Drug Trafficking - Indoor Production.

Cannabis will grow indoors under sufficient light. Controlled conditions can also enhance the potency of the products derived from the plants. According to the DEA, a healthy indoor-grown sinsemilla plant can produce up to a pound of high-THC-content marijuana.

Indoor cultivation permits year-round production in a variety of settings. Growers may cultivate a handful of plants grown in a closet or operate elaborate, specially constructed (sometimes underground) greenhouses where thousands of plants grow under intense electric lighting or in sunlight. Indoor cultivators often use such advanced growing practices as hydroponics, in which light, water, and fertilizers are automatically adjusted; the atmosphere may also be enriched with carbon dioxide.

Domestic Marijuana Eradication

The domestic cannabis eradication program accounts for its success by counting plants destroyed rather than hectares sprayed. In 2003 law-enforcement agencies destroyed a total of 247 million plants, including 3.4 million commercial-grade plants cultivated out of doors and 223,183 plants grown indoors. By far the largest category of hemp plant destroyed in 2003 was ditchweed, some 243 million plants, accounting for 98% of all plants eradicated. (See Table 6.13, Table 6.14, and Table 6.15.)

The Domestic Cannabis Eradication and Suppression Program is sponsored by the DEA and involves a number of federal, state, and local organizations that cooperate in destroying marijuana plants on both private and public lands. Among these are the Civil Air Patrol, the National Guard, the U.S. military, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the National Park Service, and the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

Marijuana Seizures

In 2002 the DEA seized 195,644 kilograms of marijuana, some 76,000 kilograms less than the year before. The history of DEA marijuana seizures from 1986 through 2002 is shown in Table 6.16. In 1986, 599,166 kilograms were seized, followed the year after by a record in this sixteen-year period, 629,892 kilograms. Seizures then began to drop to the low in this FIGURE 6.6
Outdoor cannabis cultivation areas
SOURCE: "Figure 10. Outdoor Cannabis Cultivation Areas," in National Drug Threat Assessment 2004, National Drug Intelligence Center, April 2004, http://www.usdoj.gov/ndic/pubs8/8731/index.htm (accessed March 1, 2005) period of 98,601 kilograms in 1991. A smaller secondary peak came in 1999 with the DEA seizing 337,832 kilograms. The overall trend in this period is down. The overall pattern of seizures, however, reflects past-month marijuana usage by the population as shown in Chapter 3. The more people who use the substance, the more of it is seized.