HaCKeRz KrOnIcKLeZ 3/HaCKeRz_KrOnIcKLeZ.iso/drugs/atlantic.monthly

Internet Message Format | 1996-05-06 | 65KB

From: [e-mail] (Daniel Davidson)
Newsgroups: alt.drugs
Subject: Reefer Madness: Atlantic Monthly article
Date: 13 Aug 1994 18:06:45 GMT
Message-ID: <32j23l$[e-mail]>




Marijuana has not been de facto legalized, and the war on drugs is not
just about cocaine and heroin. In fact, today, when we don't have enough
jail cells for murderers, rapists, and other violent criminals, there may
be more people in federal and state prisons for marijuana offenses than
at any other time in U.S. history.

Reefer Madness
by Eric Schlosser


In the state of Indiana a person convicted of armed robbery will serve
about five years in prison; someone convicted of rape will serve about
twelve; and a convicted murderer can expect to spend twenty years behind
bars. These figures are actually higher than the figures nationwide:
eight years and eight months in prison is the average punishment for an
American found guilty of murder. The prison terms given by Indiana judges
tend to be long, but with good behavior an inmate will serve no more than
half the nominal sentence. Those facts are worth keeping in mind when
considering the case of Mark Young. At the age of thirty-eight Young was
arrested at his Indianapolis home for brokering the sale of 700 pounds of
marijuana grown on a farm in nearby Morgan County. Young was tried and
convicted under federal law. He had never before been charged with drug
trafficking. He had no history of violent crime. Young's role in the
illegal transaction had been that of a middleman--he never distributed
the drugs; he simply introduced two people hoping to sell a large amount
of marijuana to three people wishing to buy it. The offense occurred a
year and a half prior to his arrest. No confiscated marijuana, money, or
physical evidence of any kind linked Young to the crime. He was convicted
solely on the testimony of co-conspirators who were now cooperating with
the government. On February 8, 1992, Mark Young was sentenced by Judge
Sarah Evans Barker to life imprisonment without possibility of parole.

There was so much talk in the 1970s about the decriminalization of
marijuana, and the smoking of marijuana is so casually taken for granted
in much of our culture, that many people assume that a marijuana offense
these days will rarely lead to a prison term. But in fact there may be
more people in prison today for violating marijuana laws than at any
other time in the nation's history. Calculations based on data provided
by the Bureau of Prisons and the United States Sentencing Commission
suggest that one of every six inmates in the federal prison
system--roughly 15,000 people--has been incarcerated primarily for a
marijuana offense. The number currently being held in state prisons and
local jails is more difficult to estimate; a conservative guess would be
an additional 20,000 to 30,000. And Mark Young's sentence, though
unusual, is by no means unique. A dozen or more marijuana offenders may
now be serving life sentences in federal penitentiaries without hope of
parole; if one includes middle-aged inmates with sentences of twenty or
thirty or forty years, the number condemned to die in prison may reach
into the hundreds. Other inmates--no one knows how many--are serving life
sentences in state correctional facilities across the country for
growing, selling, or even possessing marijuana.

The phrase "war on drugs" evokes images of Colombian cartels and
inner-city crack addicts. In many ways that is a misperception. Marijuana
is and has long been the most widely used illegal drug in the United
States. It is used here more frequently than all other illegal drugs
combined. According to conservative estimates, one third of the American
population over the age of eleven has smoked marijuana at least once.
More than 17 million Americans smoked it in 1992. At least three million
smoke it on a daily basis. Unlike heroin or cocaine, which must be
imported, anywhere from a quarter to half of the marijuana used in this
country is grown here as well. Although popular stereotypes depict
marijuana growers as aging hippies in northern California or Hawaii, the
majority of the marijuana now cultivated in the United States is being
grown in the nation's midsection--a swath running roughly from the
Appalachians west to the Great Plains. Throughout this Marijuana Belt
drug fortunes are being made by farmers who often seem to have stepped
from a page of the old Saturday Evening Post. The value of America's
annual marijuana crop is staggering: plausible estimates start at $4
billion and range up to $24 billion. In 1993 the value of the nation's
largest legal cash crop, corn, was roughly $16 billion.

Marijuana has well-organized supporters who campaign for its legalization
and promote its use through books, magazines, and popular music. They
regard marijuana as not only a benign recreational drug but also a form
of herbal medicine and a product with industrial applications.
Marijuana's opponents are equally passionate and far better organized.
They consider marijuana a dangerous drug--one that harms the user's
mental, physical, and spiritual well-being, promotes irresponsible sexual
behavior, and encourages disrespect for traditional values. At the heart
of the ongoing bitter debate is a hardy weed that can grow wild in all
fifty states. The two sides agree that countless lives have been
destroyed by marijuana, but disagree about what should be blamed: the
plant itself, or the laws forbidding its use.

The war on drugs embraced by President Ronald Reagan began largely as a
campaign against marijuana organized by conservative parents' groups in
the late 1970s. After more than a decade in which penalties for marijuana
offenses had been reduced at both the state and federal levels, the laws
regarding marijuana were made much tougher in the 1980s. More resources
were devoted to their enforcement, and punishments more severe than those
administered during the "reefer madness" of the 1930s became routine. All
the legal tools commonly associated with the fight against heroin and
cocaine trafficking--civil forfeitures, enhanced police search powers,
the broad application of conspiracy laws, a growing reliance on the
testimony of informers, and mechanistic sentencing formulas, such as
mandatory minimums and "three strikes, you're out"--have been employed
against marijuana offenders. The story of how Mark Young got a life
sentence reveals a great deal about the emergence of the American
heartland as the region where a vast amount of the nation's marijuana is
now grown; about the changing composition of the federal prison
population; and about the effects of the war on drugs, a dozen years
after its declaration, throughout America's criminal-justice system.
Underlying Young's tale is a simple question: How does a society come to
punish a person more harshly for selling marijuana than for killing
someone with a gun?

The Plant in Question

"Marijuana" is the Mexican colloquial name for a plant known to botanists
as Cannabis sativa. In various forms it has long been familiar throughout
the world: in Africa as "dagga," in China as "ma," in Northern Europe as
"hemp." Although cannabis most likely originated in the steppes of
central Asia, it now thrives in almost any climate, spreading like
milkweed or thistle, crowding out neighboring grasses and reaching
heights of three to twenty feet at maturity. Marijuana has been
cultivated for at least 5,000 years; it is one of the oldest agricultural
commodities not grown for food. The stalks of the plant contain fibers
that have been woven for millennia to make rope, canvas, and paper.
Cannabis is dioecious, spawning male and female plants in equal
proportion. The flowering buds of the female--and to a lesser extent
those of the male--secrete a sticky yellow resin rich with cannabinoids,
the more than sixty compounds unique to marijuana. Several of them are
psychoactive, most prominently delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC).

