Forest Service, Marijuana Growers Battle to Standoff - Drugs: Report says pot production is up even as officials crack down on crops on public lands.

WASHINGTON — 

In a new indication of growing demand for high-quality domestic marijuana, the Forest Service reported Friday that its yearlong crackdown on marijuana growers has not reduced cannabis cultivation on U.S. public lands.

While the 1988 campaign almost doubled the eradication of marijuana plants and boosted drug-related arrests on Forest Service lands by 300%, the estimated volume of cannabis produced there did not change from the previous year, the new report said.

Rather, growers apparently stepped up production to satisfy demand for potent varieties of marijuana that are grown only in the United States, officials said.

The percentage of the cannabis crop devoted to high-potency “sinsemilla” varieties doubled to account for 72% of the marijuana grown in U.S. national forests and wilderness areas.

The findings add to evidence suggesting that the domestic marijuana industry is thriving, despite the nation’s anti-drug efforts. About 25% of the marijuana smoked in the United States now comes from domestic growers, according to official estimates.

The boom, whose magnitude has become apparent in recent months, has prompted criticism from analysts who charge that U.S. emphasis on drug interdiction at the border has helped U.S. growers.

The stimulant to the U.S. market has markedly boosted the average potency of marijuana available in this country, Harvard University economist Mark A. R. Kleiman concluded in a recent book. The result has been an overall increase in U.S. consumption of marijuana’s active ingredient, tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), even as the number of users has declined, he said.

To address the problem, the Bush Administration has pledged to deploy federal agents and national guardsmen in a redoubled effort to eradicate the domestic marijuana crop. But the inability of the government’s National Forest System Drug Control Initiative to make significant strides in 1988 suggests that the obstacles to success may be greater than analysts have foreseen.

“We expect to be faced with a continuing drug production challenge in the National Forest System for the foreseeable future,” Forest Service deputy chief William L. Rice said in a letter that accompanied the agency report.

“Even though we’re eradicating more than we’ve done in the past, we are basically running in place,” said Rep. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), who requested the report. “We’ve got to make the long arm of the law even longer.”

To re-invigorate the effort, Wyden proposed that the government establish a National Public Lands Drug Strike Force with $30 million in funding over the next five years. The strike force would concentrate on organized drug networks, which the Forest Service said are responsible for half of the marijuana grown on public lands.

The report did not provide an overall estimate of the extent of marijuana cultivation on Forest Service land, which includes 156 separate areas covering 191 million acres.

Other government estimates, however, put the total annual crop at about 4,500 metric tons in 1988, up from about 3,500 metric tons the year before. Much of that total is believed to be grown on remote public lands, where plots can be hidden easily and growers can deny responsibility.

The most extensive marijuana cultivation uncovered by the crackdown was in the Daniel Boone National Forest in Kentucky, which accounted for nearly 25% of the cannabis eradicated throughout the Forest Service system last year, the report said.

In the California region, agents seized some 70,000 marijuana plants at 288 separate National Forest sites, the report said. But that total lagged far behind the Southern states, a region where agents found more than 162,000 plants at 2,200 sites.

The potency of marijuana can differ widely depending on the concentration of THC, its principal psychoactive ingredient.

While the average THC concentration in marijuana imported from Mexico and Colombia is about 3.6%, more sophisticated growing techniques in the United States have elevated the average concentration to more than 8%. Some varieties of the potent sinsemilla, a Spanish term meaning without seed, have reached concentrations of more than 18%.