Tag Archives: marijuana

WASHINGTON–Since the 1960s, recreational marijuana use has been a rite of passage for millions of American teens and college students. But even the most casual user risks damaging his health and staining his legal record.

Now add to that another risk: fueling the “narco wars” in Mexico that have pitted government troops against powerful drug traffickers. At least 22,700 have died in drug-war-related violence in Mexico since 2007, by some estimates. That’s more than eight times the number of Americans killed on September 11, 2001.

“America’s love affair with illegal drugs fuels the major Mexican drug cartels,” former head of the Drug Enforcement Administration Robert C. Bonner said. “[It] allows them to be powerful, corrupt, and to engage in a lot of violence and intimidation in Mexico and elsewhere.” Bonner has also served as a federal judge and Commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

Marijuana is often viewed as the most innocuous of illicit substances, and it is the most commonly used illegal drug in the United States. But it is hardly innocent. Many Americans think of cocaine and heroine when they think of the drug wars in Mexico, but by some estimates, marijuana is the most significant source of revenue for the cartels.

“Marijuana represents a good portion of the cash flow of the Mexican cartels, and it represents the most key drug on the southwest border by huge amounts,” Drug Enforcement Administration spokesman Rusty Payne said. “I don’t think people realize that when they increased the demand for marijuana in the United States, oftentimes they directly benefit drug trafficking and the violent cartels in Mexico.”

Harvard economist Jeffrey Miron says that “prohibition pushes the market underground … [resulting in] ancillary negatives,” like the violence and corruption along the border.

Miron points out that not all marijuana in the U.S. is trafficked from Mexico; some is raised domestically. But because of a lack of any product regulation, it is often impossible to know from where – and from whom – a given amount of marijuana comes. Many users inevitably, if unwittingly, help fund the drug wars that haunt the United States’ southern neighbor.

In a July 2010 prepared congressional testimony for a House hearing on international counternarcotics strategy, Adam Isacson, senior policy analyst at the Washington Office on Latin America reported: “Decreased violence in Colombia has been offset by a sharp rise in drug-related homicides in Mexico. Today, Mexico is the center of gravity for groups involved in illegal drug transshipment, which is by far the most profitable link in the drug trafficking chain.”

The tactics and levels of organization of the Mexican cartels also have changed. The Council on Foreign Relations reports that “Violence reached acute levels [in Mexico] in 2006 and has only worsened since then; decapitations became common and cartels began disseminating videos documenting gruesome deaths – ‘narco messages’ – to threaten rival cartels and government officials. While initially the majority of violence was between cartel members, in the past two years, police officers, journalists, and politicians have become frequent targets of drug killings. In May 2008, for instance, Mexico’s acting federal police chief was killed in a drug hit.”

The reports of death and conflict continue. A pregnant American consulate worker and her husband were killed in broad daylight in March of this year, in the violence-ridden border town of Ciudad Juarez. And on July 22, Mexican officials received a tip that led them to several mass graves in the northern part of the country. At least 50 bodies were buried there.

Drug-related conflict could also be creeping over into the United States. The Maricopa County attorney’s office in Phoenix told the New York Times that it received 241 reports of border-related kidnappings or hostage-takings in 2008, compared with just 48 in 2004.

Those numbers pale in comparison to the enormous toll the drug wars have taken south of the Arizona border.

“The Mexican drug cartels pose a national security threat to Mexico in the same way that, at one time, the Colombian drug cartels threatened the Colombian state,” Bonner said.

That, in turn, poses a problem for Mexico’s northern neighbor.

While Bonner said he does not think drug cartel activities pose a substantial national security threat to the U.S. itself, the Mexican government’s battle with the cartels is still of significant concern to the United States.

“It would be untenable [for the U.S.] to have a state on our border that is controlled by narcotraffickers,” he said.

On this side of the border, in 2008, over 40% of American 12th graders had used marijuana at least once, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

Bonner said that while he believes cocaine and methamphetamines are ultimately more profitable for the cartels, “it all adds up.”

When young Americans buy even small amounts of marijuana that is trafficked by the cartels, “they’re contributing to criminal organizations that have engaged in and are engaging in wanton violence in Mexico and elsewhere,” Bonner said.

“They’re aiding and abetting.”