| Photo: AP |
| Mexican Army soldiers stand at attention, desperately trying to keep a “military bearing” as the intoxicating smoke from a buttload of marijuana being burned billows over them in Ciudad Juarez |
High-ranking officials from the United States and Mexico Thursday concluded a conference to reduce the illicit drug trade associated violence that plagues the border between the two nations.
Unfortunately, the talks concluded with no reference to the most sensible strategy for reducing that violence: removing marijuana from the criminal market, thus depriving drug cartels of their main source of income and strife.
“The only solution to the current crisis is to tax and regulate marijuana,” said Aaron Houston, director of government relations for the Marijuana Policy Project. “Once again, Mexican and U.S. officials are ignoring the fact that the cartels get 70 percent of their profits from marijuana.”