Thanks to Legalizations, US Weed Is Better, Stronger, and Mexico Wants It PRI's The World
go to original November 8, 2016

Mexico's Demand for Potent California Marijuana Creates Southbound Smuggling (KPBS News)

Update: Weed Is Now Legal on the West Coast from Mexico to Canada (Heat Street)

Let's just come right out and say it: A lot of people in the United States like marijuana, for a bunch of different reasons — to the extent that marijuana legalization is even a ballot measure in nine states.

In Mexico, drug cartels still benefit from smuggling huge quantities of "grass" across the border into the US. But even if just one of those ballot measures passes on Election Day, it will impact the cartels' business.

Here’s where it gets interesting: Mexicans are now buying US-made marijuana. It’s better, stronger and in demand.

“There’s been anecdotal reports of boutique, very high-THC-concentration, marijuana being brought down from the US for sale in Mexico,” says Deborah Bonello, a senior researcher with InSight Crime, a group that monitors organized crime and security threats in Latin America.

“Those products would be more expensive than your standard Acapulco Gold," Bonello says. "But there are people who are prepared to pay for it.”

On the northbound smuggling tracks, prices per kilogram of Mexican marijuana have been dropping since legalization in states like Colorado and Washington. But this doesn’t mean the drug cartels are hurting.

“You’re seeing producers shift their focus from marijuana to poppy,” says Bonello. “It’s the boom crop right now.”

But it’s difficult to show or prove just how much the cartels are shifting crops.

Read the rest at PRI's The World

Related: Movement to Legalize Marijuana Faces Biggest Test Yet in 9 US States (Associated Press)

Related: Legalizing Marijuana: Trading One Harm for Another? (CBS News)

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