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Brielle Ambrister
AP English
December 7, 2015
An Opportunity to Diminish Violence in Mexico
Crime rates are up, coping mechanisms are exhausting, families are terrified. Where else
can a desperate Mexican citizen go to reduce the violence in their country? More and more each
day, a solution is becoming apparent. Evidence on the correspondence between violence and the
use of marijuana indicates a reduction in violent behavior for, not only those who use it, but
those surrounded by it. In fact, analysts have proposed that any marijuana-associated criminality
rise may be due to its illegality, rather than the drug itself. Yet it remains blamed for the violence
its associated with. This fault is not only invalid, but in direct opposition to its reality. The
legalization of marijuana in Mexico will diminish the violence in a citizens daily life to extents
which start at the reduction of major drug cartel power and extend, but are not limited to,
reduction of dangerous prisoner release.
After decades of a power struggle between the flow of drugs, money, and weaponry on
the U.S./Mexican border, one specific drug quantity seems to have miraculously fallen:
marijuana. Interestingly, statistics showing a positive correlation between the rates of violence
and marijuana transportation were recently collected. According to Matt Ferner of the Huffington
Post, in 2011, a high of 23,000 murders was recorded and, by the United States Border Patrol,
2.5 million pounds of cannabis was confiscated. In 2014, around 15,000 homicides were reported
and 1.9 million pounds confiscated. In between this apparent decline in both homicide rates and
rates of illegal marijuana possession were the legalization and decriminalization of marijuana in
numerous American states like Colorado, Washington, and Delaware. States like these have

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popped up more and more legal centers for marijuana in close proximity to Mexico. The
corresponding statistics are a likely result of the decline in cash landing in the hands of Mexicos
most violent and powerful cartels, and into government regulated hands.
Before the progression of any major decision, it's always helpful to conduct an
experiment. Unknowingly, that's exactly what states like California have done for the Mexican
people. Marijuana is responsible for an overwhelming 15-26% of gross Mexican DTO drug
revenues. This means that cannabis legalization in California alone would cut two to four percent
of Mexican DTO drug export revenue, as it accounts for around 14% of U.S. marijuana
consumption. (How might Marijuana) This fall in accordance to a wave of the recent
legalizations has created a budding industry of labeled, regulated, and most importantly, legal,
production of cannabis that is very reasonably more appealing to all buyers than Mexicos
standard mota. Examples like this have allowed researches to infer that the decision to legalize
cannabis in Mexico will ultimately diminish the prices of major cartel-produced marijuana,
eventually damaging the dangerous business. More, being that former Mexican President
Enrique Nieto desires continuation of the war on drugs, an official decriminalization of
recreational cannabis will grant him the freedom to focus concerns on heroine,
methamphetamines, and cocaine; the more dangerous and pressing drugs.
Apart from violent drug cartels and distractions from Mexicos pressing matters, another
thing that every state around the world could do without is the incarceration of nonviolent
marijuana offenders. Marijuana as a drug is not inherently dangerous and therefore violent
marijuana users are very typically a matter of coincidence. Rates of nonviolent offenders
imprisonment have already decreased in the United States in light of recent to semi-recent
decriminalization rates (such as in California, Colorado, Connecticut, and thirteen other

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American states). Two thirds of approximately 650,000 released inmates a year are arrested again
within 3 years in a loop that is not only arbitrary in nature; but potentially extremely harmful to
the general wellbeing of the society theyre released into. (Prison Violence Can The
unsettling loop looks like this: a harmless marijuana user enters the prison system and
experiences mental and physical strain which will trouble any given person at a minimum. As
typical reaction to that strain, the 650,000 citizens pouring back into mainstream society go on to
inflict increasingly harsher crimes amongst society which start with the use of more dangerous
illegal drugs that put money straight into the major cartels pockets. (Prison Violence Can)
Their reaction often then increases to committing the violent acts that the collective world is
attempting to subdue through, ironically, the very same system.
There are so many people involved in this fight. One of those people attempting to find
the cure for this devastating and seemingly uncontrollable violence in and around Mexico is
Emily Gray. She believes, There is really no silver bullet when it comes to rooting out Mexican
cartels and associated violence. In Grays eyes, various issues such as illegal arms trade,
poverty, economic inequality, and political corruption help propel the drug trade and cartel
viability. These things are in fact contributing to the violence surrounding the cartels. However,
there is an utter irrelevant nature to these facts in respect to the legalization of marijuana, as
marijuana undoubtedly has, and will continue to contribute to the decrease of violence in
Mexico. So, while lifting prohibitions of marijuana use may never cure drug related violence, is
there a reason to deny the role it could clearly play? Should Mexico throw out plans which will
undeniably diminish violence because they cant provide the ultimate cure for that violence?
This question is partially addressed on November 4 of this year, when Mexicos Supreme
Court ruled the ban on marijuana unconstitutional and granted only 4 citizens of Mexico the right

