[PowderMonkey]

"I’d be more than a little afraid that the Mexican drug cartels would retaliate against me"br>

Illicit drug activity accounts for only a portion of the cartels' source of income. With legalization, they will make even more money, establishing storefronts and retail chains. As legit businessmen now, the cartels will move from trafficking drugs, to more profitable enterprises like extortion and political corruption. No more getting their hands dirty in grow operations or distribution. You do the leg work, the dirty work. They collect a portion of the payoff. Just give them a cut of your action, or your whole family will stop breathing.

[William Tell]

PowderMonkey said: "With legalization, they will make even more money, establishing storefronts and retail chains. As legit businessmen now, the cartels will move from trafficking drugs, to more profitable enterprises like extortion and political corruption. "

Political corruption can't exist in an environment of freedom and limited government. If, for example, anybody can run their own casino, then there is no benefit to bribing a zoning official or a legislator.

Who would the cartels extort and why would anybody pay? If kidnapping for ransom was profitable, they would be doing it and are doing it in some locales.

Would you really want to be a criminal enterprise competing directly with Walmart?

I don't know the details of the situation in Colorado, but I do know that pot literally grows on trees. If the law allows people to grow their own without withering taxes, the price will plummet as soon as the first crop is in.