Ioan Grillo: A New Way to Fight Mexico's Vicious Cartels: Legalizing Marijuana

"There is no doubt that marijuana legalization would hurt Mexican gangsters in their pocketbooks," says Tom Angell, spokesman for Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, a U.S. group that opposes the war on drugs. Mexico has seven major cartels involved in marijuana-growing and -smuggling. The profits of the green help them finance paramilitary death squads that have claimed 40,000 victims since 2006. Some of the violence can be directly linked to the marijuana trade. After the Tijuana bust in October, gunmen murdered 13 recovering addicts at a rehab center - one for each 10 tons of weed seized - apparently to try to make the government back off. Mexican cartels commit murder over the business precisely because it is so important to them. Legalization could take away more gangster profits than the DEA and Mexican army have managed to do in decades.

via www.ioangrillo.com

Comments

[Lisa Nothe]

I agree. It would have the same effect lifting prohibition had. Once that was lifted, the boot-leggers and speak-easies were basically out of business.