Is it any surprise that City Attorney Carmen "Nuch" Trutanich, who led the crackdown on marijuana dispensaries, isn’t a fan of Prop 19, the initiative to legalize the sticky stuff? Speaking at a Los Angeles Current Affairs luncheon, held today at the Wilshire Grand Hotel, Trutanich raised the issue of Mexican drug cartels, and the fact that 61 percent of their cash revenue comes from marijuana sales, when talking about Prop 19. The cartels, he said, don't want to give up that big chunk of revenue. “To think that by legalizing it, you’re going to lose the fight from the cartels?” Trutanich asked, rhetorically. “That’s not going to happen.” Even if Californians can buy their weed legally from a government-sanctioned source, Nuch believes consumers will still look for “back door buy," aka the cheaper illegal buy, and that's where the cartels will continue to have power.
"Until we control the source, we are going to be inviting the cartels into this game," he said."...We need to stop the supply coming north...once we do that, maybe we can have a discussion about legalizing pot.” Nuch's argument comes after a recent Washington Post article in which former president Mexican Vincente Fox argued the exact opposite, that legalizing pot would weaken the cartels, and on the same day that the Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, a nonprofit organization supporting Prop 19, held a press conference, saying that legalizing pot would help free up police resources, according to the Los Angeles Times.
· Marijuana Archives [Curbed LA]
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