Increased U.S. pot output threatens Latin cartels

Small-scale but widespread marijuana production in the U.S. is threatening the Mexican and Colombian domination of the pot market, Steve Fainaru and William Booth of The Washington Post report. An increasing local supply is threatening the Latin American trade in a way decades of arrests and seizures never has, they report.

As much as half of marijuana sold in the U.S. is now produced domestically, Fainaru and Booth write. Contrary to traditional images of rural pot farming, small-scale production and indoor farming may have played a large role in the increased production. "While the trafficking of cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine is the main focus of U.S. law enforcement, it is marijuana that has long provided most of the revenue for Mexican drug cartels," the reporters write.

Mexican cartels are improving their product and streamlining delivery to compete with increased U.S. production, they report. The National Drug Intelligence Center says cartels are increasingly growing pot on public lands in the U.S. to move closer to the market.

The 2007 National Survey on Drug Use and Health estimated that 14.4 million Americans age 12 and over had used marijuana in the past month, and more than 10 percent of the U.S. population reported smoking pot once in the past year. (Read more)