Marijuana Smuggler's Blues
"They move it through Miami, Sell it in L.A., Hide it up in Telluride..." -- Glenn Frey ("Smuggler's Blues")
NEW YORK (MainStreet) — There were questions before marijuana legalization concerning narco-traffickers moving in on the legal trade when it was only "medical" marijuana being sold. Now that recreational pot is legal, law enforcement officers think drug smugglers will want a large piece of the larger Colorado and Washington pie.
"What we are saying is that this is a perfect storm for them," said Tom Gorman, director of the Rocky Mountain High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area (RMHIDTA) in Colorado. They do not just make money from drugs. One of their biggest money makers is extortion. They will go to the cultivation sights and the retail stores. They will want a piece of the action and they will get it through extortion."
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The Rand Drug Policy Research Center concurs that extortion is a major source of income for the drug cartels. But they are uncertain about how the legalization in Colorado and Washington will affect the cartels.
A study by Rand speculated that nearly two thirds of the marijuana smoked in the U.S. comes from Mexico. The research institution believes that how the drug cartel exports are affected will depend on how much marijuana is diverted from Colorado and Washington to other states, what the price point is after taxes are included and other factors.
A Mexican think tank called the Mexican Institute for Competitiveness (Instituto Mexicano para la competitividad, IMC), said that individual state legalization of marijuana in the U.S., "could lead to a drop in revenues for drug trafficking in Mexican criminal organizations." The think tank noted that the United States is currently a net importer of marijuana. But legalization would increase domestic production of marijuana to a point where it would meet most of American domestic demand.
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