Global Ganja Report

The RAND Corporation has released a new study entitled "Reducing Drug Trafficking Revenues and Violence in Mexico: Would Legalizing Marijuana in California Help?" The headline for the Oct. 12 press release reads: "Legalizing Marijuana in California Will Not Dramatically Reduce Mexican Drug Trafficking Revenues." It states: "The study calculates that Mexican drug trafficking organizations generate only $1 billion to $2 billion annually from exporting marijuana to the United States and selling it to wholesalers, far below existing estimates by the government and other groups." It says the study also refutes the often-cited claim that marijuana accounts for 60% of gross drug export revenues of Mexican drug trafficking organizations, and notes that Proposition 19 would affect only one state in any case. But Jon Walker of the pro-legalization blog Just Say Now actually read the text of the study itself, and found some contrary findings:

We believe that legalizing marijuana in California would effectively eliminate Mexican DTOs' revenues from supplying Mexican-grown marijuana to the California market. As we elaborate in this chapter, even with taxes, legally produced marijuana would likely cost no more than would illegal marijuana from Mexico and would cost less than half as much per unit of THC... Thus, the needs of the California market would be supplied by the new legal industry. While, in theory, some DTO employees might choose to work in the legal marijuana industry, they would not be able to generate unusual profits, nor be able to draw on talents that are particular to a criminal organization.

Always read the fine print.