Mexican drug traffickers have expanded their marijuana-growing operations in California parks as state and local governments have tightened spending and slashed jobs and services.
Law enforcement officials say the traffickers, taking advantage of the fact that there are fewer sheriff’s deputies and rangers monitoring parks, are cultivating more pot than ever before. This year’s multibillion-dollar crop is on pace to be the largest in history, said state officials.
I love how they try to tie in the current legislative ideas near the end of the article.
Legalization is not the solution, Johnson said, given that most of the pot is being grown illegally on public parkland by foreign citizens who cannot be taxed.
“I’ve been doing this for five years, and there just seems to be more and more of it everywhere,” Johnson said. “We don’t even bother with medicinal grows. What we’re concerned about is the destruction of the habitat.”
Of course legalization is the solution. While most California residents can simply go to a doctor, get a prescription and go to the medicinal providers — who Johnson admitted authorities don’t even target anymore because they’re not a problem — that’s not the case in most of the other states around the country. Legalization takes away the demand for illegal drugs, and therefore the cartels will eventually be left with supply they can’t move.
Even when marijuana becomes legal there will always be people who say “Death to taxes!” and try to run their own operation. But think of it in terms of the alcohol industry. Are moonshiners out there running a multi-billion-dollar per year business with people seeking them out in droves for their backwoods swill because they’re pissed about taxes accounting for nearly half of the retail price of booze?
Didn’t think so.
