{"id":3552,"date":"2023-03-22T16:42:57","date_gmt":"2023-03-22T05:42:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.dalgarnoinstitute.org.au\/wp_site\/how-cartels-took-over-californias-desert-and-turned-it-to-lawless-land\/"},"modified":"2025-11-12T21:02:02","modified_gmt":"2025-11-12T10:02:02","slug":"how-cartels-took-over-californias-desert-and-turned-it-to-lawless-land","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dalgarnoinstitute.org.au\/wp_site\/how-cartels-took-over-californias-desert-and-turned-it-to-lawless-land\/","title":{"rendered":"Cannabis Legalization: How Cartels Took Over California’s Desert and Turned It to Lawless Land"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"blackmarket\"<\/a>Decriminalizing any drug facilitates and increase in use \u2013 This metric is all but universal. Legalizing any drug gives it societies highest stamp of approval and protects possessors and users<\/a> of this drug from any judicial educative process. The mantra becomes \u2018I have a right to do this, because it is legal\u2019<\/i>.<\/p>\n

The environmental wrecking ball that is illegal cannabis grows<\/a> is almost incalculable, and the human trafficking that accompanies<\/i><\/a> these enterprises is shocking.<\/i><\/p>\n

Of course, we will disappear down a rabbit hole of dysfunction when we begin to look at the other associated criminal, social, familial, health and mental health harms of addictive substances.<\/p>\n

The cost of the production, use and inevitable harmful outcomes of a product that has essentially only one end \u2013 the altering of mind and mood, is staggering.
And it is invariably the non-drug using public that bears the lion\u2019s share of the fiscal and social burden of these pernicious behaviours.
See also<\/p>\n