Crime, Marijuana

Marijuana Legalization: Bad For The Cartels, Better For All

What does legalization of cannabis in the United States have to do with helping Mexico eliminate its cartels?

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Marijuana legalization has already led to many benefits in the United States, ranging from increased tax revenues to decreased cannabis use by minors. Marijuana legalization is also putting a dent into what the Department of Justice calls the “greatest organized crime threat to the United States,” the Mexican drug cartels. And that’s a good thing.

A bit of history on the Mexican drug cartels is in order. Time Magazine reports that, months after coming into office, Richard Nixon ordered the U.S.-Mexican border shut down to cut off the flow of Mexican marijuana coming into the U.S. But since this complete shutdown of border commerce debilitated Mexico’s economy, it was clear this action was also intended to force Mexico to comply with newly established U.S. drug policies, including more policing for marijuana at the border. This increased policing ultimately led to Mexican cartels’ controlling the land routes into the U.S.

Later in his presidency, in 1971, Nixon declared the U.S. war on drugs. In the 1980s, the Colombian cocaine cartels started using already developed Mexican drug routes to ensure their cocaine made it to U.S. consumers, and this in turn strengthened and emboldened Mexican drug trafficking. Ronald Reagan further involved the U.S. in Mexican drug affairs via the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986, which mandated that countries that did not adhere to U.S. drug policies would not receive U.S. financial aid.

This constant and intense U.S. pressure on Mexico culminated in what is now being called the “Mexican War on Drugs,” which has been raging in Mexico since 2006. Yet the U.S. remains the number one consumer of Mexican cartel-controlled illegal drugs and approximately 70,000 people have lost their lives at the hands of the cartels. On March 25, 2009, then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton accurately stated that, our “insatiable demand for illegal drugs fuels the drug trade” and “the United States bears shared responsibility for the drug-fueled violence sweeping Mexico.”

So, what does legalization of cannabis in the United States have to do with helping Mexico eliminate its cartels? The more cannabis Americans buy from state-licensed operations, the less cannabis they buy from the drug cartels. This will have positive long-term effects for pretty much everyone except the cartels themselves.

A few years ago, our law firm represented a medical marijuana dispensary against a city attempting to shut it down. A city police officer took the stand to explain why this city was so eager to shut down our client’s dispensary. Among the reasons he expressed was a concern about Mexican drug cartels. On cross-examination, we asked this police officer whether he was aware of any Mexican drug cartel links to legal medical marijuana in his city or anywhere else in the United States. He answered truthfully with a “no.” We then asked if he was aware of Mexican drug cartel links to illegal drugs in the United States and he, of course, answered with a “yes.” Needless to say, our closing argument included us talking about how having legal marijuana in this city would, if anything, help drive out or at least reduce criminal gang influences.

According to Mexican security analyst Alejandro Hope, “approximately 30 percent of cartels’ drug export revenues come from marijuana.” Though on one level marijuana legalization has little effect on the cartels’ ability to smuggle hard drugs like heroin into the United States, just reducing the cartels’ marijuana sales will reduce their power, influence, and wealth and should correspondingly reduce their ability to move heroin and other hard drugs across borders. Standing alone, any reduction in the drug cartels’ power and presence in Mexico and in Colombia would be a great achievement.

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We may already be seeing the results in Mexico of marijuana legalization in the United States. Violent crimes are decreasing in Mexico. Homicides hit a high in 2011, with Mexican police departments reporting almost 23,000 murders. Last year, they reported 15,649.

It is both our responsibility and to our country’s benefit to help reduce the drug violence in Mexico and Colombia that we helped create. Legalizing marijuana is a pretty good place to start.

Hilary Bricken is an attorney at Harris Moure, PLLC in Seattle and she chairs the firm’s Canna Law Group. Her practice consists of representing marijuana businesses of all sizes in multiple states on matters relating to licensing, corporate formation and contracts, commercial litigation, and intellectual property. Named one of the 100 most influential people in the cannabis industry in 2014, Hilary is also lead editor of the Canna Law Blog. You can reach her by email at hilary@harrismoure.com.

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