Lester Grinspoon, an associate professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical
School, believes that marijuana will someday be hailed as a "miracle
drug," one that is safe, inexpensive, and versatile. In his book
Marihuana, the Forbidden Medicine (1993) Grinspoon provides anecdotal
evidence that smoking marijuana can relieve the nausea associated with
chemotherapy, prevent blindness induced by glaucoma, serve as an appetite
stimulant for AIDS patients, act as an anti-epileptic, ward off asthma
attacks and migraine headaches, alleviate chronic pain, and reduce the
muscle spasticity that accompanies multiple sclerosis, cerebral palsy,
and paraplegia. Other doctors think that Grinspoon is wildly optimistic,
and that no "crude drug" like marijuana--composed of more than 400
chemicals--should be included in the modern pharmacopoeia. They point out
that effective synthetic drugs, of precise dosage and purity, have been
developed for every one of marijuana's potential uses. Dronabinol, a
synthetic form of delta-9-THC, has been available for years, though some
clinical oncologists find it inferior to marijuana as an anti-nausea
agent. There have been remarkably few large-scale studies that might
verify or disprove Grinspoon's claims. Nevertheless, thirty-six states
allow the medicinal use of marijuana, and eight patients are currently
receiving it from the Public Health Service. According to Grinspoon, the
federal government has always been far more interested in establishing
marijuana's harmful effects than in discovering any of its benefits,
while major drug companies have little incentive to fund expensive
research on marijuana. As Grinspoon explains, "You cannot patent this
plant."

The long-term health effects of chronic marijuana use, and marijuana's
role as a "gateway" to the use of other illegal drugs, are issues
surrounded by great controversy. Marijuana does not create a physical
dependence in its users, but it does create a psychological dependence in
some. People who smoke marijuana are far more likely to experiment later
with other psychoactive drugs, but no direct cause-and-effect
relationship has ever been established. Delta-9-THC is highly
lipid-soluble and has a half-life of five days, which means that it
diffuses widely throughout the human body and remains there for quite
some time: an occasional user can fail a urine test three days after
smoking a single joint, and a heavy user may test positive after
abstaining from marijuana for more than a month. Delta-9-THC's
persistence within various cells and vital organs (also a characteristic
of Valium, Thorazine, and quinine) suggests that it could have the
ability to exert subtly harmful effects; few have yet been proved.
Studies of lifelong heavy marijuana users in Jamaica, Greece, and Costa
Rica reveal little psychological or physiological damage. Much more
research, however, needs to be done in the areas of cognition,
reproduction, and immunology. Adolescent users in particular would be at
risk if marijuana were found to have pernicious systemic effects. Some
studies have shown that short-term memory deficiencies in heavy smokers,
though reversible, may endure long after the cessation of marijuana use.
Other studies have demonstrated in vitro and in laboratory animals that
marijuana may have a mild immunosuppressive effect, but no study has
conclusively linked delta-9-THC to immune-system changes in human beings.
Well-publicized horror stories from the 1970s--that marijuana kills brain
cells, damages chromosomes, and prompts men to grow breasts--were based
on faulty research.

Smoking marijuana does seem to damage the pulmonary system, in some of
the ways that inhaling tobacco smoke does. In a study of people who have
smoked four or five joints a day for more than ten years, the physician
Donald P. Tashkin, of the University of California at Los Angeles Medical
Center, has found substantial evidence that marijuana smoke can cause
chronic bronchitis, changes in cells of the central airway which are
potentially pre-cancerous, and an impairment in scavenger-cell function
which could lead to a risk of respiratory infection. A joint seems to
deliver four times as much carcinogenic tar as a tobacco cigarette of the
same size. Tashkin expects that some heavy marijuana users will
eventually suffer cancers of the mouth, throat, and lungs, although none
of his research subjects has yet developed a malignancy. Oddly enough,
the more potent strains of marijuana may prove less dangerous, since less
of them needs to be smoked.

There is much less disagreement about the short-term health effects of
marijuana. According to the physician Leo Hollister, a former president
of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology, who now teaches at
the University of Texas, the occasional use of marijuana by a healthy
adult poses no greater risks than the moderate consumption of alcohol.
For a variety of reasons, however, marijuana should not be smoked by
schizophrenics, pregnant women, and people with heart conditions.
Although the misuse of over-the-counter medications such as aspirin,
acetaminophen, and antihistamines each year kills hundreds of Americans,
not a single death has ever been credibly attributed directly to smoking
or consuming marijuana in the 5,000 years of the plant's recorded use.
Marijuana is one of the few therapeutically active substances known to
man for which there is no well-defined fatal dose. It has been estimated
that a person would have to smoke a hundred pounds of marijuana a minute
for fifteen minutes in order to induce a lethal response.

Criminalized, Decriminalized, Recriminalized

The first American law pertaining to marijuana, passed by the Virginia
Assembly in 1619, required every farmer to grow it. Hemp was deemed not
only a valuable commodity but also a strategic necessity; its fibers were
used to make sails and riggings, and its by-products were transformed
into oakum for the caulking of wooden ships. Virginia, Pennsylvania, and
Maryland eventually allowed hemp to be exchanged as legal tender, in
order to stimulate its production and relieve Colonial money shortages.
Although a number of the Founding Fathers, including George Washington
and Thomas Jefferson, later grew hemp on their estates, there is no
evidence that they were aware of the plant's psychoactive properties. The
domestic production of hemp flourished, especially in Kentucky, until
after the Civil War, when it was replaced by imports from Russia and by
other domestic materials. In the latter half of the nineteenth century
marijuana became a popular ingredient in patent medicines and was sold
openly at pharmacies in one-ounce herbal packages and in alcohol-based
tinctures as a cure for migraines, rheumatism, and insomnia.

The political upheaval in Mexico that culminated in the Revolution of
1910 led to a wave of Mexican immigration to states throughout the
American Southwest. The prejudices and fears that greeted these peasant
immigrants also extended to their traditional means of intoxication:
smoking marijuana. Police officers in Texas claimed that marijuana
incited violent crimes, aroused a "lust for blood," and gave its users
"superhuman strength." Rumors spread that Mexicans were distributing this
"killer weed" to unsuspecting American schoolchildren. Sailors and West
Indian immigrants brought the practice of smoking marijuana to port
cities along the Gulf of Mexico. In New Orleans newspaper articles
associated the drug with African-Americans, jazz musicians, prostitutes,
and underworld whites. "The Marijuana Menace," as sketched by anti-drug
campaigners, was personified by inferior races and social deviants. In
1914 El Paso, Texas, enacted perhaps the first U.S. ordinance banning the
sale or possession of marijuana; by 1931 twenty-nine states had outlawed
marijuana, usually with little fanfare or debate. Amid the rise of
anti-immigrant sentiment fueled by the Great Depression, public officials
from the Southwest and from Louisiana petitioned the Treasury Department
to outlaw marijuana. Their efforts were aided by a lurid propaganda
campaign. "Murder Weed Found Up and Down Coast," one headline warned;
"Deadly Marijuana Dope Plant Ready For Harvest That Means Enslavement of
California Children." Harry J. Anslinger, the commissioner of the Federal
Bureau of Narcotics, at first doubted the seriousness of the problem and
the need for federal legislation, but soon he pursued the goal of a
nationwide marijuana prohibition with enormous gusto. In public
appearances and radio broadcasts Anslinger asserted that the use of this
"evil weed" led to killings, sex crimes, and insanity. He wrote
sensational magazine articles with titles like "Marijuana: Assassin of
Youth." In 1937 Congress passed the Marijuana Tax Act, effectively
criminalizing the possession of marijuana throughout the United States. A
week after it went into effect, a fifty-eight-year-old marijuana dealer
named Samuel R. Caldwell became the first person convicted under the new
statute. Although marijuana offenders had been treated leniently under
state and local laws, Judge J. Foster Symes, of Denver, lectured Caldwell
on the viciousness of marijuana and sentenced him to four hard years at
Leavenworth Penitentiary.

