My Turn: A legitimate marijuana industry has many benefits, and we intend to highlight them with facts, not ideology.
Over the next few months, we will inform voters about the many benefits of replacing the criminal market with a tightly controlled legal market.
We will detail the public-safety benefits of moving marijuana production and sales out of basements and back alleys and into secured facilities. We will describe the public-health benefits of replacing illegal dealers with licensed stores that test and label products, ask customers for ID, and only sell to adults.
And we will highlight the economic benefits of a legitimate marijuana industry that creates jobs and generates tens of millions of dollars in annual tax revenue.
Goal 1: Curb the drug cartels
Illegal marijuana sales have enriched drug cartels and contributed to street violence for decades. This criminal market will dissipate once adults are able to purchase safe products in a safe environment. It has only been a few years since Colorado voted to regulate marijuana like alcohol, and according to a report in The Economist, state officials estimate licensed sales are already meeting 70 percent of demand, with legally home-grown marijuana covering much of the rest.It appears to be having a significant impact on the cartels. The Mexican Competitiveness Institute estimated that passage of the Colorado law and similar measures in Washington and Oregon could cost the cartels as much as 30 percent of their earnings from U.S. marijuana trafficking.
Not surprisingly, Mexican and U.S. officials have been reporting fewer seizures of marijuana on the border, and there was a 31 percent drop in overall homicides in Mexico from 2011 to 2014
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