Huff Post has a great infographic showing “the War on Drugs is clearly a war on weed.” Marijuana was a staggering 99.5% of the Border Patrol’s drug seizures, by weight, along the US-Mexico border in 2011 at 1,934,447 lbs. vs. 7,461 lbs. of cocaine or 328 lbs. of heroin.
Categories: Best of the Web, Infographics, Law & Politics, Marijuana News
Tags: cocaine, dea, global drug policy, heroin, Mexico, seizures, United States, war on drugs.
By:
Alexander Martin. Permalink: 
Shortlink: http://weedi.st/cP68o
Tags: cocaine, dea, global drug policy, heroin, Mexico, seizures, United States, war on drugs.
By:
Alexander Martin. Permalink: Shortlink: http://weedi.st/cP68o
these numbers our slightly irrelevant. based on whole sale prices, heroin accounts for 4.5 mil, coke is about 50 mil,and the marijuana is close to 1 billion. on the other hand U..S grown weed is about a 40 billion dollar industry. cartels are loosing their grip on the market and coke comes in subs and other tech savy ways besides having migrant bring across the border. and these numbers are based on what is seized. when a kilo doubled in price drug dealers went a different direction because the end user doesn't have more money to adjust to inflation. these cartel wars are starting because there isnt enough turf for everyone yo get rich; legalize weed and now you have a DEA with more focus on solving problems dealing with drugs that actually cause overdoses
Brandon, I agree with you from the (cartel) revenue perspective, an ounce of weed vs coke vs heroin are very different prices, and the cartels clearly have diversified revenue streams, drug and non.
However, imo from a (US govt) cost perspective on this failed war on drugs, it costs a hell of a lot more to track, tag, receive bribe or destroy 2M pounds of cannabis vs 328 lbs of heroin.
Even from the revenue perspective, if we got rid of prohibition, these black market prices would come tumbling down a bit and at least start putting some of this massive profit margin into places like our school's coffers instead of cartels' pockets & all the violence US prohibition has helped create within Mexico.
Thanks for the great comment!