I see via Jason's twitter feed* that libertarian types are giving themselves high fives about legalisation of marijuana in some US States because it is said to be "hurting Mexican drug cartels".
The Lions of Liberty (wanky name: typical) cite this article in Vice (?) which quotes a Washington Post article that says Mexican marijuana prices have dropped far enough to make it not worthwhile for some farmers to grow it.
Amusingly, though, Vice does not repeat the other element in the WP report: that the concern is that the recent increase in heroin in the US (about which I have posted before) is coming via Mexico, and in fact it seems Mexican marijuana growers are now switching to poppies.
It's pretty remarkable that the Vice article should not mention that, given that the headline to the WP article is:
Tracing the U.S. heroin surge back south of the border as Mexican cannabis output falls
A more detailed look at how legalising marijuana would affect the Mexican cartels can be read in this WP article from 2012. It shows that (although no one knows for sure) marijuana was perhaps only accounting for 17% of their revenue anyway.
Libertarians, who are supposed to be big on free markets, didn't think that there would be a substitution to the cartel's operations to make up for loss of marijuana profitability by beefing up their heroin, cocaine and meth production/trafficking? While too early to tell the extent to which this unintended consequence may affect America, it is not really a surprise that it would happen, and taking into account the extra number of people with really serious drug addictions in the big decision matrix of legalising marijuana is probably something libertarians don't want to talk about much. Of course, some of them will probably argue that this is a reason for legalising all drugs.
And PS: I condemn Mel Gibson and every movie he has ever appeared in or made. He is not worthy to touch the sandals of the Spielberg. [ ;) ]
*Source disclosed as I don't want people thinking I regularly read American libertarian sites
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