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to the production, possession, and recreational use of cannabis. (Los Angeles Times) The court
further ruled that though marijuana has the potential to inflict an extent of harm on others, it is
an excessive antidote to that harm, as noted by Jorge Castaned of the Los Angelos Times. The
important question here, as Castaneda poses it, is that other harmful substances, like alcohol and
tobacco, are legal and subject to regulation, so why not marijuana? This question is a common
one that is often quieted by those endorsing these substances. Yet research suggests that, when it
comes to violent crime, alcohol alone is a much more significant factor than marijuana. The
National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism reported that 25 to 30 percent of violent
crimes are connected to alcohol use, while The National Academy of Sciences discovered pots
active ingredient, THC, to actually induce a decline in violent and aggressive behavior. Another
study in the journal of Addictive Behaviors found that "alcohol is clearly the drug with the most
evidence to support a direct intoxication-violence relationship," and that marijuana actually
reduces the likelihood of violence during intoxication. With these facts growing to be more selfevident every day, the worlds of legal and decriminalized marijuana are wondering what is
holding Mexico back.
More than anything, it's those who spout the supposed dangers of marijuana. These
dangers, meant to negatively set the drug apart from other commonly used and legal drugs, are
concentrated around the same effects that will be experienced by any given medical depressant (a
category of pharmaceutical compounds that decrease electrical activity in the central nervous
system [CNS]), including the commonly used benzodiazepines to treat anxiety disorders,
anticonvulsants used to treat epilepsy, and sodium oxybate used to treat narcolepsy. All of these
legal and necessary drugs for hundreds and thousands of people across the world and more
depress the human bodys CNS in the same way as the THC and CBD in marijuana, to an equal

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if not higher risk than marijuana. Yet no one is trying to take anticonvulsants away from epilepsy
patients, rendering the arguments insisting upon the dangers of marijuana useless to to the world,
and most importantly, to Mexico; the country in desperate need of its legalization.
For much of the posed problems, there is a solution. Where there is no solution, there are
opportunities for improvement. The nationwide decriminalization of marijuana in Mexico will
eliminate the unnecessary incarceration of nonviolent marijuana users. The legalization of
marijuana in Mexico will decrease the available funds for violent cartels by up to the previously
mentioned 26%, and a satisfying minimum of 15%. Which, not only will diminish opportunity
for drug cartels to wreak violent havoc among Mexico, but provide necessary attention to
Mexicos more pressing matters.

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Works Cited
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Ferner, Matt. "Legalizing Medical Marijuana May Actually Reduce Crime, Study Says." The
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"Is Marijuana Medicine?" DrugFacts:. N.p., July 2015. Web. 07 Dec. 2015.
"Legalizing Marijuana in Mexico Would Do Little to Reduce Cartel Violence, or Would It?" Sun
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Los Angeles Times. Los Angeles Times, n.d. Web. 23 Nov. 2015.
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"Prison Violence Can Heighten Public Danger." ABC News. ABC News Network, n.d. Web. 24
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"State Marijuana Laws Map." State Marijuana Laws Map. N.p., n.d. Web. 07 Dec. 2015.
"U.S. Legalization of Marijuana Has Hit Mexican Cartels' Cross-Border Trade." Time. Time, n.d.
Web. 23 Nov. 2015