| Photo: AP |
| Mexican soldier caqrries marijuana plants seized near Aguililla, |
To embattled government officials in Mexico, where armed soldiers patrol the streets and more than 500 people have died in cartel-related violence just this year, marijuana seems inextricably linked to the enrichment of death-dealing drug bosses who earn huge profits smuggling the illicit weed north.
“Marijuana arrives in the United States soaked with the blood of Tijuana residents,” said Mayor Jorge Ramos, whose police department lost 45 officers to “drug violence” in recent years, report Nick Miroff and William Booth of the Washington Post.
But across the border in California, cannabis has a very different reputation — that of a healing herb. After the Obama Administration said it would not prioritize the prosecution of patients and providers who were abiding by state medical marijuana laws, about 100 dispensaries opened in San Diego alone in the past year.