The Mexican population is generally not in favor of legalization. But check out these divergent opinions:
Carlos Canchola, 87, a retiree, rejoiced when he learned of the ruling. “This is great news,” he said. “People like me will be able to acquire it for rheumatism.”
and
Adalí Cadena Rosas, 20, a pharmacy worker in Mexico City, bemoaned the decision on Wednesday. “I mean, we already have so many drug addicts,” she said. “This is only going to make things worse.”
And from one of the four plaintiffs in the case:
“We are killing ourselves to stop the production of something that is heading to the U.S., where it’s legal,” said Armando Santacruz.
Legalization in Colorado and other states has resulted in the Mexican cartels moving to other drugs. without the profit margin, it's just not worth it. The Times curiously quotes a 2010 survey, stating:
As it stands, marijuana accounts for more than a fifth of revenues generated by cartels, around $1.5 billion a year, according to a 2010 report by the RAND Corporation.
That is a meaningless statistic as it was before legalization. The Times should have pointed out that Mexican production of marijuana has fallen sharply while its production of heroin (from poppies), meth and designer drugs has dramatically increased the past few years.
From the Washington Post:
Made-in-the-USA marijuana is quickly displacing the cheap, seedy, hard-packed version harvested by the bushel in Mexico’s Sierra Madre mountains. That has prompted Mexican drug farmers to plant more opium poppies, and the sticky brown and black “tar” heroin they produce is channeled by traffickers into the U.S. communities hit hardest by prescription painkiller abuse, offering addicts a $10 alternative to $80-a-pill oxycodone.
“Legalization of marijuana for recreational use has given U.S. consumers access to high-quality marijuana, with genetically improved strains, grown in greenhouses,” said Raul Benitez-Manaut, a drug-war expert at Mexico’s National Autonomous University. “That’s why the Mexican cartels are switching to heroin and meth.”
Time Magazine (no link due to auto-playing video):
U.S. Border Patrol has been seizing steadily smaller quantities of the drug, from 2.5 million pounds in 2011 to 1.9 million pounds in 2014. Mexico’s army has noted an even steeper decline, confiscating 664 tons of cannabis in 2014, a drop of 32% compared to year before.
Bloomberg has more.
Prohibition doesn't work. Legalization and a re-direction of financial resources from enforcing criminal drug laws to battling entrenched corruption in Mexico and Latin and South American governments, their law enforcement and their military would stand a far greater chance of reducing the impact of the cartels.
