Marijuana Legalization Means Safer Borders And Less Smuggling, Study Shows

By Tom Angell

As more states have moved to create a legal supply chain for marijuana, less cannabis is being smuggled over the U.S.’s southern border.

That’s the conclusion of a new analysis from the Cato Institute, which looked at Border Patrol marijuana seizures over time.

“State-level marijuana legalization has significantly undercut marijuana smuggling,” David Bier, an immigration policy analyst at Cato, wrote in the paper, published last week. “Based on Border Patrol seizures, smuggling has fallen 78 percent over just a five-year period. Because marijuana was the primary drug smuggled between ports of entry, where Border Patrol surveils, the value of the agency’s seizures overall — on a per-agent basis — has declined 70 percent.”

Colorado and Washington became the first states to legalize cannabis in 2012, with legal sales starting in 2014, and more states have gotten on board each election cycle since. There are now ten states that have ended marijuana prohibition, with several more expected to do so in 2019 and 2020.

The Cato paper also calls into question President Trump’s push to erect a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, which has led to a partisan dispute that caused an ongoing government shutdown this week.

Read more from the source: Forbes.com

Getty Images