RAND Study: Prop 19 Would Increase National Security | Legalization Nation I don't see how they are acurate when they say that cannabis is only 20 percent of the cartels profits. But none the less legalization will make us SAFER. We know this, but its funny the government as been stating the exact opposite for years...
im pretty sure coke and heroine are valued much higher than marijuana, 20 percent is a huge dent in their pockets i cant see why your saying ONLY 20 percent. and with less money in their pockets they will have a harder time trafficing other drugs aswell and have less funding for weapons and cool shit like that
Another propaganda ploy because the estimates last summer were that the cartels make appx 30/40 billion dollars a year from marijuana smuggling. Some analysts report that that is a conservative estimate. The drug warriors are trying to downplay the importance and magnitude of damage legalizaing marijuana nation wide would do to the cartels. Now we can expect to hear from another federally funded study that 2 billion dollars is not enough impact to help the Mexican Army to defeat the cartels. How does an estimate of 65% of the cartels income drop from 30/40 billion to 2 billion? Propaganda. And the follow up: Study: Legalizing pot won't hinder Mexican cartels ""Proponents of the proposition say they want to lower prison costs and find new revenue from marijuana taxes, and that the measure could reduce violence associated with the illegal drug trade in California and Mexico. The Obama administration disagrees, and U.S. drug czar Gil Kerlikowske told the AP that the new study backs them up. "This report shows that despite the millions spent on marketing the idea, legalized marijuana won't reduce the revenue or violence generated by Mexican drug trafficking organizations," said Kerlikowske, head of the U.S. Office of National Drug Control Policy. "The bottom line is that increased access and availability to marijuana jeopardizes the health and safety of our citizens." Some former law enforcement officials, however, said it's hard to imagine there wouldn't be major cartel profits at stake."" PROPAGANDA Released at 7:06 pm tonite. Lets see how long it takes to get debunked. Rand Study: Marijuana Legalization Would Markedly Cut Mexican Drug Cartel Profits DrugWarRant / Pete Guither / 10,12,2010 We believe that legalizing marijuana in California would effectively eliminate Mexican DTOs’ revenues from supplying Mexican-grown marijuana to the California market. As we elaborate in this chapter, even with taxes, legally produced marijuana would likely cost no more than would illegal marijuana from Mexico and would cost less than half as much per unit of THC (Kilmer, Caulkins, Pacula, et al., 2010). Thus, the needs of the California market would be supplied by the new legal industry. While, in theory, some DTO employees might choose to work in the legal marijuana industry, they would not be able to generate unusual profits, nor be able to draw on talents that are particular to a criminal organization. Jon Walker has the true story of the newest Rand report, and how some of the intellectually dishonest “academics” at Rand are trying to spin it. They use the worst argument fallacies imaginable. The government comes out and says that 60% of the cartels’ income is from marijuana. Legalizers say that legalizing will hurt the cartels (true) and mention the government’s numbers. Rand comes out and says that the government was lying through its teeth, but they don’t really know for sure what the real numbers are, but probably lower, and therefore the legalizers’ argument for legalization is supposedly weakened. And yet they admit that the legalizers’ core argument is true (that legalization will hurt the cartels – see above). Then they word their press release in such a way that they know the newspapers will report it as a blow to Prop 19. The fact is that Prop 19 will be the first blow of many to the profits of the cartels, and it will be significant.
Yes they are valued higher per weight, but FAR more people buy marijuana from them then they do herion and coke. So I would think just by volume the majority of thier buisness is in marijuana. So 20 percent seems low to me if they no longer sold marijuana.
James A. Thomson, RAND Corporation's president and chief executive officer since 1989 is also a director of Encysive Pharmaceuticals, which, in 2008, was acquired by -32 billion dollar per year- Pfizer. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Thomson_(executive) RAND Corporation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Encysive Pharmaceuticals - Company Profile | LinkedIn Pfizer | Medical Marijuana Blog FYI,just in case any of the conspiracy theorist need a connection of possible pharmaceutical company involvement in keeping marijuana prohibited.
I hated this whole RAND study. If it had been done right it would have shown a lot of light on both the Pros and Cons of legalization, but you can tell the way they did it is just trying to confuse everybody into killing legalization.
2 Billion is not chump change but I think the real number far exceds that. Just remember. Any drug policy research always answers to who funded it. In this case conservatives.