One of the most exciting things about legalization is the process of moving the cannabis industry out of the black market into normal commerce. To some, this sounds suspect, but it’s working. For instance, this blog from MPP indicates that the Mexican Cartel’s revenue from cannabis alone is 60% of their total revenue — which includes harder drugs and prostitution.
Make no mistake, when the projections come out for each year, the number you see on these reports is how much the Cartel’s budget comes up short that year. According to an article from Time:
“The group predicts the industry will top $4 billion by 2016. This means less cash for Mexican cartels to buy guns, bribe police and pay assassins. Coinciding with legalization, violence has decreased in Mexico. Homicides hit a high in 2011, with Mexican police departments reporting almost 23,000 murders. Last year, they reported 15,649.”
By legalizing cannabis, we are making our neighborhoods safer, along with Mexican neighborhoods. The only way to continue to hit the Cartel in the pocketbook, is to expand the legalization of cannabis, and make provisions for harder drugs, too. It sounds counter-intuitive to some, but I think it is a brilliant move to end the violence here and abroad.
Personally, I am excited to see Texas and California join the list, because I think California is sitting on a massive recreational industry, especially when tourism is lumped in with it…and Texas…well, most people don’t know, but Texans love cannabis, and everything is bigger and better in Texas. I think those two states alone could easily remove another $10 billion from the Cartel’s budget.
So, if you find yourself on the fence in this topic, or maybe you still cling to your prohibitionist ways, then maybe consider that legalizing is exactly what we need to put pressure on the Cartel — forcing them to suffer and lose power. Then, when it’s weak, we can strike them on our homeland, put them in prison for murder, slavery, or other heinous crimes, and/or run them out of our country…while permenantly forcing them to lose a major market. This would not only help us get our country back, but it would help our neighbors as well. I don’t tell many people, but I have friends in Mexico, and they are excited about prohibition repeal — for their homeland, and for us. We live in interesting times. Change is difficult, but it could be exactly what’s needed.