Rocky Mountain Reefer Madness: DEA claims Mexican cartels supplying Colorado dispensaries
Wednesday, October 21st, 2009 at 9:05 pm | By: Radical Russ
(Denver Post) Demand for medical marijuana in Colorado has grown so fast in the past few months that it has outstripped the production of legal “grow” operations and is now probably being supplied by international drug cartels, say some local sheriffs and agents from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.
“Dispensaries are popping up like mushrooms,” said DEA special agent-in-charge Jeffrey Sweetin. “Now we have thousands of 20- to 25-year-olds carrying cards. And the cartels are getting rich off this law.”
Once again, our medically-trained law enforcement officers are able on casual visual inspection alone to determine that young adults do not suffer from cancer, glaucoma, HIV/AIDS, cachexia; severe pain; severe nausea; seizures, or persistent muscle spasms. You know, we could just end this health care crisis and cut costs drastically by just having our police handle all medical screening from now on. Why bother with expensive scanners and tests when a DEA agent can just look at a 23-year-old woman and know she doesn’t have endometriosis, epilepsy, or an eating disorder?
Legal grow operations linked to dispensaries are limited to six cannabis plants each.
By contrast, most of the street pot comes from big, outdoor grows, such as the three operations — within a 5-mile radius of Chatfield Reservoir — busted by DEA officials last summer. Sweetin said one grow had 14,000 plants that averaged 5 to 6 feet tall.
He said the average illegal indoor grow is 100 to 200 plants averaging 3 feet tall.
“The numbers don’t seem to add up to me,” [said Sheriff Bill Masters of San Miguel County.] “It seems difficult to supply people with the number of plants allowed. My suspicions are that marijuana might be coming from other growers.”
“Supply (of marijuana) is not directly addressed in (state law), and we think it’s one of the areas that could lead to criminal elements being involved,” said Longmont city attorney Eugene Mei, noting that the city is seeking a 90-day moratorium on new dispensaries.
Let’s see, your demand from legal users is outpacing your supply from legal growers, a situation you deduce is sending profits to illegal growers. Well, the way I see it, there are two ways to address this problem:
- Reduce the demand from legal users, or
- Increase the supply from legal growers.
#1 is a fool’s errand we call the War on Drugs. Restricting the number of people able to get a medical marijuana card isn’t going to stop a medical user (or a recreational one, for that matter,) from going to the black market to score some cannabis. The people who have cards now were most likely using marijuana prior to having a card anyway, so the legal growers, even if they aren’t supplying the whole market, are taking a cut from the whole market that didn’t exist before.
#2, however, takes a direct bite out of the drug gangs’ pocketbook. You don’t want Mexican marijuana in Colorado dispensaries? Then let more Coloradans grow more Rocky Mountain marijuana!
Finally, if they think we’re buying schwaggy Mexican brick weed – the main product of the Mexican drug gangs – at Colorado dispensaries, they have never experienced the Colorado I know.
Im lucky enough to live somewhere that has basically no brick and almost, if not all is grown around here. Colorado as a whole doesn’t have that much mexican brick. Putting legitimate medical use aside, why not make it legal for recreation? Just because it is considered a drug in the US pharmacopeia shouldnt solidify not having it for recreation…..Guess what are not drugs, according to our government…alcohol and tobacco. Lobbying can do amazing things
Goddammit! Don’t you see what is happening? These people are trying to squash it at the local level! It absolves Obama of any more marijuana war mongering, but there is always more than one way to skin a cat. Drug war agents are among us at the local level, and they’re silently re-screwing us.
In the end, medical marijuana will be legal in most states and will be among the most strictly regulated markets in the world. It will be a federal mandate that you must be at death’s door to get any, and violation of this policy will carry harsher penalties than it does now.
They act like Mexican brick weed is something desirable. It’s only desirable for 3/4 of the country b/c we don’t have a choice. I for one have never seen a strain simply b/c of where I live.
It should be noted that the Sheriff who was (mis?) quoted as “concerned,” Bill Masters, is an opponent of the Drug War–he even wrote a book on it.
Obviously, the DEA should create a favorable environment in which Colorado patients and dispensaries can grow medical-quality marijuana. That will nip this concern in the, um, in the bud. It’s not brain surgery, nor is it rocket science: in order to allow legal use, you’ve got to allow legal growing.