Posted on 03/05/2016 9:11:55 PM PST by Ken H
Legal marijuana may be doing at least one thing that a decades-long drug war couldn't: taking a bite out of Mexican drug cartels' profits.
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 data supports the many stories about the difficulties marijuana growers in Mexico face in light of increased competition from the north. As domestic marijuana production has ramped up in places such as California, Colorado and Washington, marijuana prices have fallen, especially at the bulk level.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Marijuana was prosecuted far worse in the late 60s than now
I was there I was prosecuted in the early 79s this is not a disagreement
You are factually wrong
Just tell me where you read such a fantasy
I remember in Michigan and Texas too in early 70s a guy got life for a few joints
We would get routinely pulled over and searched for the probable cause of long hair and where I grew up until 1977 any amount of weed was a felony
Amazing how stupid Freepers can be isn’t it
They blab blab blab earnestly and full of conviction of something they know nothing about
The medical and retail DO NOT buy from illegal growers because of the quality issue and the crime
Anyone can permit to grow up to 99 plants in Colorado with minimal paperwork
So having the states make a profit from a bunch of stoners is a good thing? Makes very little sense.
Did George Washington smoke the hemp?
Drugs were not sold in the open then like you think from watching Woodstock all over America with apathetic law enforcement around
In corrupt cities like Manhattan where I lived cops got paid to allow little windows in the back of bodegas to sell drugs in general in exchange for payoffs
Washington sq had Jamaicans selling weed and the cops would come thru on occasion for show
That is big city corruption places where now you can smoke openly not prosecuted ....weed not cigs
Just look at penalty charts
I’m almost 60
I have lived the drug war prolly more than anyone here
They were not softer on drugs in the years after Haight Ashbury
That’s an urban myth I guess hipsters toss about like everyone went to key parties then and women were kept down by mean men
The mad men view of history
One thing is true
LSD was legal till 65-66
From the article:
As domestic marijuana production has ramped up in places such as California, Colorado and Washington,
I'm sorry. You were saying?
So they finally legalize it and you trying to say they’re purchasing illegally grown pot and selling it through legal retail shops. You have evidence of this taking place?
You’re almost 60 and you remember the drug culture of the 60’s? When you were 10 or 12? Go away sonny.
“So they finally legalize it and you trying to say they’re purchasing illegally grown pot and selling it through legal retail shops. You have evidence of this taking place?”
And of course big government has done such a good job of keeping crack off the streets....so good in fact that convicted crack dealers are getting out of prison so they can murder their girlfriends and their children...
I smoked my first jay at 14 in 1971
Grew up around cousins and older friends who went to Vietnam
Weed culture hit my area around 1968 to 69
It wasn’t instant culture from the coasts back then to the hinterlands
I’d just like where you get so uninformed
It’s amusing
Just like the rumrunners took back the legal alcohol market? LOL! Pull the other one.
You’re my hero. And so knowledgeable. Golly gee.
“Just like the rumrunners took back the legal alcohol market? LOL! Pull the other one.”
That isn’t this.
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/altered_state/2014/01/colorado_marijuana_legalization_how_lucrative_is_it_to_be_a_legal_weed_dealer.html
Your link doesn't say they’re purchasing illegally grown pot and selling it through legal retail shops. Here's what it does say:
"CT does not have to pay licensing fees, taxes, or other regulatory expenses. Over the past few years he’s dropped his rate for an eighth from around $50 to $30 to meet or beat the going price at Colorado dispensaries"
In other words: legal pot is cutting into illegal profit margins, and lightly taxed and regulated will do so even more.
That isn’t this.
Evidence? They're both popular mind-altering substances that were once illegal then became (at least in some states) legalized.
Would it be better if criminals made that profit? States profit from boozers now - is that bad?
SacBee Ignores Drug Cartels in Pot Farming Story
Video: Mexican Drug Cartels In Northern California
Mexican Cartels Extending Violent Reach Into Calaveras County
13 Arrested In California Drug Cartel Investigation
Which part of "CO" did you not understand?
LOL! Billboards? TV spots? Too funny.
Colorado Marijuana Legalization 2015: Fighting The Black Market And The Everyday Challenges Of Selling Legal Weed
BY DION RABOUIN ON 05/18/15 AT 3:22 PM
DENVER — It turns out selling weed is pretty hard. Contrary to popular belief, selling it legally, at least, isn’t all THC-infused lollipops and rainbows. Just ask David Schwartz.
The six-year cannabis-industry veteran came to Colorado in the ‘90s from Long Island, New York, after discovering Boulder on his way to a Rainbow gathering in Wyoming. For him, selling marijuana in a locale known around the nation for its liberalized pot laws is not just about counting money; it’s about taxes, regulatory compliance, inventory management, and above all, staying on the right side of Colorado’s “pot cops” — the Marijuana Enforcement Division (MED).
“Every single aspect of the industry requires a fair amount of consciousness and due diligence,” says Schwartz. “Your daily sales have to be loaded into MED at the end of the night, all your weights have to be accurate, you have to account for anything that dries up or goes missing. Every day you’ve got to do an accounting of what’s in your inventory.”
And then there’s another unique problem: the competing black market dealers who have none of the costs of operating a lawful business and often have access to product of similar quality. Marijuana advocates long suggested that legalization would be the key to wiping out the black market for marijuana, but almost a year and a half into the experiment, that hasn’t been the case.
About five miles from Herban, smoke is in the air and a dealer armed with three small baggies of Sour Diesel marijuana is doing business the old-fashioned way. The dealer spoke with International Business Times on condition of anonymity, in part to avoid possible arrest, but primarily because he fears backlash from people in the legal industry with whom he once worked.
He used to sell marijuana legally, he says. He owned a business that operated out of a modest building in Denver, but he grew disillusioned following what he saw as excessive regulation, uncertainty and taxation. College educated and previously struggling to keep up with the city’s rapidly rising rents, he says he now operates his marijuana business much the same way he did in high school: out of his car.
The state’s Amendment 64 ushered in a new era of business last year, allowing for marijuana to be sold for recreational as well as medicinal use. That brought a wave of new customers to pot dispensaries and a flood of cash, but it came with a cadre of regulations governing just about every aspect of who, what, when, where and how marijuana could be sold.
Skirting these regulations and free of overhead costs, sales tax and MED regulations, this dealer estimates he’s making two to three times as much money as when he owned his marijuana business.
And his clandestine delivery service is just a tiny part of the equation in the state’s black market.
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