cannabisnews.com: Study: Legalizing Pot Won't Hinder Mexican Cartels
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Study: Legalizing Pot Won't Hinder Mexican Cartels
Posted by CN Staff on October 12, 2010 at 11:59:17 PT
By Martha Mendoza, Associated Press
Source: Associated Press
Santa Cruz, CA -- Mexico's drug traffickers are likely to lose customers in America's largest pot consuming state if California legalizes marijuana, but they won't lose much money overall because California's residents already prefer to grow their own, according to a study released Tuesday.That means the proposal on the state's November ballot to legalize marijuana also will do little to quell the drug gangs' violent and sophisticated organizations that generate billions of dollars a year, according to the study by the nonpartisan RAND Drug Policy Research Center.
Californians, who make up one-seventh of the U.S. marijuana market, already are farming marijuana at a much higher rate than in neighboring states and tend to buy domestic rather than smuggled marijuana, the study found."We're already growing our own in California, so it's hard to see how we'd impact Mexico's market all that much," agreed Valerie Corral, a Santa Cruz, Calif., pot grower whose farm north of the city provides medical marijuana to members of a cooperative she helped found.California voters will decide next month whether to legalize and tax their own recreational use of marijuana. The measure is closely watched in Mexico, where more than 28,000 people have died in drug violence since Mexico's President Felipe Calderon launched his crackdown on organized crime in late 2006. Both Calderon and President Barack Obama agree the vast profits cartels collect in the U.S. - estimated between $18 billion and $35 billion a year - fuel drug wars south of the border.RAND found that less than $2 billion of those profits come from marijuana, though, and only about 3 percent of Mexican marijuana sales are in California.Proponents of the proposition say they want to lower prison costs and find new revenue from marijuana taxes, and that the measure could reduce violence associated with the illegal drug trade in California and Mexico.The Obama administration disagrees, and U.S. drug czar Gil Kerlikowske told The Associated Press that the new study backs them up."This report shows that despite the millions spent on marketing the idea, legalized marijuana won't reduce the revenue or violence generated by Mexican drug trafficking organizations," said Kerlikowske, head of the U.S. Office of National Drug Control Policy. "The bottom line is that increased access and availability to marijuana jeopardizes the health and safety of our citizens."Some former law enforcement officials, however, said it's hard to imagine there wouldn't be major cartel profits at stake."It's ridiculous to claim that ending prohibition won't have a big financial impact on these violent criminals' bottom lines," said Stephen Downing, a supporter of Prop. 19 and a former Los Angeles Police Department deputy chief of police.But the RAND study concludes the only way to cut into the cartels' profits would be the unlikely scenario of legal marijuana growers taking over cartel distribution elsewhere in the U.S. Under that scenario, Mexican drug trafficking organizations, currently providing at least half the marijuana in the U.S., would lose roughly 20 percent of their total drug export revenues. Their remaining profits from more lucrative drugs like cocaine and heroin would continue to flow."If that happens, then legalization could reduce some of the Mexican drug violence in the long run," said Beau Kilmer, the study's lead author and co-director of the RAND Drug Policy Research Center.But the study authors said they don't believe the federal government will stand idly by if home-grown smugglers were to capture the entire national market now held by Mexico-sourced marijuana."It would be difficult not to notice that the quantities produced and perhaps even taxed were vastly larger than what is needed to supply the California market alone," said the study.But some say it's already beginning to happen."Smuggling in the U.S will be easy, as marijuana can be shipped to consumers in other states through our mail system, said economist John Carnevale, a drug policy expert who has worked with the U.S. Office of National Drug Control Policy for three administrations. "There is anecdotal information that this is already occurring."Former San Jose, Calif., police chief Joseph McNamara says the proposed law's key goal isn't aimed at resolving Mexico's drug violence, and questioned RAND's assumptions about marijuana use and sales."Can a state facing a $19 billion dollar deficit casually pass up a chance to tax a product that escapes taxation only because it is illegal?" he asked.Source: Associated Press (Wire)Author: Martha Mendoza, Associated Press Published: October 12, 2010Copyright: 2010 The Associated PressCannabisNews -- Cannabis Archiveshttp://cannabisnews.com/news/list/cannabis.shtml
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Comment #10 posted by Hope on October 13, 2010 at 19:34:28 PT
NikoKun
"These articles need to make mention that ONLY legalizing it in California is NOT enough. To make any kind of dent in the Cartels' profits, you need to legalize it on a LARGE scale!"This article did, in a bassakwards, "not really", "didn't really say it", confusing, convoluted kind of way. "But the RAND study concludes the only way to cut into the cartels' profits would be the unlikely scenario of legal marijuana growers taking over cartel distribution elsewhere in the U.S. Under that scenario, Mexican drug trafficking organizations, currently providing at least half the marijuana in the U.S., would lose roughly 20 percent of their total drug export revenues. Their remaining profits from more lucrative drugs like cocaine and heroin would continue to flow." I think they must just be making those figures up. Someone of them... the prohibitionists, are, or certainly have. It seems to me that not very long ago I heard some government report or the czar yammering on that something like seventy to eighty percent of the cartels' profits came from marijuana. As to 'shame, shame, shame' on marijuana users, and that was, according to them, one big reason why marijuana was so very important for them to fight against. The other "more lucrative" drugs? I know they said that marijuana was the most lucrative and important drug for the cartels during that speech or "report"."What a tangled web they weave"!
