THE CASE FOR A DOMESTIC MARIJUANA INDUSTRY

Violence in Mexico is getting worse by the day. There are reports of
beheadings, killings in the several thousands, and an environment of
fear that makes it impossible for Mexican officials to do their work.
The country's very stability may be threatened.

It's time to put an end to U.S. policies that subsidize these
murderous drug gangs. The first step, as a growing chorus of voices is
arguing, is to end the quixotic policy of prohibition, a proven
failure. But the United States can do even better; by empowering a
domestic marijuana industry, the United States would squeeze Mexican
cartels' profits, cutting off the financial lifeline that sustains
organized narcocrime.

According to U.S. and Mexican officials, some 60 percent of the
profits that fuel Mexican narcotrafficking come from just one drug:
marijuana. Although such estimates are inherently imprecise, there is
no doubt that marijuana is the cash cow that makes these gangs the
powerful, dangerous force they are -- both in Mexico and in the 230
U.S. cities where cartels are thought to operate. The chief of the
U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration's Mexico and Central America
Section recently told the New York Times that marijuana is the "king
crop" for Mexican cartels, because it "consistently sustains its
marketability and profitability."

Last November, the U.S. Joint Forces Command warned in its "Joint
Operating Environment" report that Mexico "bear[s] consideration for a
rapid and sudden collapse" due to drug cartel violence. Some critics
saw the report as unduly dire, but at a minimum, as outgoing CIA
Director Michael Hayden warned, drug cartels "threaten ... the well-
being of the Mexican people and the Mexican state." A further increase
in instability would constitute a national security and humanitarian
crisis on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border. For now, there is no
end in sight to the worsening violence and no adequate plan to address
it.

This appalling situation is not just happenstance. It is the direct
result of prohibitionist U.S. policies.

Like it or not, marijuana is a massive industry. One hundred million
Americans admit to government survey-takers that they've used it, with
nearly 15 million acknowledging use in the past month. That's a huge
market -- exceeding the number of Americans who will buy a new car or
truck this year, or who bought one last year. Estimates based on U.S.
government figures have pegged marijuana as the No. 1 cash crop in the
United States, with a value exceeding corn and wheat combined.

Current U.S. policies are based on the fantasy that Americans can
somehow make this massive industry go away. But prohibition hasn't
stopped marijuana use. Although marijuana use hits peaks and troughs
over time, overall consumption of the drug in the United States has
risen roughly 4,000 percent rise since the first national ban took
effect in 1937. In other words, for 72 years, the U.S. government has
in effect granted criminals, including those brutal Mexican gangs, a
monopoly on production, distribution, and profits.

The solution is already apparent: Make marijuana a legal, regulated
product like alcohol and tobacco are. After all, there's a reason
these gangs aren't smuggling wine grapes. When you have a legal,
regulated market for a product, the underground market disappears.
Indeed, the United States already has an illustrative example from its
own history. During the 13 dark years of alcohol prohibition, drinking
didn't stop, but gangsters such as Al Capone got rich. When
Prohibition ended, the bootleggers -- and the orgy of violence that
accompanied them -- went away. By taking marijuana out of the criminal
underground and regulating it, Americans can cut the lifeline that
gives Mexican drug gangs their power.

There are benefits for the United States, too. For the first time,
regulators would have a level of control over marijuana production and
distribution, both of which are impossible under today's system. Over
time, the domestic marijuana industry would start to look like
California's wine business: a responsible industry that adds to the
state's prestige, tourism, and tax coffers, rather than a source of
violence and instability.

Critics have already started to object, claiming that such a move
would set off a surge of marijuana use. But in the Netherlands --
where adults have been permitted to possess and purchase small amounts
of marijuana from regulated businesses since the mid-1970s -- the rate
of marijuana use is less than half that of the United States,
according to a recent World Health Organization study. More
importantly, the percentage of teens trying marijuana by age 15 in the
Netherlands is roughly one third the U.S. rate. Indeed, a 2001
National Research Council report commissioned by the White House found
"little apparent relationship" between criminal penalties for drug use
and the prevalence or frequency of use.

Most everyone can agree on one thing: The situation today is
intolerable. Three former presidents of Mexico, Colombia, and Brazil
have recently joined the call for the decriminalization of marijuana
in its largest market, the United States. Mainstream commentators,
editorial boards, and members of U.S. Congress have begun to join in.
The momentum has shifted, and a solution is at the world's fingertips.

What's needed is the political courage to grasp it.