Legal American Weed Is Undercutting Mexican Drug Cartel Profits

Here’s another great reason to support the continued decriminalization of marijuana across the U.S. —- it’s really undercutting the bottom line for drug cartels south of the boarder.

Though Mexican-grown weed remains a major source for American stoners, drug analysts say that the imported bud now amounts to just a third of all marijuana smoked in the U.S. and that our neighboring country’s pot farms are being abandoned as not worth the trouble. Small time growers who once sold their product for $100 per kilogram are now receiving just $30.

“Changes on the other side of the border are making marijuana less profitable for organizations like the Cartel de Sinaloa,” Antonio Mazzitelli, the representative in Mexico for the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime told The L.A. Times.

Quite a victory for the free market system, considering that farmers didn’t abandon weed cultivation even when offered what amounted to subsidies by their government to find another cash crop. And a good argument for the 10 states that could have legalization before voters in 2016.

This was an expected and hoped for downturn. In 2012, the Mexican Institute of Competitiveness published a study titled “If Our Neighbors Legalize,” predicting as much as a 30 percent drop in cartel profits without the U.S. market.

Ironically, the script has been flipped, with Mexican smokers now increasingly demanding that “gourmet” weed grown in America instead of the once-gold standard local product. Presumably they’ve tried Shatter. It’s like The Judgement of Paris wine tasting all over again.