ARCATA, Calif. — Stiff competition from thousands of mom-and-pop marijuana farmers in the United States threatens the bottom line for powerful Mexican drug organizations in a way that decades of arrests and seizures have not, according to law enforcement officials and pot growers in the United States and Mexico. Illicit pot production in the United States has been increasing steadily for decades. But recent changes in state laws that allow the use and cultivation of marijuana for medical purposes are giving U.S. growers a competitive advantage, challenging the traditional dominance of the Mexican traffickers, who once made brands such as Acapulco Gold the standard for quality. Almost all of the marijuana consumed in the multibillion-dollar U.S. market once came from Mexico or Colombia. Now as much as half is produced domestically, often by small-scale operators who painstakingly tend greenhouses and indoor gardens to produce the more potent, and expensive, product that consumers now demand, according to authorities and marijuana dealers on both sides of the border. This isn’t really surprising. One of the biggest beneficiaries of prohibition are the criminals who pedal the product that’s prohibited. It was true of America’s stupid and ill-fated experiment with alcohol prohibition in the 1920s, and it’s true today. I realise this is a disturbing idea for many people, but surely it must be painfully apparent to anyone prepared to look at the evidence that the "war" on drugs has failed miserably? |
Posted via email from Garth's posterous
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