Harry J. Anslinger is a central figure in the history of American drug
policy. He headed the Federal Bureau of Narcotics from its inception
through five presidential Administrations spanning more than three
decades. Anslinger had much in common with his rival, J. Edgar Hoover.
Both were conservative, staunchly anti-communist proponents of law and
order who imbued nascent federal bureaus with their own idiosyncracies.
Anslinger did not believe in a public-health approach to drug addiction;
he dismissed treatment clinics as "morphine feeding stations" and
"barrooms for addicts." In his view, strict enforcement of the law was
the only proper response to illegal drug use; he urged judges to "jail
offenders, then throw away the key." Anslinger's outlook was consistent
with that of most Americans, though his opinions proved more resistant to
new scientific evidence. When the New York Academy of Medicine--after
years of research--issued a report in 1944 concluding that marijuana use
did not cause violent behavior, provoke insanity, lead to addiction, or
promote opiate use, Anslinger angrily dismissed its authors as
"dangerous" and "strange."

America's drug problem often seemed the work of foreign powers: during
the Second World War, Anslinger accused the Japanese of using narcotics
to sap America's will to fight; a few years later he asserted that
Communists were attempting the same ploy. The Boggs Act, passed by
Congress at the height of the McCarthy era, specified the same penalties
for marijuana and heroin offenses--two to five years in prison for
first-time possession. As justification for the long sentences contained
in that act and in the Narcotic Control Act, which followed in 1956,
Anslinger stressed marijuana's crucial role as a "stepping-stone" to
narcotics addiction. Like Hoover, he maintained dossiers on well-known
entertainers whose behavior seemed un-American. Anslinger disliked jazz
and kept a special file, "Marijuana and Musicians," filled with reports
on band members who played with Cab Calloway, Louis Armstrong, Les Brown,
Count Basie, Jimmy Dorsey, and Duke Ellington, among others. For months
Anslinger planned a nationwide roundup of popular musicians--a scheme
that was foiled by the inability of FBN agents to infiltrate the jazz
milieu. Although Anslinger's opposition to drug use was both passionate
and sincere, he made one notable exception. In his memoir, The Murderers,
Anslinger confessed to having arranged a regular supply of morphine for
"one of the most influential members of Congress," who had become an
addict. Anslinger's biographer believes that addict was Senator Joseph R.
McCarthy.

By 1962, when Harry J. Anslinger retired, many states had passed "little
Boggs Acts" with penalties for marijuana possession or sale tougher than
those demanded by federal law. In Louisiana sentences for simple
possession ranged from five to ninety-nine years; in Missouri a second
offense could result in a life sentence; and in Georgia a second
conviction for selling marijuana to minors could bring the death penalty.
As the political climate changed during the 1960s, so did attitudes
toward drug abuse. A series of commissions appointed by Presidents John
F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson repudiated some of the basic assumptions
that had guided marijuana policy for more than fifty years, denying a
direct link between the drug and violent crime or heroin use. As
marijuana use became widespread among white middle-class college
students, there was a reappraisal of marijuana laws that for decades had
imprisoned poor Mexicans and African-Americans without much public
dissent. Drug-abuse policy shifted from a purely criminal-justice
approach to one also motivated by interests of public health, with more
emphasis on treatment than on punishment. In 1970 the Comprehensive Drug
Abuse Prevention and Control Act finally differentiated marijuana from
other narcotics and reduced federal penalties for possession of small
amounts. As directed by Congress, President Richard Nixon appointed a
bipartisan commission to study marijuana. In 1972 the Shafer Commission
issued its report, advocating the decriminalization of marijuana for
personal use--a recommendation that Nixon flatly rejected. Nevertheless,
eleven states, containing a third of the country's population,
decriminalized marijuana in the 1970s, and most other states weakened
their laws against it. President Jimmy Carter endorsed decriminalization,
and it seemed that long prison sentences for marijuana offenders had been
consigned to the nation's past.

But they had not. One of the seminal events in the creation of the modern
American anti-drug movement was a backyard barbecue held in Atlanta,
Georgia, during August of 1976. In the aftermath of their daughter's
birthday party, Ron and Marsha Manatt combed through the wet grass in
their pajamas, at one in the morning, with flashlights, finding dozens of
marijuana roaches, rolling-paper packets, and empty bottles of Mad Dog
20/20 fortified wine discarded by their twelve- and thirteen-year-old
guests. Alarmed by these discoveries, the Manatts gathered local parents
in their living room and formed what was soon known as the Nosy Parents
Association, a group dedicated to preventing teenage drug use. Marsha
Manatt wrote to Robert DuPont, the head of the National Institute on Drug
Abuse; he helped arrange her introduction to Thomas Gleaton, a professor
of health education at Georgia State University. There soon arose the
Parents' Resource Institute for Drug Education and the National
Federation of Parents for Drug-Free Youth, two organizations backed by
top officials at NIDA and the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) which
would exert tremendous influence on the nation's drug policies. Thousands
of other parents' groups soon formed nationwide, and Ross Perot helped
launch the Texans' War on Drugs.

Marijuana use seemed epidemic: a survey in 1976 found that one out of
twelve high school seniors smoked pot on a daily basis. In the 1960s the
youth counterculture had celebrated marijuana's reputation as a drug for
outcasts and freaks. One Yippie leader had confidently predicted that the
slogan of the coming revolution would be "pot, freedom, license." The
conservative parents' groups took such words to heart and similarly
invested marijuana with great meaning. Robert DuPont, who at NIDA had
once supported decriminalization, later decried the "tumultuous change in
values" among the young--their pursuit of pleasure, their lack of
responsibility to society--and argued that "the leading edge of this
cultural change was marijuana use."

