The interstate weed game

I saw the headline of a Yahoo News story that groups or gangs (Mexican? Criminal?) were accumulating marijuana in bulk amounts in Colorado and shipping the bulk amounts to “dry” states for a big profit. Do you know anything about this?

—EK

Dude. Calm down. Maybe you are unaware of how the weed game works. You seem to have the “accumulating marijuana in bulk and shipping the bulk amounts to ’dry’ states for a big profit” part, but maybe you don’t understand that this is done by people from all walks of life, not just “Mexican criminal” groups.

California grows great weed. People in Atlanta (or Miami or New York City or anywhere) want great weed. Of course, some enterprising soul will figure out a way to get great weed from Cali (or Oregon or Colorado and even Kentucky) to the good people of Atlanta. A pound of good kush will cost about $3,000 or $4,000 in California. You can get five or six grand for a pound of that good-good Cali tree in A-Town. (California weed has market cachet in the cannabis industry. Never forget.) Boom. Get in the van. Of course people are going to smuggle weed. Welcome to America.

I am trying to let the weird racist portion of your question go, in the hopes that perhaps you were attempting a joke, but let me inform you that, according to recent reports, the Mexican gangs are getting out of the weed game. Why? Because marijuana has become cheap and plentiful, thanks to current legalization efforts. Think about it. If you are running a criminal gang (whether or not you are Mexican—as if white people aren’t into crime), why would you want to smuggle weed, which is bulky, stinky and hard to store, if you could make more money with coke or meth or whatever easy-to-conceal, high-profit drug you can get your greedy little hands on? The point is: Prohibition causes crime. It’s very simple. Humans have been doing drugs for thousands and thousands of years. It is far better (and easier and cheaper) to work toward harm reduction. Last month, cannabis activist Sam Clauder (white dude, if it matters) was arrested in Texas and charged with felony possession of 174 pounds of cannabis.

Never smuggle drugs through Texas. West Texas cops are hella aggressive. Ask Willie Nelson. And Snoop.

Authorities claim he was headed to Florida, but couldn’t say whether or not he was planning to sell his stash or give it away. Knowing Sam, he was probably gonna give most of it away. But it doesn’t matter. What does matter is that instead of growing their own weed, the good people of the Sunshine State have to rely on a 64-year-old man driving a van across the country through a gauntlet of agencies that make money if they deprive him of freedom. Marijuana prohibition is one of the dumbest policies ever. It’s time we change these laws.