Competition Clips Cartels

DISCLAIMER: This post is neither advocating nor promoting the growing, distribution, selling, or use of illicit substances. This is thread is meant for the discussion of the War on Drugs and the effect of current events upon the Drug Cartels of Mexico and Columbia. Please keep discussions On Topic to prevent the thread from being locked for further discussion. Thank you.

It appears that the War on Drugs found a unexpected new ally in crippling the Drug Cartels of Mexico and Columbia...that being the 13 U.S. states which now permit some legal use of medical marijuana.

Competition Clips Cartels

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.

The shifting economics of the marijuana trade have broad implications for Mexico's war against the drug cartels, suggesting that market forces, as much as law enforcement, can extract a heavy price from criminal organizations that have used the spectacular profits generated by pot sales to fuel the violence and corruption that plague the Mexican state.

Until recently, over 60% (8.6 Billion US dollars) of the Mexican and Columbian Drug Cartels revenue was based on the illegal sale of marijuana in the United States. Cartels from these two countries held almost 100% of the marijuana market in the United States. Now, their market share, and their profits have been cut roughly in half because of legal domestic medical marijuana growers in 13 U.S. states!

This is a major turn of events for both the United States, Mexico and Columbia.

More importantly, this is the most significant decrease in the Drug Cartels revenue and operations to date in the War on Drugs...and it wasn't even a planned operation by Law Enforcement, U.S. Customs and Border Patrol, the D.E.A., or the Military!

In over 40 years since the U.S. first got involved in the War on Drugs, we have spent in excess of $2.5 trillion dollars fighting this War. Despite the ad campaigns, increased incarceration rates, crackdown on smuggling, and using military intervention against the Cartels, the revenue of the Cartels, as well as the number of drug users in the U.S. have both steadily inclined, while violence escalated. Through the past 40 years the War on Drugs has been at best a stalemate, and at worst, a complete and utter failure.

For the first time in 40 years, a powerful blow has been struck against the Cartels where it mattered most...in their pocketbooks. With half the revenue, Cartels will find it far more difficult to run operations, finally giving Law Enforcement, U.S. Customs and Border Patrol, the D.E.A., and the Military in Mexico and Columbia the upper-hand. All because 13 of 50 states cut demand for the Cartel's main product by legalizing it's use and growth under limited circumstances.

However, the Cartels have not remained idle while their bottom line has been threatened. Their growing operations have begun to move from Mexico and Columbia to within the United States itself, and spread from it's traditional locations in the SW and Western States to Michigan, Arkansas, and North Carolina while they struggle to find ways to compete in a dwindling market for their once primary source of revenue. This could bode ill for Americans who were previously distantly removed from the epic violence and corruption that plague Mexico and Columbia. The implications of the Cartels moving their primary growth operations to the United States to remain competitive is yet to be seen.

However, it is clear that the Mexican and Colombian Cartels are getting desperate and scared. As more states consider legalizing the use and growth of their main product under limited circumstances, they can expect to see their market share and profits continue to drop even further.

Still, it is good news to know that they are feeling the pinch and that their dominance, violence and corruption that they spread to protect their economic interests may begin to ebb, allowing countries like the U.S. to decrease illicit drug use and related crimes, while allowing countries like Mexico and Columbia to regain stability that has suffered at the hands of Cartel violence.

[edit on 16-10-2009 by fraterormus]

What I love to see is the FACT that illegal laws against a fracking plant, has done nothing to curb its sale by the cartels. But with the legal manufacture or farming of marijuana it has cut their income by 50%.

And some thought the war on drugs actually had something to do with stopping the drugs.

2.5 Trillion, who received all that money? No need to answer.

WHich brings us to the point we are not allowed to talk about here.

Its so simple. Now i know why everyone hates the government

They do everything wrong!

Stupid CIA and their covert operations, messing it up for the people who fund them

Well, I do think that puts the United States government into a situation where they have one of two options:

1. Acknowledge the positive effect this has had on the War on Drugs and promote it, allowing for further economic damage to the Mexican and Colombian Cartels.