The election of Ronald Reagan to the presidency brought the war on drugs
to the White House. In June of 1982 President Reagan signed an executive
order creating a new post in his Administration--head of the White House
Drug Abuse Policy Office--and appointed a chemist, Carlton Turner, to the
job. Turner had for many years directed the Marijuana Research Project at
the University of Mississippi, running the government's only marijuana
farm. Turner believed that marijuana was an extremely dangerous drug--one
that, among other things, might have the power to induce homosexuality.
In 1977 the DEA had acknowledged that decriminalization was a policy
worth considering; three years later it called marijuana the most urgent
drug problem facing the United States. Richard Bonnie, a professor at the
University of Virginia Law School who was an influential member of the
Shafer Commission staff, believes that advocates of marijuana-law reform
were pushed out of the mainstream by the growing stridency and power of
the parents' groups. Political moderates soon abandoned the issue. Amid
their silence, philosophies of "zero tolerance" and "user accountability"
revived the notion that what drug offenders deserved most was punishment.
The Comprehensive Crime Control Act of 1984, the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of
1986, and the Anti-Drug Abuse Amendment Act of 1988 raised federal
penalties for marijuana possession, cultivation, and trafficking.
Sentences were to be determined by the quantity of the drug involved;
"conspiracies" and "attempts" were to be punished as severely as
completed acts; and possession of a hundred marijuana plants now carried
the same sentence as possession of a hundred grams of heroin.

The Caprice of Geography

Marijuana is currently classified as a Schedule I controlled substance,
implying that it has a high potential for abuse, no officially accepted
medicinal uses, and no safe level of use under medical supervision.
Heroin, LSD, and peyote are other Schedule I drugs; cocaine and
phencyclidine (PCP) are listed in Schedule II, allowing doctors to
prescribe them. Under federal law it is illegal to buy, sell, grow, or
possess any amount of marijuana anywhere in the United States. Penalties
for a first offense range from probation to life imprisonment, with fines
of up to $4 million, depending on the quantity of marijuana involved.
Moreover, it is illegal to use the U.S. Postal Service or other
interstate shippers for the advertisement, import, or export of such
marijuana paraphernalia as roach clips, water pipes, and, in some
instances, cigarette papers--a crime that can lead to imprisonment and
fines of up to $100,000. Under civil-forfeiture statutes real estate,
vehicles, cash, securities, jewelry, and any other property connected
with a marijuana offense are subject to immediate seizure. The federal
government need not prove that the property was bought with the proceeds
of illegal drug sales, only that it was involved in the commission of a
crime--that marijuana was grown on certain land or transported in a
particular vehicle. Property may be forfeited even after a defendant has
been found innocent of the offense, since the burden of proof that
applies to people--"beyond a reasonable doubt"--does not apply in
accusations against inanimate objects. Property can be forfeited without
its owner's ever being charged with a crime. On top of fines,
incarceration, and forfeiture, a convicted marijuana offender may face
the revocation or denial of more than 460 federal benefits, including
student loans, small-business loans, professional licenses, and farm
subsidies. In international smuggling cases the offender's passport can
be revoked.

State marijuana laws were also toughened during the 1980s and now vary
enormously. Some states classify marijuana with drugs like mescaline and
heroin, while others give it a separate legal category. In New York state
possessing slightly less than an ounce of marijuana brings a $100 fine,
rarely collected. In Nevada possessing any amount of marijuana is a
felony. In Montana selling a pound of marijuana, first offense, could
lead to a life sentence, whereas in New Mexico selling 10,000 pounds of
marijuana, first offense, could be punished with a prison term of no more
than three years. In some states it is against the law to be in a room
where marijuana is being smoked, even if you don't smoke any. In some
states you may be subject to criminal charges if someone else uses,
distributes, or cultivates marijuana on your property. In Idaho selling
water pipes could lead to a prison sentence of nine years. In Kentucky
products made of hemp fibers, such as paper and clothing, not only are
illegal but carry the same penalties associated with an equivalent weight
of marijuana. In Arizona, where marijuana use is forbidden, the crime can
be established by the failure of a urine test: a person could
theoretically be prosecuted in Phoenix for a joint smoked in Philadelphia
more than a week before.

Crossing an invisible state line with marijuana in your car can result in
vastly different punishments. If you are caught with three ounces of
marijuana in Union City, Ohio, you will probably be fined $100. But if
you are caught in the town of the same name literally across the road in
Indiana, you could face nine months to two years in prison, a fine of up
to $10,000, a felony record, suspension of your driver's license,
forfeiture of your car, and charges of marijuana possession, of
possession with intent to distribute, and of "maintaining a common
nuisance" (for the criminal use of an automobile). That one arrest in
Indiana might cost you the $10,000 fine and at least $5,000 in legal
fees, plus the value of your forfeited car. Wide discrepancies in
punishment occur not just between states but also from county to county
within a given state. In La Salle County, Illinois, a first-time offender
arrested with 300 pounds of marijuana might be sentenced to four months
in boot camp. Sixty-five miles to the south, in McLean County, the same
person convicted of the same crime would more likely receive a prison
sentence of four to eight years.

In 1992 more than 340,000 people were arrested nationwide for violating
marijuana laws. Almost three quarters of those arrests were for simple
possession, a crime that generally does not lead to incarceration. But
possession of more than an ounce--roughly equal to the amount of tobacco
in a pack of cigarettes--is in many states a felony. Conviction may lead
to a few months or a few years behind bars and the loss of a house or a
job. People who use marijuana as medicine must either buy it from drug
dealers or grow it themselves, often in violation of the law. James Cox,
a cancer patient in St. Louis, was found guilty of growing marijuana and
sentenced to fifteen years in prison; after the verdict both he and his
wife attempted suicide. Orland Foster, an AIDS patient in North Carolina,
served fifteen months for growing marijuana; one of his cellmates served
less time for killing a woman. Now on probation, Foster must either give
up marijuana and risk losing weight, or violate the terms of his release
and risk going back to prison.

In perhaps the most extraordinary case of this kind, Jim Montgomery, a
paraplegic immobilized from the waist down, who smoked marijuana to
relieve muscle spasms, was arrested in Sayre, Oklahoma, when sheriffs
found two ounces of pot in the pouch on the back of his wheelchair.
Montgomery was tried and convicted in 1992, by a jury, for possession of
marijuana with intent to distribute, for possession of paraphernalia, for
unlawful possession of a weapon during the commission of a crime (two
handguns inherited from his father, a police officer), and for
maintaining a place resorted to by users of controlled substances. His
sentence was life in prison, plus sixteen years. Both the judge and the
local prosecutor were disturbed by the sentence chosen by the jury; the
judge subsequently reduced it to ten years. Montgomery spent ten months
in a prison medical unit, where he developed a life-threatening
infection, before being released on bond. His appeal is now pending.
"I'll never go back to that prison," he says. "I'd rather put a bullet in
my head." His case has already cost him more than $30,000 in legal fees.
The government's effort to seize Montgomery's home, shared with his
widowed mother, proved unsuccessful.

