while they're operating on our national lands."

Earlier this month, investigators in California said they were looking for marijuana growers tied to a Mexican drug cartel that they suspect of igniting the La Brea fire that charred more than 88,000 acres of the Los Padres National Forest in the remote Santa Barbara County mountains northwest of Los Angeles.

The fire, which erupted Aug. 8, is thought to be the first major wildfire in the state caused by drug traffickers, a U.S. Forest Service spokesman said.

In a statement, the Forest Service said the blaze was sparked by a "cooking fire in a marijuana drug-trafficking operation ... believed to be run by a Mexican national drug organization. ... There is evidence that the unburned marijuana garden area has been occupied within the last several days."

No arrests have been made in that case.