East coast media outlets are pretty clueless about the southwestern border. The Los Angeles Times is better. Even the New York Times is showering attention on the Mexican Drug Cartels- here with an article focused exclusively on Marijuana distribution.
Kathyrn McCarthy, an assistant United States attorney in Detroit, said Mexican traffickers in Michigan were trading Colombian cocaine for hydroponic marijuana from British Columbia to sell in the United States. In Washington State, now the second biggest domestic producer of marijuana, Mexican cartels are growing improved varieties of outdoor marijuana to compete with BC Bud and other potent indoor plants.(NEW YORK TIMES)
As I've written here before, law enforcement should ally with domestic marijuana producers to drive out the Mexicans. There's no reason that members of the domestic marijuana industry can be incorporated just like producers/sellers of alcohol and tobacco, but the foreign cartel influence is a different issue. As long as they are treated the same by the Drug Enforcement Administration, neither problem will be solved.