Oklahoma today has a well-deserved reputation for being the worst place
in the United States to be caught with marijuana. On June 11, 1992, Larry
Jackson, a small-time crook with a lengthy record of nonviolent offenses,
was arrested at a friend's Tulsa apartment. On the floor near Jackson's
right foot a police officer noticed a minuscule amount of marijuana--0.16
of a gram, which is 0.005644 of an ounce. Jackson was charged with felony
possession of marijuana, convicted, and given a life sentence. In
Oklahoma City, Leland James Dodd was given two life sentences, plus ten
years, for buying fifty pounds of marijuana from undercover officers in a
"reverse sting." Oklahoma is not alone in handing out life sentences for
buying marijuana from the government. In Tuscaloosa County, Alabama,
William Stephen Bonner, a truck driver, was sent away for life without
possibility of parole after state narcotics agents delivered forty pounds
of marijuana to his bedroom. Raymond Pope, a resident of Georgia, was
lured to Baldwin County, Alabama, in 1990 with promises of cheap
marijuana; he bought twenty-seven pounds from local sheriffs in a reverse
sting, was convicted, and was sentenced to life without possibility of
parole. Pope's criminal record consisted of prior convictions for
stealing televisions and bedspreads from Georgia motels. He is now
imprisoned 400 miles from his family. He has three young children.

Although the penalties for buying, selling, or possessing marijuana are
often severe, the penalties for growing it can be even more severe. In
Iowa cultivating any amount can lead to a five-year prison sentence, in
Colorado to an eight-year sentence, in Missouri to a fifteen-year
sentence. In the state of Virginia the recommended punishment for growing
a single marijuana plant is a prison term of five to thirty years.

A Farm in Morgan County

In November of 1988 Claude Atkinson and Ernest Montgomery met at a
Denny's near the airport in Indianapolis to discuss setting up a
large-scale marijuana-growing operation. Atkinson, a fifty-nine-year-old
Indiana native, was by all accounts charismatic and highly skilled at
cultivating marijuana. Ostensibly a used-farm-implements dealer, Atkinson
had organized huge marijuana farms in Illinois, Indiana, and Kentucky.
His knowledge of growing techniques was much more impressive than his
skill at eluding capture. In 1984 law-enforcement authorities had linked
him to a pot farm in Paragon, Indiana; the following year he was caught
growing marijuana with artificial light in an immense Indianapolis
warehouse; and in 1987 a deer hunter stumbled upon thousands of his
marijuana plants in an Indiana field. Claude Atkinson had cut a series of
deals with the government, informing on others after each arrest and
serving brief terms in prison, where he recruited employees for future
ventures. Now fresh out of custody and broke, he was ready to get back
into the growing business. Ernest Montgomery was an unemployed truck
driver in his early forties who wanted to make big money. They agreed to
form a partnership, with Montgomery supplying the capital and Atkinson
the expertise. Soon after their meeting Claude Atkinson went to the
Indiana statehouse and formed a dummy corporation, R.P.Z. Investments,
using one of his many pseudonyms, Arno Zepp.

That fall Atkinson supervised the construction of a large "grow room" in
the basement of a secluded cabin that Montgomery owned in Gosport.
Montgomery enlisted his younger brother, Jerry, a gravedigger with a
slight drinking problem, to help with the task. Together the three men
drilled holes in the concrete floor for drainage, built a cooling system,
assembled ballasts and reflectors, suspended grow lights with
thousand-watt halide bulbs from the ceiling, and planted marijuana seeds
in small pots. They installed a generator so that the operation would not
be detected through an incongruously high electric bill. Montgomery
invited David Lee Haynes, a young lumberyard ripsaw operator from
Louisville, Kentucky, and the son of an old friend, to come live at the
cabin and tend the plants. After digging graves all day, Jerry Montgomery
would visit the dark basement in the evenings. By spring the group had
approximately 12,500 seedlings of marijuana, contained in sixteen plywood
flats. What they needed next was a farm.

In May of 1989 Martha Brummett, an elderly woman hard of hearing, agreed
to lease her farmhouse halfway between Eminence and Cloverdale, in Morgan
County, to R.P.Z. Investments. It came with about forty acres, a barn,
and an option to buy. Martha Brummett was surprised that when a "Charlie
Peters" arrived to sign the lease, the woman with him remained in the car
and never entered the house. Nevertheless, Brummett innocently signed
over her farm for $10,000 in cash, which she then took straight to her
bank.

After Ernest Montgomery and his wife, Cindy, obtained the house, David
Haynes moved into it, to babysit the operation, having obtained a sham
rental agreement from R.P.Z. Investments as a legal buffer against what
was about to happen on the land. The group plowed and tilled the field,
fertilized it, and planted corn. Once the corn had reached a good height,
they planted marijuana, hiding it amid the stalks. Over the summer they
walked the fields, "sexing" the marijuana--eliminating all the males. The
females, left unpollinated, would produce a much higher level of
delta-9-THC in their buds, and would thus become a much more valuable
crop: sensimilla. In late September, before the corn leaves turned
golden, the group harvested the marijuana and then cured it in the barn
for two weeks and cut it into "books" about a foot wide and three feet
long. The books were hauled into the farmhouse or driven to the cabin in
Gosport for manicuring: the stems, orphan leaves, and fan leaves were
separated from the precious buds. So far the operation had gone smoothly.
Soon there would be about 900 pounds of high-quality marijuana to sell.
Now the group needed buyers. Ernest Montgomery thought that Mark Young, a
man whom he had met a few times with Cindy, might know the right people
to call.

Mark Young was thirty-six and had been smoking marijuana on a daily basis
since his late teens. He grew up in Christian Park Heights, a
middle-class neighborhood on the east side of Indianapolis. His father
left the family when Mark was two; he and his sister, Andrea, were raised
by their mother, Mary, who worked as a waitress or a hostess to pay the
bills. Young was a willful, stubborn, charming boy, always getting into
trouble. He seemed to have, throughout his pranks and petty thefts, the
sort of bad luck that is almost uncanny--often he would get caught while
his friends got away. Young dropped out of high school after a year,
became a father at the age of sixteen, married to give the child his
name, divorced, worked as a carpet-layer, washed dishes, laid concrete,
tended bar, sold used cars, and rebuilt Harley-Davidson motorcycles. He
kept an album filled with pictures of his favorite Harleys. He knew all
the local biker gangs, but remained apart; Young seemed to get into
enough trouble on his own. He dated many attractive women, lived a fast
life, and slowly acquired a criminal record--nothing violent, just
misdemeanors for driving without a license, for possession of marijuana,
for taking a girlfriend's stereo. He also earned two felony convictions:
one at the age of twenty-one, for attempting to pass a fraudulent
prescription, and the other at the age of twenty-five, for possession of
a few amphetamines and Quaaludes. Each felony brought a suspended
sentence, probation, and a one-dollar fine. When Ernest Montgomery
called, Mark Young was rebuilding motorcycles, selling used cars
wholesale, and looking for new income. He had held a financial interest
in a number of massage parlors, which were now closed. His dream was to
get some money, move to Florida, build custom Harleys, and work part-time
as a fishing guide on Lake Okeechobee.

