Marijuana Big Earner for Mexico Gangs
Friday, February 22nd, 2008 at 1:55 am | By: Radical Russ
MEXICO CITY, MEXICO (AP) — Marijuana is now the biggest source of income for Mexico’s drug cartels and the U.S. is committed to cracking down harder on traffickers, U.S. drug czar John Walters said Thursday.
Walters made the comments following a meeting with Mexican officials who want the U.S. to prosecute marijuana cases more zealously to reduce the amount of cash gangs can spend on guns.Mexican Attorney General Eduardo Medina Mora discussed the subject with Walters and U.S. federal prosecutors from the border region Thursday during a meeting in the Baja California resort of Los Cabos.
Walters said the U.S. government is seeking additional resources to prosecute traffickers of marijuana, which now earns cartels about $8.5 billion or about 61 percent of their annual estimated income of $13.8 billion. Cocaine sales earn the cartels about $3.9 billion, and methamphetamine about $1 billion, he said.
“While the criminal organizations that are a threat to both of our countries make a lot of money off of heroin and cocaine and methamphetamine, the vast majority of their money to buy guns, bribe, corrupt and destroy lives is from marijuana,” said Walters, head of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy.
$8.5 billion!?! How long will it take our government to realize that many millions of Americans love to smoke marijuana, and that rather than try to eliminate it and see all that $8.5 billion amassed by criminal cartels, we could be pumping that money into our economy and taxing the sales of marijuana similar to how we tax alcohol. Have you heard of any Mexican alcohol gangs lately?
Topics: John Walters, Mexico, ONDCP