2. Deny it, and continue to oppose it, making it clear to World+Dog their real motivations in having a vested interest in the Mexican and Colombian Cartels and the International Drug Trade.

Since the late 1960's-early 1970's the CIA's involvement in the Heroin and Opium Trade in South East Asia has been openly known. The War in Afghanistan could be arguably considered to be in part protectionism of the Heroin Trade. In the 1980's the CIA's participation with the Drug Cartels of Central and South America to destabilize those regions came to light during the Iran-Contra Scandal and the Noriega-Panama Scandal. Whether or not the CIA has washed it's hands clean of interest in the Drug Cartels of Central and South America remains to be seen.

I suppose if we see a Federal Crack-down denying State Legislation allowing the limited legal use, and growing of medical marijuana under certain circumstances, then we will know.

If we see an about-face from the Federal government either seeking Federal laws allowing the limited legal use, and growing of medical marijuana under certain circumstances to further hit the Drug Cartels of Mexico and Columbia, then we will know.

Either way, the damage is being felt by the Cartels and the U.S. government has to come to a decision quick to seize upon this situation, one way or the other, depending on what their interests really are.

Well, that didn't take long...

The Federal Government, because of recent findings, has done an about-face on the Medical Marijuana issue, and as of this morning has issued a memo asking Federal Drug Enforcement and Prosecutors to not arrest users of Medical Marijuana or their suppliers so long as they are in compliance with their state laws and statutes.

Feds Issue New Drug Policy

Two Justice Department officials described the new policy to The Associated Press, saying prosecutors will be told it is not a good use of their time to arrest people who use or provide medical marijuana in strict compliance with state laws.

The new policy is a significant departure from the Bush administration, which insisted it would continue to enforce federal anti-pot laws regardless of state codes.

So, I guess even if factions of our government do have a vested interest in the Mexican and Colombian Cartels, they like the significant financial impact that Medical Marijuana has negatively had on them that they are no longer enforcing Federal laws against Medical Marijuana and now letting it be entirely a State issue.

I suppose then, we have our answer.

Rather than make a new thread, I figured I'd just append this one with yet more news regarding the new found effects of State legislation in the United States upon the Mexican and Drug Cartels.

It seems that everyone is jumping on this opportunity and deciding to go for the gold and see this to it's natural outcome.

George Will: US ‘probably in the process’ of legalizing marijuana

The United States is "probably in the process now of legalizing marijuana." He added that if there were to be a serious effort to fight the increasingly violent, powerful Mexican drug cartels, "you'd legalize marijuana," the sale of which provides the gangs the vast majority of their funding.

What is the world coming to when even journalists from the staunch hard-wing Right, such as George Will, endorse legalizing marijuana, not just for medicinal use, but for recreational use as well?

Recent Gallup Polls show that 56% of Americans already support this. The only two two political groups in the U.S. that are still very strongly opposed to legalization are Conservatives and Republicans, but apparently that is changing in light of recent discoveries of the impact 13 States limited legalization has had on the War on Drugs.

George Will was quoted saying:

"80 percent of the Mexican cartels' revenue is from marijuana. If you really want to go after the Mexican cartels -- and I'm not saying that's the only criteria for public policy -- you'd legalize marijuana."

By comparison, Cartel violence in Mexico alone has claimed over 15,000 Mexicans since mid-2006 whereas the Iraq War has claimed only 2,286 Coalition Fatalities in that same time period. Let there be no mistake about it, the War on Drugs may be a failure, but Cartel violence is far more violent and deadly than War itself.

When the Far-Right starts understanding that legal marijuana production equates directly into substantially curbing Cartel violence, and begins advocating alongside the Left for further legalization, the War on Drugs may be taking an epic turn for the better, after 40 years of bitter failure.

it kind of reminds me of the thired season of the wire. They established free zones where law enforcement looked the other way, and greatly penalized sellers operating outside of their restricted areas.

I love how the agency figures always site prices that are about half of what is actually paid by the end users. they are missing out on one of the largest tax bases conceivable.

its a good stance, because these are not the "gateway" type users. they have an actual reason for use (outside of "boredom").