Claude Atkinson, Ernest Montgomery, and Mark Young met in the family room
of Young's house in early October. The price of the marijuana was set at
$1,200 a pound. If Young found buyers, he would receive a commission of
$100 for every pound sold. Not long after, Atkinson and Montgomery
returned to Young's house, where they were introduced to two men from
Florida who were acting on behalf of someone seeking to buy all the
marijuana the group could supply. Atkinson offered a hundred pounds a
week; the marijuana was still being manicured and could not be delivered
all at once. Within days a man from New York arrived at Young's house
with $120,000 in a cardboard box. While the New York buyer inspected the
marijuana at Montgomery's Indianapolis house, Atkinson remained behind,
counting the money. The deal was completed, and Young was handed $10,000
in cash. The New York buyer eventually paid for 600 more pounds, in
transactions that took place at Montgomery's house. By Christmas all the
high-quality marijuana was gone, the last 200 pounds either distributed
to workers who had helped with various tasks or sold to an acquaintance
of Montgomery's in Illinois.

The town of Eminence, Indiana, is about twenty-five miles west of
Indianapolis. Near its only intersection is a Citizens Bank, a small
church, a convenience store, and a post office built of concrete blocks
and painted royal blue. The town boasts 180 inhabitants and looks as
though it has not seen much new construction since the interval between
the world wars. There are countless small towns like Eminence across the
Midwest, slightly faded but still eulogized as the heartland of this
country. To reach the farm used by R.P.Z. Investments, one must leave
Eminence on a narrow country road and then turn onto a dirt road and
drive for a long stretch, past fields of fifty to a hundred acres where
corn, hay, soybeans, and wheat are grown, past modest farms with
collapsing outbuildings, an occasional trailer home, and rusted cars on
cinder blocks. Farther west the land is flat, the acreage of each plot
enormous, but here the countryside feels long settled, with hedges and
trees marking boundary lines. After cleaning out the barn, Atkinson and
Montgomery allowed the lease on Martha Brummett's property to expire. The
one-story farmhouse has been painted beige by its latest occupants; the
barn remains bright red. There is a porch on the front of the house, an
enclosed patio on one side, and a swing set on the lawn. Looking at this
humble farm, one would hardly believe that more than a million dollars'
worth of marijuana had been grown there in the space of about three
months.

Inside The Industry

Steve White looks like an ordinary Indiana farmer, with slightly unkempt
hair, a graying beard, teeth stained by nicotine, and strong hands. The
day we met, he wore an old flannel shirt, gray pants, and battered work
boots. His voice has a low rural twang. He seems to belong in an old
pickup, riding through a vast dusty field. White is the Indiana
coordinator for the Drug Enforcement Administration's Cannabis
Eradication/Suppression Program. Of his twenty-six years in federal law
enforcement, twenty-one have been spent in Indiana, working undercover.
He knows the state backwards and forwards--has walked it, driven it, and
flown low over it every summer, scrutinizing hills and farmland. Nobody
ever thinks he is a cop. He gets along well with rural people. He grew up
in New York City and attended P.S. 20; his father worked on Wall Street.
He travels to London each year to indulge a passion for collecting
English antique toy soldiers. Special Agent White would be an implausible
character in any work of fiction. Savvy, articulate, self-deprecating,
and blunt, he defies easy categorization and probably knows more about
growing marijuana than most of the people he arrests.

Claude Atkinson was an extremely talented grower with a "good product,"
White says--and "a super salesman." The operation near Eminence was of
average size for its time. It is difficult, even from the air, to find
marijuana hidden in corn: "Remember North by Northwest?" White says.
"Cary Grant in the cornfield? We don't have cornfields like that anymore,
with wide rows. They broadcast the stuff, and it's just thicker than
hell." Sometimes patches of marijuana will be distributed here and there
amid hundreds of acres. Discovering one may not lead to the others.
Growers tend to be much more concerned about hiding their marijuana from
thieves than from the government. A rural underworld has emerged around
marijuana, secretive and unknown to outsiders; booby traps are laid in
cornfields. There is now a group of people in the Marijuana Belt, known
as "patch pirates," who earn a living solely by stealing marijuana from
growers, whom they follow. White acknowledges that the booby traps are
usually aimed at patch pirates, not his own men; nevertheless, fishhooks
strung at eye level on fishing line are nondiscriminatory. Outdoor
marijuana farms have become smaller in the past few years, though last
summer White's agents found "60,000 beautiful plants" on a farm in
Tippecanoe County. The case proved a disappointment: the DEA never found
the grower. "What I want is bodies," White explains. "I don't give a damn
about the dope--that's just something we're going to burn up." His job
involves a daily cat-and-mouse pursuit of marijuana growers, with both
sides changing tactics, adopting new technologies, and often, after an
arrest, amicably discussing tricks of the trade. White harbors no
animosity toward his prey. "These are not heroin or cocaine dealers," he
says. "They're not violent. I find a lot of them personally engaging."
What they are doing is against the law, however, and White loves tracking
them down. He has had a good deal of success lately. In 1992 Indiana led
the nation in federal arrests for marijuana. Last year it ranked third.

Take a map of the United States and draw a circle, including within its
circumference Indiana, Illinois, and Michigan, with portions of Ohio to
the east, Kentucky and Tennessee to the south, and Missouri, Iowa, and
Nebraska to the west. The region within that circle, Steve White
believes, is producing the majority of the marijuana grown in the United
States. The highest-quality marijuana is cultivated indoors on the West
Coast, but for sheer volume, no other area surpasses the U.S. heartland.
White does not find this surprising. During the Second World War the U.S.
government encouraged farmers throughout the Corn Belt to plant almost
300,000 acres of marijuana, in the hopes of replacing fiber supplies from
Asia which had been cut off by the Japanese. The program, whose slogan
was "Hemp for Victory," turned out to be a financial disaster and left
marijuana growing wild throughout the region. Known as ditchweed, this
marijuana now blankets tens of thousands of acres. For years it had a
negligible delta-9-THC content, and was used mainly as filler by drug
dealers, but there is evidence that the ditchweed may be
cross-pollinating with the potent marijuana now cultivated outdoors. The
same growing conditions and soil that are ideal for corn are also ideal
for marijuana. Most local sheriff's departments employ only three to five
officers, with more important things to do than hunt for marijuana. And
over the past fifteen years there have been a lot of people with strong
agricultural skills who have badly needed money--or have wanted more of
it than almost any other job in the region could provide. A bushel of
corn sells for roughly $2.50, a bushel of manicured marijuana for about
$70,000. White thinks that marijuana is the largest cash crop in the
United States, and if not the largest in Indiana, then right up there
with corn and soybeans. Though he is proud of what his office has
accomplished, White has no illusions: "There's more than we think."

