Mexican Cartels are Taking over US Marijuana Production

Life is getting a bit harder for Mexican drug lords these days. Not only do they have to worry about the Mexican military and U.S. law enforcement tripping up their drug trafficking efforts. Now they have some supply problems from a place they might not have expected – competition from U.S.-based marijuana producers.

Several media outlets have published recent reports regarding U.S. marijuana farms, known as “grows.” A Washington Post article from Oct. 7 said that thousands of mom-and-pop grows in the U.S. are threatening cartel profits, partly because of recent changes in state laws that allow the legal use of medical marijuana. So what’s a Mexican cartel to do? Well, if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.

According to the U.S. Department of Justice’s National Drug Intelligence Center (NDIC), Mexican cartels have also moved to increasingly cultivate marijuana on public lands in the United States. McClatchy News recently published the following:

“There is no doubt” that three big marijuana fields uncovered this month in Ellis and Navarro counties, in Texas, “have a tie to the border and a Mexican drug cartel,” said a drug investigator for the Texas Department of Public Safety. “They brought the tenders up here from Mexico to do the work.”

The Washington Post article further stated that the Mexican traffickers’ illegal use of public lands is a response to the dramatic increase in U.S. production, according to authorities and growers. In the northern woods of California, illegal immigrants hired by well-heeled Mexican “patrones,” or bosses, lay miles of plastic pipe and install oscillating sprinkler systems for clandestine fields that produce a cheaper, faster-growing “commercial grade” of marijuana.

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Latin American drug cartels find home in West Africa

Colombian and Mexican drug cartels have jumped the Atlantic Ocean and expanded into West Africa, working closely with local criminal gangs to carve out a staging area for an assault on the lucrative European market.

The situation has gotten so out of hand that tiny Guinea-Bissau, the fifth-poorest nation in the world, is being called Africa's first narco-state. Others talk about how Africa's Gold Coast has become the Coke Coast. In all, officials say, at least nine top-tier Latin American drug cartels have established bases in 11 West African nations.

"The same organizations that we investigate in Central and South America that are involved in drug activity toward the United States are engaged in this trafficking in Western Africa," said Russell Benson, the Drug Enforcement Agency regional director for Europe and Africa. "There's not one country that hasn't been touched to some extent."

The calculus is simple: bigger profits in Europe than in the United States, less law enforcement in West Africa than in Europe. The driving force is the booming European market for cocaine.

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Agents Make Valuable Marijuana Busts in California

Federal and state agents have arrested 83 people for growing more than $1.2 billion worth of marijuana in an ongoing crackdown on illegal pot gardens in California's Sierra Nevada range.

Local officials said several Mexican marijuana-growing cartels helped set up the grow sites scattered throughout rocky mountainsides of eastern Fresno County, and warned more arrests were likely as the sweep continues.

More than 318,000 marijuana plants were destroyed in the operation, which also netted nearly $41,000 in cash, 25 weapons and two vehicles, Fresno County Sheriff Margaret Mims said Thursday.

While the bust was large enough to merit a visit Wednesday from Gil Kerlikowske, director of the White House's Office of National Drug Control Policy, it accounts for a small percentage of the pot typically seized in California each year.

"Agents Seize $1.2 Billion Worth of Pot in Calif.", ABC News, 7/23/09.

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