Irony, sweet irony….
“Two or three years ago, a kilogram [2.2 pounds] of marijuana was worth $60 to $90,” a Mexican marijuana grower told NPR news in December 2014. “But now they’re paying us $30 to $40 a kilo. It’s a big difference. If the U.S. continues to legalize pot, they’ll run us into the ground.”
Apparently, to win the War On Drugs and take on the drug cartels, all Americans had to do was Just Say Yes. Despite the DEA’s “best” efforts, it seems legalized weed will win part of the “war” for them:
The latest data from the U.S. Border Patrol shows that last year, marijuana seizures along the southwest border tumbled to their lowest level in at least a decade. Agents snagged roughly 1.5 million pounds of marijuana at the border, down from a peak of nearly 4 million pounds in 2009.
The legalization of recreational marijuana (CO, WA, OR, & AK) and huge impact of medical marijuana in places like California are reducing the trafficking of weed across our border by the violent Mexican drug cartels.
The article points out that since America’s turn towards legalization the cartels are dropping out of the weed business and moving more into heroin and meth. This is not good. But as we move more towards legalization hopefully the stubborn DEA will shift its focus from marijuana and devote more resources towards stopping the flow of far more dangerous heroin and meth across our border.
Legalization of marijuana seems like the most logical and sane way of dedicating scarce resources towards the far more serious problems of heroin and meth use. Of course prescription drug abuse is also a concern and there is evidence that prescription pain medication abuse and overdose has dropped in states that allow legalized access to marijuana:
States that have legalized the use of medical marijuana to manage chronic pain and other conditions have a 25 percent lower rate of deaths from opioid drug overdose than states where medical marijuana is illegal, according to a new study. These findings suggest laws that make cannabis available to manage chronic pain and other illnesses may be useful in the U.S. health care system's uphill battle to reduce prescription painkiller abuse.
To get a sense of the full potential for legalized marijuana we need only look at the state of Colorado since it has been at this the longest. Legalized marijuana is becoming so successful there that Aspen saw weed sales beat alcohol in March and April of 2015 and sales in general have pretty much hovered right under alcohol all year long last year. Marijuana sales in Aspen alone exceeded $8.3 million last year. The state as a whole sold almost a BILLION dollars ($995 million) in weed last year raking in $135 million in tax revenue, including $35 million for school construction projects alone. Read that again. Nearly $1 BILLION in sales and over $100 million in tax revenue.
On top of that, if we want to use our police resources more efficiently, legalization is the way to go:
Linn (Aspen’s Assistant Police Chief) said the addition of legal recreational marijuana to Aspen more than a year ago has not increased police officers’ workload. In fact, it has lessened the amount of work because officers don’t have to seize the drug when they find it on people and then deal with the corresponding paperwork such action used to necessitate, he said.
In addition, marijuana is far less of a societal ill than alcohol, Linn said.
“Marijuana doesn’t exactly whip people into a frenzy to act out or go to a bar and pick a fight,” he said. “There’s no question that a person who’s been smoking marijuana is a lot less likely to pose a threat than someone drunk on alcohol.”
I think we can all agree with Assistant Police Chief Linn on his observation. It’s time for common sense to prevail on this issue and move towards legalization at the federal level. The DEA would be able to better focus its resources on dangerous drugs, we could finally do something about prescription pain medication abuse and overdose, law enforcement would be able to concentrate on more dangerous drugs and crime, tax revenues would buffer dwindling state budgets, and our criminal justice system would be relieved of a petty and trivial “crime” to concentrate on more serious offenses.
It’s time America.