Soldiers guard packages of marijuana at a military base in Tijuana. Mexican soldiers discovered 12 ton of marijuana in trucks at Mexico's border with California last year. REUTERS/Jorge DuenesIn Mexico, A High Point For Pot Farms -- Miami Herald/McClatchy News
With authorities focusing on other areas, Mexico's marijuana trade is reaping the benefits, drawing business in the U.S.
CORRE COYOTE, Mexico -- Times are good for the dope growers of the western Sierra Madre mountains. The army eradication squads that once hacked at the illicit marijuana fields have been diverted by the drug war that's raging elsewhere in Mexico.
The military's retreat has delighted farmers who are sowing and reaping marijuana. Cannabis cultivation in Mexico soared 35 percent last year and is now higher than at any time in nearly two decades, the State Department says.
It's also been a boon for Mexico's powerful organized-crime groups.
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My Comment: I live in Quebec, and I have a farm a few miles from the U.S. border. Every summer when I check the property, I am always finding small pot plantations here and there. This is not an isolated incident, all of my neighbors have the same problem, and we all know that criminal gangs are behind this type of enterprise.
Fortunately, the police in Quebec are nowhere near the corruption levels that exist in Mexico, but it is very disquieting to see how narcotics and drugs can quickly transform what was once a poor but peaceful country like Mexico (a place that I visited every year in the 1980s) .... into what it is today. And need we not forget .... but the first cash crop for Mexico's drug cartels was marijuana, providing the seed money to enter other criminal activities including heroin, cocaine, and God only knows what else.