During the 1960s and early 1970s nearly all the marijuana smoked in the
United States was imported, mainly from Mexico, Colombia, and Jamaica.
Domestic production rose in reaction to a number of events. The spraying
of an herbicide, paraquat, over Mexican marijuana fields, begun in 1975,
created uneasiness about that nation's product. Successful interdiction
efforts by the U.S. Border Patrol and the Coast Guard made smuggling
marijuana more difficult. And the tougher legal sanctions against
trafficking led some foreign drug dealers to switch from marijuana, a
bulk agricultural good with a strong smell, to cocaine, which is easier
to conceal and brings a far higher return per pound. As marijuana prices
rose, American growers responded to consumer demand. Mark A.R. Kleiman,
an associate professor at Harvard University's Kennedy School of
Government, finds this to be a rare instance in which protectionism
actually worked. The anti-drug movement and the burgeoning American
marijuana crop led the DEA to devote more of its resources to marijuana
investigations. Kleiman estimates that by 1988 federal anti-marijuana
efforts totaled approximately $970 million--about 20 to 25 percent of all
federal drug-enforcement expenditures. By 1992 federal convictions for
marijuana outnumbered those for heroin, crack cocaine, and LSD combined.
The DEA's Cannabis Eradication/Suppression Program began in 1979 in two
states, California and Hawaii; it now looks for marijuana-farming
operations--called "grows" or "gardens" by members of the trade--in all
fifty states.

No one knows exactly how much marijuana is cultivated in the United
States. The numbers published by the government--or anyone else--are
largely speculative. In 1992 the DEA eradicated 3,405 metric tons of
cultivated marijuana in the United States, an amount the DEA says
represents more than half the total domestic output. Critics believe that
the DEA actually finds only 10 to 20 percent of the marijuana being grown
in this country. With prices ranging from $500 a pound, for low-quality
New Mexican marijuana, to more than $5,000 a pound for "boutique" strains
like Northern Lights and Afghan Kush, it can be confidently stated that
the black market for American marijuana, whatever the actual tonnage, is
immense.

Growers are increasingly moving their crops indoors, using artificial
light and hydroponics, to avoid theft, reduce the risk of detection,
control the growing process, and profit from up to six harvests a year.
Thirty mature plants can easily be grown in an area the size of a
bathtub. I asked Steve White to list some of the places where he has
discovered indoor grow operations. He laughed. "It would be tough for me
to say places we haven't found them." Often a false wall hides a grow
room in a house, or a house's foundation doesn't match its basement,
which seems oddly smaller, or there are second stories with no
stairwells, or crawl spaces are hidden beneath floors. Once White
rummaged through a child's closet and found the entrance to a grow area
behind the toys. Without need of a search warrant, the DEA employs
thermal-imaging devices, mounted on helicopters and low-flying airplanes,
to detect abnormal heat sources that may indicate the presence of an
indoor growing operation--or a pottery kiln, or a Jacuzzi. What is found
depends upon the skill of the technician. White has learned that one of
the best ways to find an indoor grow area is with his nose: no matter how
well-vented the operation, and despite electronic devices that can
neutralize odors in the air, marijuana will exude a powerful scent. A few
years ago indoor grows were often huge. A group of janitors in Anderson,
Indiana, who had traveled to Israel to study hydroponics, were caught
with 8,100 plants in a building with walls constructed a foot thick to
thwart infrared detection. Nowadays growers rent storage units and
apartments, using phony names and paying in cash, and build small grow
operations at different locations, with timing devices and automatic
controls. The authorities may find one or two--a loss anticipated in the
grower's business plan--without being able to trace ownership.

White has smoked marijuana once, while working undercover, and did not
enjoy the experience. He chain-smokes cigarettes, regrets it, and sees no
need to add marijuana to the nation's list of legal drugs. "We've got
tobacco, we've got alcohol," he said. "Jesus Christ, do we need another
hallucinogenic, carcinogenic substance on the market?" What disturbs him
most about marijuana is the phenomenal sums of money it funnels into an
underground economy, and the great resulting potential for corruption
among public officials. I asked whether a sense of futility ever creeps
into his work, given the extent of cultivation in his state. "I'm not
such a fool as to sit here and tell you that we're going to wipe out
marijuana," he replied. But there is no doubt in his mind that the DEA
exerts a deterrent effect. "Every time we have a helicopter go up on a
mission," White said, "there's someone down below who sees it and thinks,
'Maybe I better not.'"

Ralph Weisheit, a professor of criminal justice at Illinois State
University, does not know Steve White but has come to many of the same
conclusions about marijuana cultivation in the Midwest. Weisheit first
became interested in the subject eight years ago, when he saw, on the
television news, an old Illinois farmer being arrested for cultivating
marijuana. The farmer and his son never smoked marijuana; they grew it to
save their farm from foreclosure. Weisheit was intrigued. With a grant
from the research arm of the U.S. Justice Department, he conducted a
two-year study of marijuana cultivation, interviewing law-enforcement
officials in five states and dozens of Illinois growers who had been
caught and convicted. The book based on that study, Domestic Marijuana: A
Neglected Industry (1992), chronicles the rise of marijuana production in
the United States and offers a fascinating portrait of the growers.
Weisheit agrees that the majority of marijuana grown in America probably
originates in the nine-state region described by Steve White. He also
thinks that marijuana is the nation's largest cash crop, by a very wide
margin.

Estimates of how many Americans grow marijuana range from one to three
million, of which anywhere from 100,000 to 200,000 are commercial
growers. Weisheit found that aside from being predominantly white and
male, marijuana growers generally do not fit any common stereotypes. Some
are pragmatists, growing the drug purely for the money; during the farm
crisis of the 1980s many farmers in the Marijuana Belt started
cultivating marijuana out of desperation. They found it not only easy
money but also easy work. As one farmer told Weisheit, "You know, I spent
most of my life trying to kill weeds, so trying to keep one alive was
hardly a challenge." Other growers are hustlers by nature, classic
American entrepreneurs; they might as well be selling time-shares in a
vacation condominium. They try to build marijuana empires. The risks of
the trade only add to its appeal. Other growers are less competitive,
giving away marijuana to friends or selling it at slightly above cost,
sharing agricultural techniques, comparing their crops the way neighbors
might compare homegrown tomatoes. Marijuana growers are educated and
uneducated, liberal and conservative. They are extremely secretive,
worrying more about thieves than about the police. Few belong to NORML
(the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws) and few read
High Times magazine or add their names to any list that might arouse
suspicion. Indoor growing often attracts people who love gizmos. There
are endless contraptions that can be added to a grow room, from
computer-controlled watering systems to electric tables that distribute
nutrients evenly by tilting back and forth. Some growers become
connoisseurs, producing high-quality marijuana in small quantities,
manipulating not only the level of delta-9-THC through cross-breeding but
also the proportions of all the other cannabinoids to subtly--or not so
subtly--affect the nature of the high. Weisheit met growers and
law-enforcement officers alike who were extraordinarily passionate about
marijuana, eager to discuss its arcane details for hours. He was
surprised, after the publication of his book, by how little controversy
it generated in either camp. His mother was disturbed, however, by one of
its central implications: "She's very anti-drug," Weisheit says, "and her
comment was, 'The thing I don't like about this book is that it makes
these people seem so normal.'"

