Illegal Drugs (III: Marijuana)

choi

Peter Robinson, Nacha Cattan and Ben Bain, Quality Pot Is Changing the Drug War. With weed now permitted in some form in 23 US states, the flow of cannabis out of Mexico has slowed and, to a degree, reversed. Bloomberg BusinessWeek, June 8, 2015 (as the Opening Remarks: the first article in an issue of Businessweek).
www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/ ... anging-the-drug-war

Excerpt in the window of print: Mexican farmers are giving up on marijuana. Many switch to vegetables, but some opt for heroin poppies.


Quote:

"In the past, only a sixth of cannabis consumed in the U.S. was grown within the 50 states; today that’s up to at least one-third, according to the United Nations. Pot from Colorado and California has started to displace the low-grade stuff that’s long flowed in by truck, tunnel, human mule, and boat from Mexico. Marijuana seizures by U.S. Customs and Border Protection at California border crossings totaled 132,075 pounds in fiscal 2014, half of the amount five years earlier.

"Mexico decriminalized possession of 5 grams or less of marijuana in 2009.

"Mexico’s drug lords may have lost some profits because of US legalization [of marijuana], but they’ve made adjustments. * * * Half of the heroin in the US now comes from Mexico, up from 14 percent in 2009, the US Drug Enforcement Administration says.

Note:
(a) “In Mexico City, young men mingling at an outdoor market and hawking mota—or pot—namecheck brands popular north of the border.”
(i) Spanish English dictionary
mota (noun feminine): "(uncountable, slang, Mexico) marihuana"
en.wiktionary.org/wiki/mota
(ii) namecheck (n): "public mention or listing of the name of a person or thing such as a product, especially in acknowledgment or for publicity purposes"
www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/de ... n_english/namecheck

(b) "He spent a few years in Shenzhen, China, developing contacts with manufacturers of the high-intensity-discharge lamps used by marijuana growers."

high-intensity-discharge lamp
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-intensity_discharge_lamp
("Once the arc is started, it [arc] heats and evaporates the metal salts forming plasma, which greatly increases the intensity of light produced by the arc and reduces its power consumption"/ a type of arc lamp)