As more U.S. states move to legalize marijuana in some form\u2014and neighboring Canada\u2019s cannabis market matures\u2014demand for illicit marijuana from Mexico continues to drop, a newly updated report from Congress\u2019s research arm says.<\/p>\n
The language from the Congressional Research Service (CRS) report is largely consistent with an earlier version it released in 2020, but it further underscores how the international drug trade is shifting as the legalization movement expands.<\/p>\n
\u201cU.S. seizures of imported marijuana began to decline in 2019,\u201d the CRS analysis says, citing the State Department\u2019s 2022 International Narcotics Control Strategy Report. \u201cAuthorities are projecting a continued decline in U.S. demand for Mexican marijuana because drugs \u2018other than marijuana\u2019 will likely dominate the cross border traffic.\u201d<\/p>\n
Part of the reason, as CRS previously explained in the 2020 report<\/a> that has since been updated, is \u201cdue to legalized medical and nonmedical\/recreational cannabis in many U.S. states and Canada, reducing its value as part of Mexican trafficking organizations\u2019 portfolio.\u201d<\/p>\n It further notes that Mexico\u2019s Congress is taking steps to legalize marijuana as well<\/a>.<\/p>\n The CRS report<\/a> raises questions about why violence in the Mexican drug trade has persisted as cartels have increasingly moved away from plant-based drugs like cannabis and opium, to synthetic substances. The implications of this trade shift \u201cremain unclear,\u201d it says.<\/p>\n \u201cChanges in the illegal drug markets in the United States and Canada from marijuana legalization; increased demand for opioids, especially synthetic opioids; and changing patterns of use of methamphetamine and other drugs have contributed to the [drug trafficking organizations\u2019] continuing evolution. The cartels\u2019 broad reach and control of large territories inside Mexico, as well as their production of illicit drugs, has been termed \u2018alarming\u2019 by the U.S. State Department.\u201d<\/p>\n As part of its Fiscal Year 2023 performance budget summary submitted to Congress earlier this year, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) also acknowledged that\u00a0as more marijuana is being produced domestically in the U.S., it\u2019s undermining illicit cannabis trafficking from Mexico<\/a>.<\/p>\n In that report, the agency talked about shifting trends in cannabis production, as well as its own efforts to support cannabis research, including by breaking the decades-long federal monopoly<\/a>\u00a0on authorized cultivation.<\/p>\n DEA didn\u2019t explicitly say that more Americans are buying marijuana from state-regulated businesses as the legalization movement has continued to expand, but it did say that \u201cMexican marijuana has largely been supplanted by domestic-produced marijuana,\u201d even if that country \u201cremains the most significant foreign source for marijuana.\u201d<\/p>\n A study released by the Cato Institute in 2018 similarly found that \u201cstate-level marijuana legalization has significantly undercut marijuana smuggling.<\/a>\u201d<\/p>\n With respect to trends in marijuana enforcement overall, data from the FBI that was released in late 2020 showed that, for the first time in four years,\u00a0cannabis arrests declined nationally<\/a>.<\/p>\n However, FBI\u2019s system of reporting state and local marijuana arrests<\/a> may be seriously flawed, and a local Maryland official with extensive drug policy experience recently asked the Justice Department Office of the Inspector General to launch a formal investigation into the matter.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, federal prosecutions over marijuana dropped again in 2021, with fewer than 1,000 people charged in cannabis trafficking cases,\u00a0according to a recent report<\/a>\u00a0from the federal U.S. Sentencing Commission (USCC). It\u2019s yet another sign that the plant is becoming a lower enforcement priority as the legalization movement scores wins in more states.<\/p>\n This represents a continuation of a trend that\u2019s been playing out in recent years, especially as more states have move to legalize cannabis and federal officials have seemingly adopted policies placing less emphasis on going after people over marijuana. In 2020,\u00a0USCC documented 1,118 cannabis cases<\/a>.<\/p>\n Federal prosecutions of drug-related crimes overall increased in 2019, but\u00a0cases involving marijuana dropped by more than a quarter<\/a>, according to an end-of-year report released by Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts that year.<\/p>\n Most U.S. Border Patrol Checkpoint Drug Seizures Target Americans With Small Amounts Of Marijuana, Federal Report Reveals<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n Photo courtesy of Brian Shamblen<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n The post Congressional Researchers Say Marijuana Legalization Movement Is Undermining Mexican Cartel Profits<\/a> appeared first on Marijuana Moment<\/a>.<\/p>\n
As more U.S. states move to legalize marijuana in some form\u2014and neighboring Canada\u2019s cannabis market matures\u2014demand for illicit marijuana from Mexico continues to drop, a newly updated report from Congress\u2019s research arm says. The language from the Congressional Research Service (CRS) report is largely consistent with an earlier version itContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":458,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[18,81],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55196"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/458"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=55196"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55196\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":55197,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55196\/revisions\/55197"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55196"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55196"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55196"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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\nRead More: Congressional Researchers Say Marijuana Legalization Movement Is Undermining Mexican Cartel Profits<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"