Comments

1
It's easier to run on a fake Tough On Crime platform if you have a drummed up fake War on Drugs to rail against while you accept the behind the scenes kickbacks for your candidates in the lower house.

Remember, Mexico is what the Republicans would turn America into - a narco-state where the ultra rich treat virtually 99.9 per cent of the citizens as their servants.
2
Maybe somebody should tell this fuckwit not to criticize other countries until his own house is in order.
3
Are you addressing me? Or Calderon? Either way, our problems are inseparable...
4
@2, exactly - we've been modeling respectful behavior to Mexico and its voters for a hundred years now.
5
Seriously, who's buying Mexican weed in the states? People pretend to be able to distinguish between Belvedere and Gray Goose, so it wouldn't surprise me if half the people I knew weren't smoking the organic Mendicino mom & pop weed they thought they were, but I just can't believe that's that case.

Maybe it all goes to the South West?
6
Legalizing it will pop the Mexican drug bubble in no time flat.

Crooks want it to be illegal, because they can get higher margins.
7
@4 we have?
8
The man in the big chair hardly ever has the cajones to upset the balance of power, they know what happened to JFK.

But seriously, Calderon knows he'd get shot by his own team.
9
@7, sorry I forgot to tag that for ya. /sarcasm
10
np, gg.

hey, how come stm is so mad at me?
11
Most of the bigtime growers, in Cal as well as Mexico, oppose legalization. They like things just the way they are, where everyone, including the dispensaries, has to buy from them.
12
Calderon seems consistent in those two quotes; he just wants demand from the US side to decrease drastically. And, you know, if he or anyone had some idea of how to effect a massive reduction in demand, and could carry it out, that would be great. It just doesn't seem like anyone's been able to do that successfully.
13
In the United States, we have an excellent model of what legalization would do: Prohibition. Passage of the 18th Amendment opened the door for powerful criminal syndicates to move in; their turf wars make the Mexican drug wars seem downright gentlemanly. The 21st Amendment, which repealed Prohibition, brought much of that to an end: because demand could be satisfied legally, there was no more profitability in being an illegal supply.

I expect the *real* reason Calderon opposes legalization is that he is a Prohibition Era mayor, receiving fat kick-backs and bribes from the cartels making money off the War On Drugs.
14
To some extent though he's right. "Legalization" in CA doesn't do shit to help the situation. Saying people can buy and sell "small amounts" of pot in CA creates a large market without making a large supply available because the feds will still shut down the large suppliers so CA would really just be a huge open market for Mexican pot.

The only way to cut off the money train to the cartels in Mexico is full federal legalization in the US. That way big suppliers like Marlboro (I can't believe I'm supporting something that would be a huge payday for those fuckwads) could get into the market to be the legally accepted provider of the product.
15
@5 Mexi-weed mainly goes to the MidWest, though border regions in the SouthWest certainly get a large percentage too.

Calderon's claim of small-time Mexican farmers growing marijuana is rather laughable. The cartels do not appear to be the kind of business that will tolerate that type of comptetion. Calderon has absolutely no credibility on the subject, as he is the puppet leader of a failed narco-state.
16
Calderon is such a joke,he's. The main narco himself why does it always take U.S enforments
To do your job?I mean who have they caught without U.S assistance?
As a mexiccan myself I'm so ashamed of what my country become.legalizing will be
A nice blow to that country,but marijuana ain't their main product their killing over.
Smart campaign tactics is what it sounds like.cartels are killing themselves over syntethic
drugs and heroin.weeed is just chump change.Mexico produces stress weed americas
Weed explosion its mostly high grade marijuana.its a small blow sounds more like
Smart campainging on the 19 side.but ill tell you one thing the bloodshed in Mexico will
Never end.close the borders let them kill themselves.....
You can't help someone who don't want the help....
17
Calderon's comments are somewhat understandable. The U.S. has pushed Mexico and other Latin-American countries to reduce marijuana production and trading. Before Calderon's administration other mexican presidents (and even Calderon) have already considered to legalize marijuana in Mexico, however they have decided to not do so because of consensus with the U.S (which is the largest consumer and, at the same time, has put a lot of pressure to avoid legalization in Mexico). That's why the non-drug politics was implemented in Mexico. In order to fight drug cartels (as the U.S. has asked), Mexico has implemented several rules during the last years and has asked the U.S. to reduce the traffic of weapons and to have stricter money laundering laws. The U.S. government, however, has not provided help in this regard (it actually softened rules about these issues) and now it is possible that marijuana will be legal in California. I think that's the anger of the mexican president. The drug war in Mexico has cost a lot of lives and I think it is not only a problem of Mexico as a producer (or traffic route from South America) but also from the U.S. as a consumer. A better alternative would've been to let Mexico legalize drugs before it implemented all the non-drug actions, or to help it reducing drug production and traffic with coherent laws in both Mexico and the U.S.
18
When a buddy and I were pondering today- "now, why would Calderone and the other Latin American presidents be so opposed to Prop 19?"- and all we had to do was follow the money to figure it out. Mexico gets hundreds of millions, (perhaps more, I ain't an expert on this stuff, look it up if you need to know exactly) from the U.S. to fight the "war on drugs" for us down there. Including all of Latin America, it adds up into $2-4 Billion perhaps. That would go away if there came a broad trend in the U.S. to legalize it; or if cross-border trade of drugs dropped off significantly. Whew, that's a lot of money for them to say 'Nah, y'all keep it!'. The U.S. war on drugs, _especially the public perception that it comes from abroad and needs to stopepd even at high costs_ , is an important part of their budgetary considerations.

Call it the Federale Stimulus Package!

On a related note, it seems like domestic production of weed would goeway uo. Think about those big Central Valley (CA) farms with weed! Grow lights, hydroponics, and huge electric bills shrivel in comparison to what extensive agriculture can do, at much lower cost. Big Ag and the free market could quickly reduce the price of weed to a fraction of what it is now. And importation of (bulky, heavy) weed would halt.

Please wait...

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