Free the Weed?
Mar 20th, 2009 | By Michel Marizco | Category: Organized Crime, Politics
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THE BORDER REPORT
U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder must have made every pothead and federal agent in the country blink yesterday when he announced the Feds will no longer target medical marijuana. To some, his pronouncement signals the demise of marijuana laws that are nearly seventy years old. The “legalize it” crowd is pleased.
I’m not, and not because I’m opposed to medical marijuana. Somewhere down there with “deport them all,” “build the walls higher,” and “who cares,” nothing is more infuriating to me than soft potheads whose answer to Mexico’s northern border mess is “legalize it.”
The words convey an unbelievable sense of entitlement, that somehow the government’s laws that keep you from getting high are responsible for the carnage and terror that are decimating Mexico’s border cities. The laws aren’t the immediate problem. Your choice to smoke cheap Sinaloan is the problem.
I have a better solution, one that nobody seems to want to address. Instead of waiting for the federal government to legalize the weed, why don’t these smug smokers take some social responsibility and quit buying Mexican schwag?
I get the legalize it line thrown at me everywhere I go. Public events where I’ve been invited to speak, coffeehouses where I’m trying to get some reading done, bars, stores, parties, and right here.
You know the argument, it usually centers around the ubiquitous “they,” as in:
“If they just legalize weed, how many lives would they save?”
“It’s just like Prohibition. You want to stop all the cartel violence, take away their bread and butter.”
And on.
It’s partly true, every single one of the cartel bosses currently running the show in Mexico got their start in marijuana trafficking. That story’s as old as Pablo Acosta and Miguel Felix Gallardo. Cocaine makes for a nice living but with marijuana, the Mexican cartels own the industry. They grow it, distribute it, and sell it; hundred percent profit.
Feds don’t like to talk about this very much because the point takes away from the fear factor that methamphetamine and coke give the public.
You can show photos of some poor deranged addict with meth-mouth and scare everyone into silence; you’d have a harder sell with the picture of a happy pothead sucking on a bong, Michael Phelps style.
Some cops go for the argument too. LEAP, Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, boasts some 11,000 members, nearly all police officers. Thirteen states have legalized medical marijuana and in California, the prohibitive laws have become so vague that it seems you can smoke out on Market Street and put it away when you hit Van Ness. Washington’s new policy says the Feds will only go after people who break both state and federal law.
And who knows, maybe some day the Feds really will drop the pot laws. The great-grandchildren of Tony Tormenta and Teo and Dos Mil may remember the cartel wars of the early century as a different time. Bankrupt Virginia tobacco farmers may turn to growing hydroponic for Pfizer. It could happen.
But why wait? In the meantime, and my guess is we’ll be waiting for a while, I’d like to see marijuana smokers take some social responsibility with their pleasures.
I’d like to see the same moral outrage taken against cheap labor used for stylish clothes, environmental degradation by coffee barons and sweatshop exploitatives be applied to marijuana growers.
If you can avoid buying coffee that you think comes from plantations exploiting local villagers, and you can pass ordinances against big-box stores that destroy local economies, then you can be a bit more selective in where your pot comes from.
Now, it’s going to be a little tough, I know. Supply is rampant. The U.S. Border Patrol seizes about a million pounds of weed a year coming in from Mexico. If they’re nabbing ten percent, and some say it’s not even that, that’s five thousand tons of pot entering the country every year. Enough to fill 250 semi-trucks.
You want to have a real effect on a level of violence that is decimating this border? Don’t wait for the government. There’s even a phrase for this, I see it on bumper stickers all the time, “think globally and act locally.” Usually accompanied by peace symbol stickers or Gandhi quotes.
Stop buying Sinaloan schwag and make the effort to only buy home-grown hydroponic from trusted merchants who have nothing to do with the cartels. Stay away from Sierra Madre mota and encourage others to do so, too.
That is, if you care; if you believe that your consumerisms are having an effect on parts of the world you don’t see every day.
