Marijuana legalization has already led to many benefits in the United States, ranging from increased tax revenues to decreased cannabis use by minors. Marijuana legalization is also putting a dent into what the Department of Justice calls the “greatest organized crime threat to the United States,” the Mexican drug cartels. And that’s a good thing.
A bit of history on the Mexican drug cartels is in order. Time Magazine reports that, months after coming into office, Richard Nixon ordered the U.S.-Mexican border shut down to cut off the flow of Mexican marijuana coming into the U.S. But since this complete shutdown of border commerce debilitated Mexico’s economy, it was clear this action was also intended to force Mexico to comply with newly established U.S. drug policies, including more policing for marijuana at the border. This increased policing ultimately led to Mexican cartels’ controlling the land routes into the U.S.
Later in his presidency, in 1971, Nixon declared the U.S. war on drugs. In the 1980s, the Colombian cocaine cartels started using already developed Mexican drug routes to ensure their cocaine made it to U.S. consumers, and this in turn strengthened and emboldened Mexican drug trafficking. Ronald Reagan further involved the U.S. in Mexican drug affairs via the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986, which mandated that countries that did not adhere to U.S. drug policies would not receive U.S. financial aid.
This constant and intense U.S. pressure on Mexico culminated in what is now being called the “Mexican War on Drugs,” which has been raging in Mexico since 2006. Yet the U.S. remains the number one consumer of Mexican cartel-controlled illegal drugs and approximately 70,000 people have lost their lives at the hands of the cartels. On March 25, 2009, then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton accurately stated that, our “insatiable demand for illegal drugs fuels the drug trade” and “the United States bears shared responsibility for the drug-fueled violence sweeping Mexico.”
So, what does legalization of cannabis in the United States have to do with helping Mexico eliminate its cartels? The more cannabis Americans buy from state-licensed operations, the less cannabis they buy from the drug cartels. This will have positive long-term effects for pretty much everyone except the cartels themselves.
...According to Mexican security analyst Alejandro Hope, “approximately 30 percent of cartels’ drug export revenues come from marijuana.” Though on one level marijuana legalization has little effect on the cartels’ ability to smuggle hard drugs like heroin into the United States, just reducing the cartels’ marijuana sales will reduce their power, influence, and wealth and should correspondingly reduce their ability to move heroin and other hard drugs across borders. Standing alone, any reduction in the drug cartels’ power and presence in Mexico and in Colombia would be a great achievement.
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