The Mexican pot market is thriving, despite decades of U.S. officials’ efforts against it, reports the Houston Chronicle. Production grows, quality improves, and exports northward hum along. Mexican marijuana remains widely available, frequently used and commonly disregarded as a danger. “They are never going to stop it,” said Dan Webb, a retired anti-narcotics lieutenant with the Texas Department of Public Safety who now teaches drug enforcement at Sam Houston State University.
“It is just like Prohibition,” Webb said, comparing Mexico’s cannabis trade to the boom in liquor smuggling after the U.S. government outlawed alcohol sales decades ago. “As long as there is a demand, somebody is going to come up with a supply.” Then again, there’s that dark legacy. Marijuana sales to American consumers largely finance the gangster warfare that’s killed upwards of 40,000 Mexicans in less than five years. Though its slice of the gangs’ income may be shrinking — the thugs long have profited from cocaine, heroin, and methamphetamine, as well as kidnapping, extortion and piracy — marijuana remains a solid bet. Call it the money market fund of the Mexican mob.