Rant over, I know it won’t happen. But man, it’d sure be nice if it did.
I’ve now read your most recent post, at least 3 times, Michel.
At the end of which you clearly labeled it as a “rant.”
And which more or less has reflected some of the “rants” I’ve posted here.
And, like you, (maybe?) I fear our rants will make no difference, whatsoever, in the ever-lucrative-drug-and-people trade.
In fact, Michel – as I’m sure you know – the evil stuff that happens along the Mexican-American Border is really very ancient news.
I just finished reading Tom Miller’s book, “On the Border,” which was published almost 30 years ago.
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
True?
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NICE couldn’t agree with you more, if the cartels are terrorizing Mexico then all potheads are financing the war.
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Actually, I think you’ve made an excellent argument, and it’s one I’ve never seen before. Nice work.
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Yep, nice article, heavy stuff, Marisco. However, I think……….. wait, I’ll get back to you after I change my bong water and finish that bag of Doritoes.
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Not to change the subject, but do you know what has happened to Lapolaka.com?
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Yes Huera,
Give me a little bit of time to work on it. Trying to get the police reports.
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How about the coke ,heroin ,meth.It’s kown that muslim terriost are working with the cartels in South America.It kills here physically,mentally,spiritually people of all races ,color or creed and than the profits are used in terriost attacks around the world ,somebody needs a hard wake up call
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it’s like this alcohol use to be illegal too, now it is profitable and everywhere. Just imagine when marijuana is traded on the stock market like corn and wheat and tobacco. Wait if i remember, that last one is something that kills people right? Marijuana in my opinion does not effect you anymore then too much alcohol would and it doesn’t hurt your body in the long run like so called legal drugs. People are going to do it, if it is legalized or not, we just need better representation and plans to work this out to protect the people, that should be job one in this!
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and to add to that, if it was legal i would grow my own, i wouldn’t buy it from anywhere, so it would cause a decline in demand, at least for that drug. I don’t think it is what is being transported across the boarders as much as the consequences of such transportation that we need to educate ourselves on, and we (people on both sides of the issue) need to work together to again, save people. People’s lives are the number one priority, or at least should be!
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[...] Border Reporter – News That Crossed The Line » Blog Archive » Free … [...]
You sound like Nancy Reagan. Just say, No to Sinaloan! Unfortunately, your argument is as simplistic as the “legalize it” crowd’s understanding of what “legalize it” really means. At least, there appears to be some consensus, which is, Do something different.
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I believe what is happening and happening now is the government is starting to ‘test the waters’ be prepared for medical marijuana clinics popping up everywhere. This makes the committment to legalize one they can think about for awhile. It also makes it taxable. Its only a matter of time before it is legal completely.
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Do like everyone else when they have a headache! Take Tylenol! Medicinal Marijuana??? Que mamadas!
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I agree Darth!, since I know the mota cures absolutely nothing!… I abandoned school once I was hooked in la hierbita.. Sadly, at sixteen it can’t be seen as clearly as at forty…
But remember!, once legalized, all of us we’ll see street traffikers around schools making money in a, new, wide open way.
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I’d like to thank Michael for inventing the new advertising slogan for Pacific Northwest hydro: “It’s a patriotic high”
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If MJ is legalized, might it possible that its use might actually decline?
Especially among the young folk: their love for taking illicit risks could be diminished.
Maybe?
Darth: Pain caused by cancer ain’t like a headache. And MJ has been proven effective in providing relief in many clinical studies.
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MJ is a drug that primarily has only personal consequences, unlike alcohol that has severe social consequences. It doesnt make people violent and 70% of all murders are alcohol related.
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I’m one of the legalize it crowd but do hear your point of don’t buy pot from mexico. The major factor here is most US pot heads have no idea where the schwag comes from. Like Walmart they want the cheapest price and don’t care how many little kids are getting tortured for it. They can’t grow their own because they’ll go to jail. SO we’re back at legalize it.
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