The United States is becoming an illegal drug exporter

Some of these terms have made it into popular culture. Acapulco Gold, Michoacán Cream, Jarilla Sinaloa.
They've all gone away. These days it's Mexican custom agents that are making the drug seizures.

Cannabis sold legally in California is heading south illegally, dominating a booming boutique market across Mexico, where buying and selling the drug is still outlawed. Mexican dealers flaunt their U.S. products, noting them in bold lettering on menus sent to select clients: “IMPORTADO.”
...
“The demand here for American weed has exploded,” said one dealer in Mexico City, who estimated that 60 percent of the marijuana he sells now comes from California. The dealer spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of arrest. “It’s aspirational for many of my clients. They want to be seen smoking the best stuff, the stuff rappers brag about smoking.”

High-end strains of U.S.-grown marijuana can cost $500 an ounce in Mexico, dealers said, for what might cost $150 in San Diego.

marijuana_01a.png

Marijuana seizures along the Mexican border declined by 81 percent between 2013 and 2020.
As you might imagine this has had a huge impact in Mexico.

As legal marijuana has become easier to access in the United States, Mexico’s production of the drug has fallen dramatically. Last week, Mexico’s president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, pointed out that the decline was likely to have an impact on employment.

“What is going to happen to the regions where marijuana and poppies were planted?” he asked at a news conference during a visit to Sinaloa, the home state of jailed cartel kingpin Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman. “What are people going to live on?”

Growing marijuana in Mexico is now barely profitable because so many American states have legalized. This has forced Mexican cartels to change their business models.

Two of Mexico's main criminal organizations operate in the Sierra Tarahumara: the Sinaloa Cartel and Juárez Cartel through its armed wing, known as La Línea.

Over the past 10 years, fighting between these two groups has had a constant ebb and flow.

But both of these criminal heavyweights are having to adjust to many US states decriminalizing or legalizing marijuana. To do so, they have monopolized other commercial activities like alcohol sales and logging, while also extorting the region’s local farmworkers to keep profits alive.

Selection_001_54.png

Share
up
12 users have voted.

Comments

and in every one of our states.
Maybe AMLO will go left on this eventually.
If the product is taxed, governments makes money from it, and keeps their jail population down, again, making a savings for governments.
Sellers gotta find buyers.

up
7 users have voted.

"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981

Lookout's picture

@on the cusp

The Mexican Supreme Court declared nearly three years ago that the country’s prohibition on the personal possession and cultivation of cannabis was unconstitutional. Lawmakers were then obligated to enact the policy change but have since been unable to reach a consensus on legislation to put in place regulations for a marijuana program.

At the request of legislators, the court agreed to extend its deadline for Congress to formally end prohibition on multiple occasions. But because of the repeated failed attempts to meet those deadlines, justices ultimately voted to end criminalization on their own in June.

Monreal previously said that the stage is set for lawmakers to actually pass a marijuana legalization bill during the new session after multiple attempts in recent years fell short of getting over the finish line.

“With the beginning of the LXV Legislature, a new possibility was opened to discuss and approve this long-delayed law, which would put an end to 100 years of prohibitionist policy and criminalization of the consumption of the cannabis flower, opening, in turn, a multimillion dollar market nationally and internationally, which could be beneficial for the economic reactivation of our country,” he said last month.

https://www.marijuanamoment.net/top-mexican-senator-says-theres-agreemen...

up
11 users have voted.

“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

Recreational use is legal in Illinois if bought at a state licensed (and taxed) store. Street pot is still popular because the tax is so high that street pot is much cheaper.

up
7 users have voted.

I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.

Pricknick's picture

I still grow Acapulco Gold. It's still here and not going anywhere with the exception of indoor growing. It is a strain that heavily prefers the outdoor touch. Perhaps I need to post a pic?
And that map about legalized states needs to go away.
Badly out of date.

up
12 users have voted.

Regardless of the path in life I chose, I realize it's always forward, never straight.

@Pricknick
To turn those orange states green. Looking at the map, there may be enough (R) Senators to pass a national medical marijuana bill. I doubt that complete legalizqation would pass today.

From a law point of view, how can the federal law call Marijuana a class one drig when many states have legalized? Shouldn't that old 1920's legislation be repealed/modified?

up
4 users have voted.

I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.

shaharazade's picture

@The Voice In the Wilderness Read today that Biden does not want pot legalized. Why? Does interfere with his big pharma or credit card bs. Or maybe he's just a well known dick mouthpiece/figure head for god knows whatever. Such a sad presidency for these days. Course they all are going back to the beginning of US history. Too bad we have no choice what so ever on all levels, state,city,county or the Feds. Local forget about it. We have Wheeler for our major, a asshole who's family has forever owned huge hunks of Oregon. So corrupt the Dems are it makes my head spin. Don't even like the wimpy so called progressives. Jeeze the system political is broken beyond repair. What to do? Not a damn thing that will put a dent in their agenda.

up
5 users have voted.
Lookout's picture

@shaharazade

...may have been the interest pulling the demented puppet's strings against pot decriminalization.

up
4 users have voted.

“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

as being illegal in both the country of origin, and the country of destination. Drugs shipped to the border are legal.

up
5 users have voted.

"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981

Azazello's picture

Reefer is legalized in many states, as it should be. But fake opioids manufactured in Mexico are causing addiction and deaths to spike. Drug overdose deaths top 100,000 annually for the first time, driven by fentanyl, CDC data show
They are colored and marked to look like Percocets but they are actually made with fentanyl by illicit labs with non-existent quality control.

These are killing people in your town, wherever you live.

up
9 users have voted.

We wanted decent healthcare, a living wage and free college.
The Democrats gave us Biden and war instead.

dystopian's picture

Being 15 in Huntington Bch. CA in 1970 was just right. It was a place one could be a connoisseur of the world's finest. The true Acapulco Gold was rare and $15 for a 3 finger lid instead of $10 for 4 fingers. But worth it. Same for the Panama Red. Before dogs it was just a matter of where the next boat that made it in was from. We saw it all. New Guinea purple, every kind of Tie Stick, Santa Marta Gold, African Black Pygmy Pot, Jamaican, Cambodian, Budda Sticks, and even once Elephant Pot. One hit will stone an elephant. So I took two. It was candyland.

Acapulco Gold

Acapulco Gold Filters

Panama Red

Some smoke signals appear the Rs are going to run left of the Ds on this now, and will win if they do. At which point we will have to admit the party switch is complete.

be well all, enjoy!

up
10 users have voted.

We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.
Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.
both - Albert Einstein

hopeful1's picture

Just updating the map. As of late June 2021, Adult cannabis use/possession/cultivation (as well as medical) is legal. The recreational cannabis shops are not yet open. I cannot speculate on the export market, but with our sun and Afghanistan-like mountains, Santa Fe Sinsemilla and Socorro Skunk would be globally competitive.

up
6 users have voted.

Do not let the plutocrats divide us!