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Along with deforestation, drug cultivation is another threat
to one of the continent's most crucial ecosystems. The first opium
and marijuana seeds were brought to the Sierra Madre Occidental in
the 1930s by Chinese traders who saw the potential for growing
plants in the large, unpatrollable area (Weisman 1994, 10). Modern
drug traffickers started showing up in the Sierra Madre 25 years
ago with promises of lots of cash. The counterculture revolution
in the States created a new market for mind-altering plants and the
Sierra Madre provided the perfect location. Much like the 1960s,
the U.S. is still the vast consumer market where most of the drugs
from this area are headed for. Hundreds of millions of dollars
worth of drugs originate from the Sierra's each year. Seven
million pounds of marijuana, much of if cultivated in the Sierra
Madre, made its way into the U.S. as did 2,500 pounds of Sierra-
grown heroin in 1995, with a street value of roughly $650 million
(Weisman 1994, 150).
In many areas of the Sierra Madre there are opium plants
surrounded by strands of barb wire in clearings of downed trees
that have either been burned or logged. According to the latest
statistics, ten poppy bulbs yield one gram of opium and one bulb
can be milked three to ten times. In a raid against a poppy field
one author participated in, he watched authorities destroy twelve
acres of crops. Estimating that there were ten bulbs per square
yard, 150,000 grams of opium were destroyed that was worth at least
$450,000, estimating $80 per gram in the U.S. (Weisman 1994, 33).
Unfortunately, these kind of raids are a rare occurrence in the
area because there is no budget for the Mexican federales to
destroy crops. The government has no funds to hire men, purchase
sophisticated arms to fight the heavily armed narcotraficantes, or
maintain the necessary air support to carry out or support raids.
Colombians are increasingly carrying out the drug trade within
the Mexican states of Jalisco and Chihuahua. In the case of
Chihuahua, the Sierra Madre Occidental is one of the most
productive drug-growing areas in the world because of its year-
round sunshine and thousands of acres of unpatrolled hillsides.
Chihuahua also offers the cartels easy access to the U.S. with its
480 miles of unguarded border. The Mexican government has tried to
crack down on this infiltration of South American drug cartels but
has largely been ineffectual. As a response to this encroachment,
the Mexican army has recently been summarily arresting the
Tarahumara drug growers (usually reluctant) while the druglords,
the caciques, seldom are caught. Also, Mexican authorities, in an
effort to wipe the drug plants, have repeatedly sprayed the back
country with paraquat and other herbicides, wiping out rare
butterflies and contaminating local water supplies and plant life.
This spraying presents another hazard to the Tarahumara because
they eat 200 different species of plants and use 300 more for
medicinal purposes (Shoumatoff 1995, 91). The Fontes Cartel, one
of the larger groups operating in the Sierra Madre and lead by
Artemio Fontes, is also suspected of being involved in the illegal
logging that has defaced much of the Sierra. Logging companies are
oftentimes used as a cover by traffickers because the roads make it
easier for them to harvest their illicit crops, timber trucks
provide a legitimate, camouflaged mode of drug transport and the
loggers often serve the traficantes by acting as their intimidation
squads.
The increasingly-powerful drug cartels have systematically
coerced the Indians into cultivating marijuana and opium poppies.
If the Indians cooperate, they are sometimes paid in alcohol or
corn. A kilogram of marijuana is worth between 100 and 200 kilos
of corn to the Tarahumara, or about $250 (Weisman 1994, 150). In
times of drought when the corn crop fails, the cash crop
alternative is often the only choice the Indians have to live. In
fact, a few acres of opium could bring approximately $500 to an
Indian if he could survive the threats and violence to himself and
his family (De Palma 1995, 6). If they are not cooperative, they
are intimidated, forced off the land, have their food and livestock
stolen and oftentimes their families are subjected to harassment,
rape, torture, and murder (Shoumatoff 1995, 90). The local Mexican
authorities are too intimidated or often too implicated in the
dealings to protect them. The Indians, who have depended on the
forests for millennia, have been left hanging in the balance with
hardly anyone to defend their way of life.
Tejano, you still miss the entire point, and you still don't address the issue of legalization.
