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Cops clueless on the value of cannabis
By Hempology | August 13, 2007
Marin Independent Journal, CA
12 Aug 2007
Gary Klien
HOMEGROWN: HOW DO COPS PUT A VALUE ON THE BUSTS?
When San Rafael police raided an indoor pot farm last month, they seized 600 plants and estimated their street value at $800,000.
Yet when the Marin County Major Crimes Task Force raided an indoor farm in Ignacio days earlier, they seized 224 marijuana plants and estimated the value at up to $1 million.
One estimate pegs the street value of each pot plant at $1,333, the other at $4,464. Why the big discrepancy?
“There’s no exact science on this stuff,” said San Rafael police Sgt. Dan Fink. “There’s so many factors involved.”
The variables that determine street value can include the maturity of the plants, their potential yield and their potency, investigators say.
A plant’s potency depends on the amount of THC, or delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol, it contains. Gordon Taylor, a special agent with the Drug Enforcement Administration, said a typical pot plant has a THC content of about 8 percent, but marijuana cultivated in sophisticated indoor hydroponic facilities can be as strong as 15 percent to 25 percent.
Prices vary accordingly. Sgt. Rudy Yamanoha of the Marin County Major Crimes Task Force said low-grade marijuana sells for about $340 a pound, mid-grade for $750 a pound, and high-grade for $2,500 to $6,000 per pound. A fully mature plant can a produce a quarter-pound to three-quarters of a pound of pot, according to various estimates.
Dealers sell marijuana in eighths of an ounce, ounces, quarter pounds, half pounds or pounds, Yamanoha said.
“It really varies,” he said. “A lot of marijuana sellers sell different increments in weight.”
But Lynnette Shaw, director of the Marin Alliance for Medical Marijuana in Fairfax, said the $6,000-per-pound figure is highly inflated because the legalization of medical marijuana in California has brought prices down.
“The most a pound would cost on the street right now – the very, very, very most – would be $4,800 a pound,” she said.
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