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offense, which means that selling weed in America is still very profitable overall. But even if the cartel’s adjustments are small, they are real. In part as a response to the market changes of legalization, the cartels have now gotten deeper into the heroin, opioid, and methamphetamine businesses. They are now the largest foreign suppliers of all those substances in the United States, and a leading producer of fentanyl. They have diversified their portfolios. Cartel heroin production is believed to have jumped 37% between 2016 and 2017. And the DEA estimates that methamphetamine usage in the U.S. is currently at an all time high, as the cartels now produce the stimulant in vast quantities in industrial factories south of the border. Approaching cartels as a business first raises the prospect of new policy approaches that could stymie – and perhaps eventually – defang them. Take a comprehensive review of the drug war to date, with some recent marijuana legalization data thrown in, and you have a strong argument for controlled legalization on a much larger scale. Fighting the supply is never going to work. Tackling the demand end of the drug equation is the only new policy approach experiment with this before tackling the much more profitable – and deadly – substances, like fentanyl. None of this will be easy, even if the U.S. government does finally take a cue from worth trying at this point. Marijuana legalization gives government a way to
And it’s clearer than ever that the biggest players in this mess – the Mexican cartels – are structured and operate like a black market Fortune 100 company.
piecemeal marijuana legalization. Currently, weed is still illegal at the federal level, and so it remains a source of ready funds for any criminal willing to take the risk to sell it. And even if it is decriminalized, a thriving black market will endure as long as marijuana is tightly regulated and taxed at high levels. Added to that are the multi-faceted ways the cartels make money that have nothing to do with drugs. Extortion is a reliable source of illegal funds, as is kidnapping. With the surge of migrants at the southern border, human trafficking is now estimated to net the cartels hundreds of millions a year. The cartels not only can diversify their product focus – they can expand their illegal services, too. One thing is for sure: It’s time for a new approach from Uncle Sam. Legalization of marijuana in some states hasn’t destroyed them. On the contrary, the evidence supports further legalization of marijuana will continue to push down criminal profits while lowering social and financial costs to the American people for policing and incarceration. The cartels have shown they will adapt to marijuana legalization. Rather than trying the same tactics that have always failed, perhaps it’s time we adapt, too, with phased-in, mass legalization. It’s time to go after the cartels where it really hurts them: their bottom line.
American Consequences 89
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