 A recently released government report from the DEA, or Drug Enforcement Agency, says that because more states have legalized cannabis use, smuggled marijuana from Mexico has drastically decreased. Specifically, they are quoted as writing, “in U.S. markets, Mexican marijuana has largely been supplanted by domestic produced marijuana.” Meaning more state legal marijuana means less imported marijuana from Mexico.
An immigration policy analyst, David Bier, who works for the Cato Institute, spoke about this happening a few years ago. Even then, the research found that marijuana smuggling from Mexico had dropped by 78% since California legalized cannabis. Bier wrote that legalizing the plant has done “more to reduce marijuana smuggling than doubling of Border Patrol agents or the construction of hundreds of miles of border fencing did.” And that was before so many more states had begun their legalization process as well. The amount of marijuana smuggled from Mexico is now at an all time low. But what the DEA didn’t mention, or perhaps doesn’t know, is that perhaps they’re now looking in the wrong direction. According to industry insiders, word is that the excess of high quality California Cannabis, due to market saturation, is now actually being imported to Mexico. California’s had a hard year with cannabis, due to crushing high taxes, and a lack of legal dispensaries in which to sell. All this means that there has been a lot more black market marijuana for sale. Some it is finding it’s way down south, where there is a market for high quality cannabis. But it looks like the California market is making a bit of a comeback. Sales are up a bit this year. And government regulators seem to finally be hearing the cannabis industry concerns, so there are some lower taxes, at least at the local level for some. And there is potential for lowering taxes for the whole state with new legislation being proposed. There are also a few municipalities expanding or considering starting a legalization program in their jurisdiction. And further, a cannabis coalition has been imploring regulators to allow for more retail locations in the state, with some legislation now being proposed. Hopefully that will get passed and the state’s legal market will be able to increase, thereby decreasing the black market & exports. The golden state is trying to stay gold with it’s golden crop. Comments are closed.
|
RSS Feed