Author: Stephen Johnson / Source: Big Think
- The report uses recent government data to examine the effects that marijuana legalization has had on drug and human smuggling by Mexican cartels.
- Overall, it appears that marijuana legalization has led to decreases in not only marijuana smuggling, but also smuggling of all drugs across the border.
- The report suggests that the benefits of marijuana legalization might also serve as a model for how legalizing more immigration for workers might curb illegal border crossings.
How should the U.S. stop Mexican cartels from smuggling people and drugs across the border?
The answer isn’t to build a wall, but rather to legalize pot, hire more border agents at ports of entry, and open up channels of legal immigration for workers.
Those are the takeaways of a new report by David Bier at the Cato Institute. The report uses recent government data to analyze the effects that marijuana legalization has had on the rates of drug seizures at the U.S.-Mexico border, and it also draws parallels between marijuana and alcohol prohibition and current immigration laws.
Marijuana legalization and drug smuggling
What’s demonstrably effective at stopping the flow of drugs across the border?
Bier notes that, between 2003 and 2009, Border Patrol doubled its agents, constructed more than 600 miles of fencing, and introduced new surveillance technologies. But none of this seemed to have any considerable effect on the amount of marijuana and other drugs seized by border agents between ports of entry. This was, by the way, an era when as much as two-thirds of the marijuana Americans smoked came from Mexico.
Then, in 2014, Colorado and Washington moved to fully legalize marijuana, and more states began to follow. This legalization correlated with not only a decrease in marijuana seizures at…
The post How legal marijuana is hurting Mexican cartels and securing the border appeared first on FeedBox.