The true effects of drug prohibition in the United States aren’t really felt here. We don’t have large scale criminal organizations battling for control of territory in the streets. Mexico does. Sure, we have gangs on our streets that fund a lot of their operations through drug sales, but nothing approaching the levels of the cartels in Mexico, like the Gulf Cartel, the Zetas, and more.

These criminal enterprises derive a majority of their funding from the production, transit, and sale of currently illegal drugs such as marijuana, cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine, etc. If Americans were dying by the thousands every year due to organized crime that derived their funding from drugs, there would be a much be a much different debate going on. This is why it’s been so hard for the drug policy movement to get this policy changed.
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