6 Shockingly Huge Stockpiles of Stuff

At any given time, the government has several thousands of pounds of Mary Jane stockpiled in a single location. And they don't confiscate this; they've been in the weed farming business for decades. In 2019, they grew their largest bumper crop in five years, an eye-watering 2,000 kilos, or about 5 million joints' worth of sticky icky.

And where is this Fort Knox of fine stuff? Where most weed is: within a 50-foot radius of a dorm. All official U.S. weed is grown, processed, and sold through the University of Mississippi campus. The school has held the exclusive contract to grow government ganja since 1968 -- 44 years before anyone else was allowed to. But the government isn't addicted; it's just for experimentation. Since this weed is the only FDA-approved weed, anyone researching the effects of cannabis has to buy the government-controlled version of the substance, making Uncle Sam the world's oldest pot dealer by a wide margin.

So what do U of M students think about studying atop one of the biggest pot farms in the land? According to the university growers, it's "a source of great interest on campus," probably because some genius thought it was smart to put the fields right next to student housing. On a completely unrelated note, only about 48% of Ole Miss students manage to graduate within four years.

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For the next 50 years, the military stockpiled their massive heap of hearts, dipping into it whenever a grim occasion called for it. Some more were made after the Vietnam War, but the government stopped when they realized they had 125,000 more of them lying around in another warehouse. The stash only dried up around 1999, at which point they started ordering new big batches -- an act that had become so unusual that the Pentagon had to reassure the public it wasn't planning another bloodbath. They were just so used to having them lying around.

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That is the promise of the United States Raisin Administrative Committee, which reports directly to the secretary of Agriculture. Since 1949, it has managed the country's raisin supply and protected farmers from a drop in demand. The most direct way they did so was through the national raisin reserve, which stockpiled a certain percentage of each year's raisin ... crop? This way, the committee reckoned, not only would the price for raisins stay competitive, they could also use the mountainous surpluses to spread raisin cheer and raisin awareness, giving them to charities and schools, or exporting the surplus to any country also crazy enough to have a raisin budget.

But having to store their raisins left some farmers with a case of sour grapes, since the small print of the Depression-era order allowed the committee to take whatever portion of the crops they deemed necessary without explanation, justification, or most importantly, compensation. In 2015, raisin farmers finally had their day in the sun when the Supreme Court determined that the reserve was unconstitutional, and that raisins are still the ugly-looking fruit of someone's labor, not to be taken by the government willy-nilly. The reserve was abolished, though the Raisin Administrative Committee was allowed to remain and, like the fruit they so covet, wither away in obscurity.

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To postpone said tsunami, in the '70s, the government started buying up milk as fast as the farmers could squeeze it out. And to lengthen its lifespan, they had it all turned into low-grade processed cheese, then hid it all in caves across the country like some weird cheddar ogre. But what does a government do with half a million tons of cheese and no mouse nations to bribe? In 1981, President Reagan offloaded 30 million pounds by donating it to food banks, schools, and various welfare programs. Nevertheless, by 1984, the government was storing 5 pounds of cheese for every single American (though not all in singles). In the 1990s, a desperate nation started selling the cheese to fast food companies for almost nothing -- a move that brought us such gastric travesties as the Domino's Seven-Cheese Pizza and the Taco Bell "Very Cheesy Quesalupa."

But the dairy industry isn't exactly doing better today, what with all these health commies guzzling almond milk and refusing to buy string cheese. According to the FDA, the average American consumed a mere 149 pounds of milk in 2017, barely half of what was consumed in 1975. Since 2016, the USDA has spent over $47 million on cheese to stabilize the dairy industry. That brings the nation's current surplus to an unprecedented 1.4 billion pounds. Of cheese. That's over 900,000 cubic yards of the stuff, which is enough to wrap around the entire U.S. Capitol. One USDA official suggested that the "cheapest and most practical thing would be to dump it in the ocean." But would it be worth the price of constipating every whale on the planet?

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And it's a good thing they've been stockpiling, because Chinese pork stock has been getting wiped out. Due to a 2019 outbreak of swine fever, China is culling millions of pigs, and is at risk of wiping out a quarter of the world's pork population. To combat the shortage, the government opened its fridges, releasing several thousand pounds of frozen pork from its reserves in an attempt to help "meat" demand.

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Valued at over $1,000 a barrel, maple syrup is about 25 times more expensive than crude oil. And Canada supplies 75% of the world's maple syrup. The trouble is, a maple tree's year-to-year production can be erratic depending on the weather, so farmers need a buffer in case they squeeze insufficient sap. To stabilize the industry, the Federation of Quebec Maple Syrup Producers (Canada's OPEC) established a syrup hoard big enough to give even the most ancient of dragons Type 2 diabetes.

But that much syrup is bound to draw people with sticky hands. In 2012, thieves stole 6 million gallons, for a grand total of $18 million worth of liquid brown gold. Like ants, the police were quickly on the trail, but couldn't catch the molasses marauders before they managed to unload much of the hot goo onto the ... Is there a black market for maple syrup? Maybe some Waffle Houses don't ask questions.

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