Making Marijuana Legal: Crime/Criminals?
Drug Cartels or Fair Trade Merchants
By Christopher Brian
President: Student Movement for Awareness and Policy
Image From article posted by Paul Hoosen
Marijuana is a drug. It's been scientifically proven to be less harmful than other drugs, such as alcohol. The thing that makes Marijuana so much more scary than alcohol is the crime that comes with it.
People hear of large drug busts on the news and see big cops with big guns surrounding large piles of cash and pot and get images in their heads of gang violence and drug cartels. In many cases these busts are average people who under non-prohibitive circumstances would be farmers and shop keepers.What this does is falsely matches people's opinion of marijuana with violent crime.
True: Drug Cartels and Gangs are Profiting from Marijuana. People are being killed and the police are overspent.
The news is often filled with tales of South American drug cartels getting into a shoot out during a marijuana transaction. The problem is not marijuana it is the money attached to it. It makes no sense to want to shoot someone over a plant. These drug cartels know how much the marijuana is worth and they know they'll have an easier time growing and shipping it then residents of the United States. If Marijuana were to be made legal here in the United States, the drug cartels would be forced out of business. If they were to stay in business, they would lose the necessity for violence as they would be in compliance with the law. All disputes could be handled in court rather than with guns. My point all comes down to the 'Grapes Analogy;' The reason Drug Cartels don't grow grapes to make their own wine is there would be no money in it for them. They simply cannot compete with the legal Unites States wine industry. The west coast of the US is the perfect Climate for growing pot outdoor on a large scale, South American Marijuana is notorious for being of a lesser quality. If marijuana were to be made legal here, there is no way for South American drug cartels to compete with the marijuana market of Northern California. . If the drug cartels wanted to stay in the marijuana business they would have to lower their prices to make it worth importing the product. It would be no different than importing/exporting coffee or corn except south american drug cartels would get paid considerably less than the farmers of the American West. Violent crime and foreign Marijuana smuggling would go away.
