Legal American Weed Is Not Leading to a Major Drop in Mexico's Crime Rates Sierra Rayne - American Thinker
go to original March 20, 2016

Last year, the media was touting a consistent narrative: the legalization of marijuana in a few U.S. states was likely leading to large drops in Mexico's violent crime rate.

With the release of the full year of 2015 crime statistics from Mexico, the most likely conclusion appears to be that pot legalization in the U.S. had a minimal - if not negligible - impact on violent crime for its southern neighbor.

First off, credible journalism on the topic must acknowledge that Mexico's crime data is deeply flawed, a point which cannot be stressed enough. There is rampant evidence of either incompetence or political alteration (or, more likely, both) in its violent crime data. These concerns are well-established among experts from multiple security-oriented organizations who have been critically looking at the Mexican statistics.

In addition, any trends in Mexico's violent crime data must be interpreted within the context of what actions President Felipe Calderon's administration took during late 2006 through 2012, sending in the military against the cartels - resulting in the official period of the so-called “Mexican Drug War.”

...The long-term impacts of U.S. marijuana legalization efforts on Mexican crime rates are unclear, but one thing is certain: it is far too early to be ascribing any significant reductions in violent crimes (assuming they actually are declining) to legal pot.

Read the rest at American Thinker

Photo: The Cutting Edge News

We invite you to add your charity or supporting organizations' news stories and coming events to PVAngels so we can share them with the world. Do it now!