America’s Quality Pot Is Changing the Drug War

With weed now permitted in some form in 23 U.S. states, the flow of cannabis out of Mexico has slowed and, to a degree, reversed

The street lieutenant fidgeting in a Ciudad Juárez pizza parlor deals drugs for Barrio Azteca, a gang that emerged from Texas prisons in the 1980s to control a chunk of illegal shipments from Mexico into the U.S. Southwest. Think No Country for Old Men—secret nighttime drops, murders, and a lucrative sideline in human trafficking and prostitution. Meeting with a reporter while his heavyset boss circles the block, the Juárez dealer is preoccupied with his hottest new product: handcrafted American-made pot.

He marvels at one medical marijuana operation he visited in Arizona. “There are tanks with a system that at a certain hour releases oxygen, water, and light like clockwork,” says the man, who asked that his name not be used for fear of arrest or reprisals...

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URL: 
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-06-03/quality-pot-is-changing-the-drug-war