American marijuana farmers grew 22.3 million pounds of marijuana in 2006 with a value of $35.8 billion. These figures, which include marijuana seized by law enforcement, include 56.4 million marijuana plants cultivated outdoors worth $31.7 billion and 11.7 million plants cultivated indoors worth $4.1 billion. Five states (California, Tennessee, Kentucky, Hawaii and Washington) had marijuana crops worth over $1 billion. The top ten outdoor producers are listed in Table 3, the top ten indoor producers are listed in Table 4, and the top ten overall producers are listed in Table 5.

Table 3. The Top Ten Outdoor Marijuana Producing States

Table 4. The Top Ten Indoor Marijuana Producing States

Table 5. The Top Ten Marijuana Producing States

Most marijuana is produced for local, in-state use. In nine states, though, the percentage of all marijuana production is greater than the state’s percentage share of annual marijuana users [21]. (See Table 6.) For example, California contains 13.25% of annual marijuana users in the United States according to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health but also accounts for 38.68% of the marijuana produced in the United States, a ratio of production to use of 2.92. On this basis California is considered an export state in which marijuana is produced both for in-state use and export to other states. The nine states that fit this criteria as exporting marijuana producers are Hawaii, Tennessee, Kentucky, California, West Virginia, Arkansas, Alabama, Washington, and, though just barely, Alaska.

Table 6. Marijuana Exporting States, Market Share is Greater than Share of Annual Use