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...More details at CBS News.
...recent changes in state laws that allow the use and cultivation of marijuana for medical purposes are giving U.S. growers a competitive advantage...
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...
Led by California, 13 U.S. states now permit some use of marijuana; Maryland is considering such a law. In many cities, marijuana is one of the lowest priorities for police.
To some authorities, the new laws are essentially licenses to grow money. With a $100 investment in enriched soil and nutrients, almost anyone can cultivate a plant that will produce two pounds of marijuana that can sell for $9,000 in hundreds of medical marijuana clubs or on the street, according to growers.
High-end marijuana grown under such special conditions often fetches 10 times the price of poor-quality Mexican pot grown in abandoned cornfields and stored for months in damp conditions that erode its quality further...
The photo is a screencap of Janet Leigh in Orson Welles' Touch of Evil.
All drugs should be legal. If sold by the government they could reap milloins to pay for countless subsidies. The drug cartel would be out of business. By by Afganistan.
ReplyDeleteSo, you're not growing a personal stash - you are helping to fight crime! Makes sense to me.
ReplyDeleteBeware the unintended consequences: When an established crime organization loses a source of funding it doesn't necessarily follow that the organization dissolves. Its members may turn to other revenue producing activities. Extortion, kidnapping, protection rackets and so on. It's great that Mexico has legalized most drugs, and that US home-grown is taking an increased market share, but no one should assume that this will lead to a decrease in crime. Quite the opposite, as is already the case. Violence is way up in Mexico. Guess why?
ReplyDeleteNo your wrong! The crime is going up because of the greed and greed only. I do agree with legalizing only pot in the states. Let's grown our own and reep the benefits here in the states.
ReplyDeleteThe kidnapping, extortion, is all due to a corrupt government in south america. Go spend some time down there you will know what I mean. I love the usa and yes we have had corruption but never has it been to the extreme as you would find in other countries.
LEgalize pot hell yes.