Study: Legalizing pot not end to drug gangs
Small impact on Mexican exports, report says
LOS ANGELES – A new study concludes that Proposition 19, which would partly legalize marijuana in California, would do almost nothing to curtail violent Mexican drug organizations that ship the drug across the border, a finding that undermines one of the main arguments proponents have made.
The report, released Tuesday by the Rand Corp., the nonpartisan research institute in Santa Monica, Calif., estimates legalized marijuana could displace Mexican marijuana sold in California, but says that accounts for just 2 percent to 4 percent of the revenues gangs get from drug exports.
The researchers said that if California’s legal pot were smuggled around the country, it could replace most Mexican marijuana sales, slicing more deeply into cartel revenues.
They say, however, that that scenario is highly unlikely.
“We do not believe that the federal government will stand idly by if California were to capture the entire national market now held by Mexico-sourced marijuana,” they wrote in the report, called “Reducing Drug Trafficking Revenues and Violence in Mexico: Would Legalizing Marijuana in California Help?”
Comparing the Mexican drug gangs to the mafia after alcohol prohibition, the researchers also say that they are likely to find other businesses, just as the mafia did to replace bootlegging. In the short term, they conclude, violence might even increase as gangs fight over smaller revenues.
Proposition 19 would allow cities and counties to authorize the cultivation and sale of marijuana. It’s unclear, even if the initiative passes, how many would do that. It’s also unclear whether the Obama administration would allow it, since marijuana is illegal under federal law. The researchers do not address those issues. The initiative would also allow people 21 and older to possess as much as an ounce and grow up to 25 square feet of marijuana.
The initiative has triggered a serious debate south of the border, where a four-year campaign against drug gangs has left 30,000 people dead. Last week, Mexican President Felipe Calderon stressed his opposition, saying that the United States has done too little to suppress consumption. But Calderon’s predecessor, Vicente Fox, supports the initiative and has called for legalization in Mexico.
The Rand report takes a harsh view of U.S. government estimates of the role marijuana plays in the revenues earned by cartels, dismissing the commonly cited claim that it makes up 60 percent. The researchers estimated marijuana revenues at between 15 percent and 26 percent.