Late one night I met a commercial marijuana grower who introduced himself
as "Dave." He has been growing marijuana on and off for more than a
decade, beginning outdoors and graduating to a series of increasingly
complex indoor grow systems. Understandably paranoid and suspicious, Dave
is also quite proud of his work and regrets being unable to discuss it
with friends. His grow operation had to be built surreptitiously, over a
period of weeks, like a factory assembled by hand. It utilizes about
$50,000 worth of high-tech hydroponic equipment. When the construction
was complete, the whole thing looked so beautiful that Dave wanted to
throw an opening-night party, but he decided that would not be a good
idea. Though he always hated gardening and never passed a science class
in his life, he now has a grasp of marijuana botany, plant biology, and
advanced greenhouse-management techniques which only Special Agent White
could fully appreciate. As he smoked some of his most recent harvest,
Dave shared with me some of the pleasures, risks, rewards, and bizarre
phenomena associated with his profession.

Hidden behind a fake wall, entered through a secret door, in a
neighborhood where you would never, ever, expect to find it, Dave's
operation is much larger than most. There are hundreds of marijuana
plants in long rows, growing from cubes of rock wool, a soil-less medium
spun from synthetic fibers, connected through an intricate system of
white plastic pipes. Suspended above them are extremely bright
high-pressure sodium lights, which require a surge of power from special
ballasts to start up. On the ceiling is the bluish flame of a
carbon-dioxide generator burning natural gas. The windows have been
sealed and blacked out. The room is quite warm, the air thick and humid,
the whole place filled with a pungent smell reminiscent of fresh hay.
Like a greenhouse without glass, it feels very still and quiet, except
for the sound of water rushing through narrow pipes.

When everything is running smoothly, Dave controls the elements necessary
for his plants: air, light, heat, and water. In a closed chamber there is
no wind; here a ventilation system provides it, circulating air rich in
carbon dioxide. When outdoor temperatures drop too low, Dave uses the CO2
generator on the ceiling--in effect "fertilizing the air." Pumps and
timers automatically water the plants, also delivering nutrients such as
nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium, which would normally be derived from
soil. One of the critical factors in growing marijuana is the proportion
of darkness to light. Sometimes Dave's high-pressure sodium lights burn
eighteen hours a day, raising the temperature in the grow room to as high
as 110 degrees. During the female plant's reproductive stage there must
be long periods of total, uninterrupted darkness. As little as two
footcandles of light can disrupt the delicate process by which
delta-9-THC accumulates in the buds. Turning on a flashlight at the wrong
moment, Dave says, is enough to ruin his plants.

He is truly a connoisseur, growing an expensive strain of marijuana from
the northern Hindu Kush. As he describes how some outdoor growers stuff
marijuana into plastic garbage bags while it is still wet, he grimaces,
like a master vintner appalled by the improper handling of grapes. The
buds are very fragile, he says: "You're trying to coax this mature flower
to retain its essence--and then store it and seal it at that instant in
time." His finished product is deep green and aromatic, like some rare,
exotic spice.

Growing marijuana indoors requires much more work than cultivating it
outdoors. There is also more potential for disaster. A splash of liquid
on a hot light will cause it to explode. A broken pipe can flood the room
with hundreds of gallons of water. A power outage shuts the whole system
down. The nutrient solution, if improperly monitored, can quickly turn
too acidic and, as Dave puts it, "give the plants a heart attack." More
common, and yet somehow more surreal, are insect infestations that can
harm valuable young plants. Dave has battled spider mites, greenhouse
whiteflies, and aphids. Insecticides are not an option in an enclosed
room, with a crop that will be smoked. Dave uses biological controls,
unleashing hungry young predators upon unwanted bugs. Recently he
released thousands of miniature wasps. This is insanity, he thought; but
it worked. Inside a nearby refrigerator he always keeps 500 ladybug eggs,
next to the soda, in case of an emergency. At the moment Dave is
contending with gnats, who leave his plants alone but swarm and bite him
as he walks about the grow room in the dark.

Someone At The Door

On March 18, 1990, a pair of deputy sheriffs in Johnson County, Indiana,
spotted a red Jeep being driven erratically and signaled for its driver
to pull off the road. Behind the wheel they found Jerry Montgomery,
obviously intoxicated; littering the truck were three empty vodka
bottles, a five-gallon bucket full of marijuana, and a gray box
containing more than $13,000 in cash. After obtaining a warrant, sheriffs
searched Montgomery's house, finding more marijuana and a locked
briefcase hidden under his bed. Deputy John Myers pried it open with a
screwdriver. In the briefcase were receipts for farm equipment; documents
mentioning R.P.Z. Investments, Claude Atkinson, and Ernest Montgomery; an
option to buy a property owned by Martha Brummett; and a number of books
suggesting that this arrest was the beginning, not the end, of a trail:
Indoor Marijuana Horticulture, The Primo Plant, and How to Grow Marijuana
Indoors Under Lights.

The investigation eventually led authorities to a 500-acre farm close to
Solsberry, in Greene County, owned by Arno Zepp, of Investment Holdings,
Inc. On August 22 federal, state, and local law-enforcement agents
arrested Claude Atkinson, raided the farm, and, with the help of
volunteers from the Indiana National Guard, destroyed 10,000 marijuana
plants. Atkinson soon began to talk. In May of 1991 Ernest Montgomery was
arrested at his Gosport cabin, where 7,000 marijuana seedlings sat in
little pots, ready for planting. Early that same morning Mark Young was
awakened by someone at the front door. Unlike his former business
associates, Young was not growing anything. He and his girlfriend,
Patricia, were in the process of moving to Florida. When he saw a man
with a badge and a gun, Young had no idea what was happening, but assumed
that it must have something to do with unpaid taxes.

More than a dozen law-enforcement officers surrounded the house. Their
commander, a DEA agent, treated Young politely, allowing him to get
dressed and agreeing not to handcuff him in front of the neighbors. At
the station Young read his indictment. He was being charged, under
federal law, not only for his role in distributing 700 pounds of
marijuana but also for conspiring to manufacture all 12,500 marijuana
plants grown on Martha Brummett's farm. Young was unaware of the
punishment he might face until later that day. John Hollywood, a bail
bondsman in Indianapolis, arrived in the afternoon to secure his release.
But the government refused to set bail. Under Indiana's strict state law,
the same charges would bring a maximum sentence of twenty-eight years--at
most, fourteen years served in prison, and probably much less. But under
federal law Young's two prior state felony convictions, one of them more
than seventeen years old, classified him as a career drug offender. This
arrest could prove his third strike. At the U.S. attorney's discretion,
he faced a possible mandatory-minimum sentence of life imprisonment
without possibility of parole.

This is the first part of a two-part article. Part Two, next month, will
describe the disposition of the Young case and the perverse consequences
of a legal regime that decrees mandatory-minimum sentences.

--------------------

Eric Schlosser is a writer who lives in New York City.

Copyright 1994, The Atlantic Monthly.



Transmitted: 94-07-29 23:17:29 EDT



-- dd --
                             == Daniel Davidson ==
                         San Francisco State University
                            [e-mail]

              It is considered appropriate to sustain conditions which
                  are against the best interests of almost everyone.