Polls Indicate the Taboo of Marijuana in Mexico May Finally Be Fading Away Ben Adams - Merry Jane
go to original December 26, 2016

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

For decades, incessant bloody violence has shaped Mexico's view of illegal drugs, including marijuana. However, the emergence of legal pot in the United States has lowered the price of marijuana and is helping put cartels out of business. While Mexico's perception of marijuana is notoriously negative, its attitude is finally beginning to shift in favor of legalized recreational marijuana.

Exit polls indicate that attitudes surrounding pot are indeed starting to soften in Mexico. In 2008, only seven percent of voters said they were in favor of recreational marijuana. This year, nearly one-third of voters said that they are in favor of legal pot.

Mexico's Golden Triangle - the states of Sinaloa, Durango and Chihuahua, dominates the nation's marijuana traffic, importing most of it to American customers through an intricate network of tunnels and flight routes. “Drug-trafficking is about managing routes,” Antonio Mazzitelli, the regional head of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, told the Economist.

It is estimated that Mexico's horrific drug war has claimed the lives of upwards of 100,000 people, but the true extent of the carnage is difficult to calculate. Despite the fact that the names, leaders, affiliations and alignments of many Mexican cartels are publicly known, the Mexican government has not been able to effectively stop the bloodshed.

Read the rest at Merry Jane

Related: Plot Twist: Marijuana Is Being Smuggled from the U.S. to Mexico (Vibe)

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