If marijuana becomes legal in the US, how will that ruling

[Bobbieo]

affect the Mexican drug cartels?

[CaliforniaPeggy]

1. Hopefully, it will put them out of business!

[Cronus Protagonist]

2. ...because they are responsible for all that shit weed

Who would buy that when they can get primo bud from a store ??

(you can legally buy primo bud on Venice Beach California right now, by the way)

[Bobbieo]

3. Is marijuana the main staple of the Mexican Drug cartel economy

or is it meth or cocaine?

[mrreowwr_kittty]

5. What I've read is that pot is the major profit center.

The cartels often lose money on the harder stuff because more enforcement resources are focused there. Meanwhile millions of pounds of weed cross the border and are sold easily.

[Cronus Protagonist]

9. I have no idea... not an expert in Mexican drug cartel economics

But I do know the low grade dirt weed the Mexican/Chicano gangsters sell on the streets of LA.

[JonLP24]

18. Marijuana is very profitable

Because of low manufacturing costs. Meth is very profitable because there is little to no regulation on what you can buy or how much you can buy. Pseudoephedrine for example is limited under Meth combat act (a provision of the Patriot Act) here in the US meanwhile in Mexico you can virtually buy as much as you want. I'm not sure about Cocaine but the cartel is responsible for the majority of most drugs including heroin imported into the US. I don't have the sources but I'm sure they are out there if you research it.

[Horus45]

19. It is Meth

Meth has taken over as the drug most Mexican drug lords sell.
Meth is far more profitable and easier to smuggle.

[mrreowwr_kittty]

4. I guess it would depend on whether it was fully legalized or just decriminalized

Taxing, regulating, and selling it in legal establishments should severely undercut the black market. (Can't predict that it would completely eliminate it because there's still a small underground market for booze and cigarettes in this country even though both are legal.) Merely decriminalizing possession might have less of an impact on the cartels because it would still not be legal to grow or distribute it here, though I suspect it would significantly undercut them.

[Bobbieo]

7. I live in a border town and the drug cartel murders are crossing the border.

If this would put those bastards out of business, I am for full legalization of pot. Let Obama create a new marijuana agency.

[mrreowwr_kittty]

14. I fully agree.

I live in Phoenix, which isn't even near the border and we are having a horrible violent drug crime problem here so I can only imagine what you are going through at the border. Of course, we aren't helped by having a stupid crazy asshole of a Sheriff.

[Warpy]

6. Since it grows locally

it'll just about kill off the import market.

Legalizing all of it, at least temporarily, will destroy the criminal gangs in both countries. Why buy shit on the street when you can get pharmaceutical grade at Walgreen's? Take the profit out of it, then slowly raise taxes until rehab for people who run into trouble with it can be rebuilt.

Druggies have no problem getting anything they want right now, so there would be no holocaust of addiction paralyzing the country.

Most everybody else doesn't want it or only wants enough of it for occasional recreation or to treat pain that's going untreated now.

We lost the drug war. The drugs won. Declaring war on them only got us more and worse drugs. It's time to try something else.

[Cronus Protagonist]

10. You got it right, Warpy

n/t

[mrreowwr_kittty]

13. Sadly, there are too many other "industries" that profit from this unwinnable "War"

Like Homeland Security fatcats and private prisons.

[Phred42]

8. Same thing that happend to the Mob after the repeal of 18th amendment

it put them out of the booze biz but by then they had some much money they could get into anything

Problem is that legally available MJ would probably put a dent in Big Pharma's profits.

There are too many people making money (and power) on BOTH sides of the law - I doubt it will ever be legalized for this reason

[Bobbieo]

11. Phed 42 - I'm afraid you are correct in the aspect of ever getting pot legaized. Too many people

are making too much money by keeping pot illegal.

Are many aware that the number of Mexicans killed in the brutal drug wars last year almost surpass the number of American troops killed in Iraq and Afghanistan over the past 8 years.

[Phred42]

12. Damn Shame - This is reason enough to legalize it.

Simply to stop this crap

[silverojo]

15. Are you aware of how many AMERICANS are killed by them, too?

Why do people act as if nobody ever gets hurt or killed in America? :shrug:

[Lint Head]

16. They will no longer be needed for pot. They traffic more in cocaine.

:dem:

[Bobbieo]

17. Lint - That is the answer I did not want to hear -------- !!!

[flyboyscott68]

20. they can come work for me

They can come work for me. I opened a medical marijuana club in IL yesterday. Last week when the Obama administration said they would no longer prosecute medical marijuana cases; they effectively illuminated the laws against medical marijuana.

[bamacrat]

21. See the crime families of the 20s and 30s.

Once alcohol was made legal again the crime families and bootleggers dried up. Just like with drug cartels. Legalize weed and the cartels who sell them go away, how can they compete with high quality openly legal weed? They cant, not and make any moeny from it. If it were made legal to only grow it, it would help decrease the cartels presence.

[Jkid]

22. It will decimate the drug cartels

The legalization will put an end to the killings in Mexico and will cut property crime up to 50% in America.