Mexican cannabis production declines as U.S. legalization proceeds

One of the most important arguments put forward by campaigners for a cannabis legalization, is the’eradicating the black marketA regulated cannabis market would take illegal cannabis, often grown outside the country's borders, off the streets and replace it with state-supervised, taxed production. In the United States, most illegal cannabis comes from Mexico. In Uruguay, from Paraguay. And in France, from Spain, Morocco, the Netherlands and Albania.

2 years after the first recreational legalization in the United States, Is the system working? While it's impossible to calculate the exact size of the black market, newly reported data by the Los Angeles Times suggest that Mexican cannabis production is in decline, confirming rumors that Mexican farmers are withdrawing from marijuana cultivation because of financial losses due to the various legalizations north of their border.

This trend is also accompanied by signs from the Mexican and American governments. The Mexican government is now destroying fewer illegal cannabis plantations than before Colorado, Washington and other states legalized recreational cannabis: 5,000 hectares in 2015 versus 18,000 in 2010.

The volume of cannabis seized at the Mexico-US border also fell by 30% in 2014, from 1,500 tonnes a year to 1,085 tonnes, even though seizures represent only a small fraction of the cannabis that manages to cross the border.

The number of arrests US arrests linked to foreign-grown cannabis halved between 2010 and 2014, from 4,519 in 2010 to 2,367 in 2014, according to the DEA. Arrests linked to illegal cultivation on US soil, meanwhile, have not budged, with an average of 1,500 arrests per year.

The L.A. Times article quotes Mexican farmers who say that this harvest will be their last, or that the middleman who used to buy their produce from them is almost non-existent. The price per kilo has also fallen sharply, from 100$ to 30$ per kilo.

Reducing trafficking, arrests and illegal crops: what else?