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Comment #9 posted by Hope on October 13, 2010 at 18:45:59 PT
About this Rand study.
Over at Pete's place, DrugWarRant.Rand Study: Marijuana Legalization Would Markedly Cut Mexican Drug Cartel Profitshttp://www.drugwarrant.com/2010/10/rand-study-marijuana-legalization-would-markedly-cut-mexican-drug-cartel-profits/"Jon Walker http://justsaynow.firedoglake.com/2010/10/12/rand-study-marijuana-legalization-would-markedly-cut-mexican-drug-cartel-profits/ has the true story of the newest Rand report, and how some of the intellectually dishonest “academics” at Rand are trying to spin it."
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Comment #8 posted by NikoKun on October 13, 2010 at 15:25:15 PT
ugh, these articles
These articles need to make mention that ONLY legalizing it in California is NOT enough.
To make any kind of dent in the Cartels' profits, you need to legalize it on a LARGE scale!But we can't get there without steps, and California is just the first one.
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Comment #7 posted by FoM on October 13, 2010 at 10:57:59 PT
Dan Rather Reports
Last night on HD Net Dan Rather hit the nail on the head about Mexicans and the border. We took their land away from them and maybe the war ended but it really didn't. They just want their land back. We don't have a similar problem from Canada so it makes perfect sense to me.
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Comment #6 posted by museman on October 13, 2010 at 09:19:04 PT
Why The Mexican Cartels are here.
They aren't in California to sell the herb, just grow it. Its a hell of a lot easier to grow across a border with dogs, armed guards, high-tech surveillance, and detection devices devices, and walls, than it is to grow, harvest and then smuggle across that border.The fact that the rest of the country has big demand for the herb, and our government is in major denial of the facts, is why the cartels have moved operations into our national forests. Of course one has to seriously wonder, what with all the 'fee-based' access turning away all but the money-bags from our 'public lands,' just how much complicity our clandestine 'services' like the CIA, DEA, etc have to do with setting it up. If past history (see 'Iran-Contra) is any indicator, its a good possibility.They grow in California, because the climate is one of the best in the world for it. Probably why they showed up in our neck of the woods this year (if it was actually the 'mexican cartel' and not some bogus operation of the aforementioned government organizations.)The obvious fact, the truth of the matter, is that prohibition itself is the cause, and perpetuator of black-market marijuana sales, not the fact that many Americans have discovered the wonderful properties of cannabis, and have lost all faith in the duplicity and non-people-representation of the current US Government.Yet the liars, thugs and thieves who get salaries for being such, rather than come clean, so we can actually finally get on with the process of living good on planet earth, stack more lies on the top-heavy heaps already being ladled out as gospel, and the real people step back to avoid the imminent fall.The 'concern' of 'law' enforcement is just as fake and contrived. However busting american pot growers has always been easy compared to the mexicans, so that is definitely a 'concern.' Having to actually serve ALL americans instead of the select and economically favored few is a bug up every cops butt right now. They might actually have to work for a living soon!END PROHIBITION, you END CANNABIS APHARTIED, and END 'MARIJUANA' CARTELSLEGALIZE FREEDOM NOW
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Comment #5 posted by DrDunkleosteus on October 12, 2010 at 22:40:39 PT:
Something else to point out
The only cartels mentioned are the "Mexican" ones. I wonder if that is a sweeping generalization of all latin cartels, or if they are just focusing on those that happen to be centered in Mexico. 18th Street and MS 13, for example, are two gangs from El Salvador that also operate in Mexico among many other countries/states. So how should we read these reports? Whom are they focusing on, and just what percentage is that to the whole import market for cannabis?
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Comment #4 posted by DrDunkleosteus on October 12, 2010 at 22:34:05 PT:
18th street gang
I posted this documentary on NORML as well under a similar topic entry:http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/18th-street-gang/It's about the rival gang of the notorious MS 13 gang. If anyone wonders just how cannabis is used to fund the gangs and cartels, this is a great documentary to watch.The part about cannabis is on the second video in the playlist at the 4 minute mark, however everyone should watch this documentary to gain insight on who it is we're talking about when we speak of cartels and gang drug dealers.
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Comment #3 posted by The GCW on October 12, 2010 at 18:13:29 PT
Caifornia will not be solo; only the leader
California was the 1st to prohibit, first to allow the sick and will be the 1st to end it.California will be the 1st of 49 to follow.-0-Ending alcohol prohibition didn't stop people from making bathtub gin in the woods either.Or did it?
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Comment #2 posted by Canis420 on October 12, 2010 at 16:49:51 PT:
I always knew
that one state legalizing will not hurt the cartels much. But somebody has to be the first and as more states legalise in the future the more market share the cartels will lose...no brainer. The 21st century version of the dominoe theory.
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Comment #1 posted by runruff on October 12, 2010 at 13:37:05 PT
The F.U.B.A.R.'s are coming hurrah, hurrah!
Watch for the cavalcade of disinformation, scare tactics and lies. The corporate owned media pull out all the stops to beat this Measure.
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