You spent an entire post reaffirming the fact that Marijuana criminalization creates exactly the type of black market your entire post speaks of.
Let me ask you this.
If the tobacco industry could harvest Cannabis legaly, wouldn't you agree that their product would be better, safer, and regulated? Wouldn't you agree that small time drug cartels would go out of business (as far as MJ goes) because they simply can't compete with large corporations?
You can argue all you want about indigena oppresion, and I know it's something you specifically throw at me because of my undying support for indigenous rights and demands, but the FACT is, MJ's criminality is the root of the problem, and we must take a different approach to it.
What's the best way to take power from the cartels? Take away their reason to exist and let the legal markets decide how Marijuana should be profited from. It IS as simple as that, I can't stress that enough.
Shit, let the indigenas grow their own strains and sell them on their own accord.
Although honestly, if legalized. Most people would grow their own strains and will have no need for corporate or black market Cannabis. Since smokable Cannabis is so easy to grow, it would mostly consist of local markets, while industrial hemp would be controlled by larger textile and chemical companies.
Again, Tejano, you need to address the question. Should Cannabis be legal?
Don't just give me examples of how MJ's criminalization creates a black market, that only serves to fuel the pro Cannabis debate, and never touches upon any issues concerning legal Marijuana. You can't go around setting up straw man arguments like that.
What you failed to comprehend that even if you changed the laws in the US that would not help the issue in Mexico.
Are you kidding me? You're serious about that statement? Changing Cannabis laws in the US is the first step to changing Marijuana laws worldwide. In case you haven't noticed, world MJ laws are written or modeled after US law. The US is the prime enforcer and financial backing behind anti-Marijuana legislation world wide. If Mexico tried to go all out and decriminalize Cannabis, the US would impose certain sanctions on Mexico until they changed their laws to best suit US corporate interests. Take Jamaica for example, they put legalization up in the air, and here comes the US to shut it down. That was last year.
Also, your flimsy argument doesn't even begin to address how legalization in Mexico would either be a good or bad thing.
Unless you want me to join you in imaginary land where we suspend reality and suppose that you would have the laws changed outside of the US also.
Unless we could cut our dependency of foreign dope.
Why even discuss the finer points of your post if you can't get past the points I outlined above.
S T R A W M A N, you come up with an argument that you think you can win at, without addressing the main issue at hand here. Marijuana legalization, not just in the US, but anywhere it would apply. You dismiss my "finer points" so you can set up a strawman and get me to punch at it, it's not going to work, lemme' rephrase the whole topic as to get around your fallacious argument. Would making MJ legal in Mexico be a good thing? Let's make this a hypothetical question so you can stop dancing around the issue.
By the way, not everyone gets their MJ from Mexico, it's called Mexibrown for a reason, it's shit. Canada imports way more MJ than Mexico does, and it is of higher quality, easier to smuggle, and doesn't exploit anyone. Canada's MJ market has grown as a result of job losses in the soft wood industry.
I am surprised how a hyper-indigena like you is quick to throw the indienas under the bus just to get your high.
Baseless assumptions and ad hominem attacks, no need to address this.
Ever think of just quitting and reducing the demand that the indigenas are forced to fulfill. After all the supply exists because of the demand.
Stop smoking and they will stop growing it.
No, I don't smoke Mexican shwag. It's Canadian BC bud, or my local dro dealer will sell her own kush strain to me (she's hot too). It's like California grapes, I refuse to buy them because of the treatment of the laborers who pick them. Like grapes, Cannabis is just another consumer product, you can choose where and who you get it from, and it's potential legal marketability is staggering, there's even a whole paraphanelia (sp?) market surrounding Cannabis smoking. This however doesn't even begin to address industrial hemp concerns.
The majority of Cannabis does not come from exploited people's, but you seem to love that argument no matter how inane it is.
So since we're getting specific here, would legalizing MJ be a good thing for Mexico and it's indigenas, or a bad thing? What is your honest opinion, and why is that so?
You conveniently left out the rest of the post eh.
Guess nobody wants to engage me in some real discourse. Not you Tejano, or that lame 408Puppet jerkoff. Unless you're writing a nice rebutal as we speak....I'll give you some time....
Re: Is it time to legalize it?
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