Marijuana Availability in the United States and Its Associated Territories

The objective of this report, "Marijuana Availability in the Unites States and Its Associated Territories," is to assess the scope of the problem of marijuana within the United States and its associated territories. The report attempts to determine the annual amount of marijuana available in this country, including domestically produced and imported marijuana; the major avenues through which marijuana from foreign sources is smuggled into the United States; how much of the total production actually gets seized by law enforcement authorities; and to identify links to organized crime and terrorist groups. Within the context of these objectives, this survey summarizes and assesses the most authoritative data published by the U.S. government agencies that specialize in counter-narcotics issues. Practically all of the data contained in this survey are derived from the online publications of these agencies. Such publications provide the most up-to-date information available on the subject. This survey focuses primarily on the 50 U.S. states, but also, to the extent that data are available, on selected U.S. territories (American Samoa, Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, Guam, and the Virgin Islands), as well as the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, which is associated with the United States. The other U.S. territories may also have a marijuana problem, but available pertinent data were insufficient to warrant their inclusion. Most of the most publications cited in this survey are those of two agencies in particular: the U.S. Department of Justice's Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and the National Drug Intelligence Center (NDIC). The publications of the DEA and NDIC proved to be by far the most relevant for the purposes of this survey, which is largely a summary of their data. Unless noted otherwise, most of the data in the Appendix section on states and territories come from DEA Public Affairs, Drug Trafficking in the United States, July 25, 2003. The NDIC publications were particularly useful. The NDIC, which is a member of the Intelligence Community, is the nation's principal center for strategic domestic counterdrug intelligence. Several publications of the White House's Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) were also used. This survey also incorporates some relevant statistics on foreign sources of marijuana contained in the annual International Narcotics Control Strategy Report (INCSR), which is published by the U.S. Department of State's Bureau for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL); and the annual Global Illicit Drug Trends (GIDT) report, which is published by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). However, data from the GIDT and the INCSR are cited with the caveat that they cannot be assumed to be consistently reliable. Both publications rely on foreign government reporting, and these data are often incomplete and unreliable, as is clearly the case with the data on Jamaica and Mexico. The UNODC data on U.S. marijuana cited in this survey presumably were provided by U.S. government sources, but they do not necessarily correspond with information found in the published U.S. government reports, and therefore are cited only for comparative purposes. The INCSR is considered by some analysts to be more authoritative than the GIDT. Nevertheless, a significant limitation of the usefulness of the INCSR to this survey is its conspicuous omission of data on the United States. Although providing data on domestic U.S. production of marijuana and other drugs is not within the mandate of the INCSR, marijuana cultivation and production is a major underground industry in this country.