Biggest ever drug bust by volume

The stash was buried in a series of trenches, and the team called in an air strike of RAF Harriers using 1000lb bombs to open up the site then poured gasoline on the debris and torched it.

While that's certainly a huge amount of weed and hash, what gets me about this story is the list of recent huge drug busts at the end:

IN NUMBERS

5 million

Ecstasy tablets seized in Melbourne in 2005 were claimed as the largest haul of street-ready tablets in the world, worth £120 million.

9 tons

of cannabis resin was seized by Vietnamese police last month in the largest drug haul in its history. Found in 400 cartons covered by jeans, en route from Pakistan to China, it was estimated to have a street value of £45 million.

38,000lb

of cocaine was seized by US Coast Guard officers who boarded a 330ft ship off the Pacific coast of Panama in 2007. It was the largest single sea-based seizure of cocaine by a US agency, with an estimated street value of £250 million.

Record-breaking drug busts happen every year or so, and the drug warriors issue press releases and pat themselves on the back for another 'victory' in the War on Drugs. The reality is that the market is so huge that there are ginormous piles of drugs just lying around like this, and the price of the particular drug doesn't even flutter when such a bust happens.