Vanguard | December 09, 2010 | 11 comments

Marijuana Wars: Doing the Math

Adam_Yamaguchi

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Over the course of four months, Vanguard correspondent and executive producer Adam Yamaguchi was embedded with anti-drug task forces in the US and Mexico. During the shoot, hundreds of millions of dollars worth of narcotics were seized.

When California began marijuana eradication efforts in 1983, authorities seized fewer than 100,000 plants in the state. Last year, they seized more than seven million plants with a total value of $15 billion.

In "Marijuana Wars," Yamaguchi joins an elite task force as they survey and eradicate multi-million dollar marijuana fields run by Mexican drug trafficking organizations.

Cameras follow undercover operatives as they launch an operation to stop marijuana production by taking down the low-level planters, drug transporters and even the drug financiers themselves. The agents explain how the tentacles of Mexican drug cartels are reaching the east coast of the U.S., creating operation and distribution hubs--and bringing the war much closer to home.

"Vanguard," airing weekly on Current TV Mondays at 9/8c, is a no-limits documentary series whose award-winning correspondents put themselves in extraordinary situations to immerse viewers in global issues that have a large social significance. Unlike sound-bite driven reporting, the show's correspondents, Adam Yamaguchi, Kaj Larsen, Christof Putzel and Mariana van Zeller, serve as trusted guides who take viewers on in-depth real life adventures in pursuit of some of the world's most important stories.

For more, go to http://current.com/vanguard.
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    Current Video,   Vanguard,   Vanguard Weekly Special,   Vanguard Special,   3 more
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    Marijuana,  Drugs,  California,  Mexico,  7 more
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    Adam_Yamaguchi Correspondent, dmfoster Producer, mdirenzo Editor, more
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11 comments // Marijuana Wars: Doing the Math // Video

  • drugwarrior
    • 0
      drugwarrior  

    • Im extremely upset with the poor reporting on the part of current. I am watching a report on how Mexican drug cartels are making tons of money on cannabis yet when you look at reality the money going to the Mexican drug cartels is negligible when they are making billions on harder drugs that are worth (and in turn sell for) more than cannabis per unit of weight. i've personally had my hand in growing cannabis several times (for personal use only) and the cost of growing is greater than you seem to want to mention on your shows. it is far more profitable to sell methamphetamine, cocaine, or heroin (which are all relatively cheap to manufacture and will bring in 4 or 5 times more money per unit of weight than cannabis) and the Mexican drug cartels know this. Sure they are growing cannabis in the U.S. but how much really? Now how much cocaine are they bringing in? how much heroin? i know people that have given their lives to things like meth and heroin. NEVER have i met someone using only cannabis in such despair. Even if they are growing a lot here, who is it hurting? Why not do a story on Cash Michael Hyde, the 2 year old boy whos life was saved from cancer by cannabis? Current TV is nothing more to me than a puppet of the drug war. I've been arrested for cannabis possession. i hurt no one except maybe myself yet i still got incarcerated and i was a medical cannabis patient at the time (and still am). Why not do a story on how the U.S. government can come right into your home for having and using a substance at your own discretion while endangering no one else and take you to jail for that? i hope to see current wake up from the dream the U.S. has built around them and many others to see the truth of the nightmare around us. A nightmare where someone doing something completely harmless can have their freedom taken away and someone turning millions of dollars in profit killing hundreds of thousands of people per year (roughly 400,000 people die each year from tobacco and 120,000 from alcohol, not including drunk driving accidents) can be a senator. This is sorely disappointing and i am hereby shunning Current as nothing more than a tool to keep people in the dark.

    • 11 months ago
  • Toby_Saunders
    • 0
      Toby_Saunders  

    • Current is being too sympathetic to the tyrannical cannabis prohibition; I haven't the time to watch all that bogus propaganda about 'scary marijuana', but from the few minutes I could bare, it looks like Reefer Madness style coverage. Current is really screwing up by showing more anti-pot stuff; cannabis is one of the best plants on Earth & more truth about the benefits of the plant should reach the viewers. While war against illegal drugs is a waste of lives & resources; Current should catch on to that blatant fact... beer & wine CEOS are narcos by the way; alcohol is as dangerous as meth while, contrary to the 'scary marijuana' crap Current is making, cannabis is safer than caffeine.

    • 11 months ago
  • hunzedog
    • +2
      hunzedog  

    • HERES SOME MATH FOR YA

      PUT A SEED IN THE GROUND AND WATCH IT GROW

      COST = NOTHING

      YOU GUYS MAKE IT ILLEGAL AND NOW WE GOT BORDER WARS...]]

      WHOS FAULT IS THAT.??YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR DRUG DEALERS .............................NOT ME...

      ITS YOUR FRIGGIN FAULT CANNABIS IS WORTH ANYTHING

      YOU DONT SEE WARS FOUGHT OVER TOMATOS

      DO YA //?

    • 1 year ago
  • hunzedog
  • Craig_Law
    • +1
      Craig_Law  

    • I've got a problem with how they calculate the value. They rip the plants out of the ground and weigh the whole thing (stem, leaves, roots, dirt, etc) and then base the value on that weight. What they don't tell you is that 90% of that weight is useless. It's only the buds that have any value.

    • 1 year ago
  • hunzedog
  • dreamsenvoy
  • hunzedog
  • hunzedog
    • +2
      hunzedog  

    • Jack Herer offers a 100,000 dollar prize to anyone who can prove cannabis is harmful....how bout them numbers....?

      heres another number for you.....

      80,000 ....thats how many people died from avvandia while the fda made money off that poisonous shit....500 people were dying every month and they just looked the other way...

      as a citizen i demand that the killers be held responsible...

      thats what you -gung ho pot nazis are doing anyway right...?

      protecting us from dangerous drugs? trying to keep us healthy....

      i wish you cops would do that job....

      protect americans from drug dealers that kill people for profitt....

      like marlllburro......or bud weezer......or phizef or glazo shit kleen....

      we know who the dangerous drug pushers are.....

      pill mills in florida sell 4 billion pills......nobody protects the twelve people who will die today and tommorow and the next day in florida from that fda approved killer...

      whats good for the goose is good for the gander..

      you cant say you are protecting us from dangerous drugs because cannabis never killed anybody..

      cannabis is a herb....cannabis cures cancer.....cannabis cures depression

      I CALL BULLSHIT.

      your numbers dont add up....

    • 1 year ago
  • saytenvoneryk
  • Alex_French

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