Blood marijuana: Where is your pot really coming from?

Aaron Hall | Contributing Writer

Issues related to human trafficking and unethically produced goods have garnered much attention from social justice groups in recent years. Thanks to these groups, we care now more than ever about the ethical production of things we consume, in particular of our luxury goods. Chocolate and coffee, for instance, are consumed by the masses, and tremendous pressure has been put on the companies responsible for their production to harvest and process these products in an ethical manner. No one wants his chocolate to come from plantations that utilize child labor, provide horrific working conditions or pay poor wages. Yet, despite all the hype generated by countless social justice groups, no one seems to care about where their weed comes from.

Personally, I have no objection to the act of smoking marijuana. However, I do object on an ethical basis to it being grown, harvested and imported by savage criminal organizations. Some think tanks have estimated that approximately two-thirds of all marijuana is grown in Mexico, and Beau Kilmer of the RAND Corporation estimated that between 40 and 67 percent of all marijuana in the U.S. originates in Mexico before passing through the hands of vicious drug cartels. Drug-trafficking organizations pose a domestic menace and have been responsible for more than 60,000 deaths in since 2006, according to the BBC. Marijuana, along with other drugs, is sometimes brought over the unforgiving landscape of our border with Mexico on the backs of illegal immigrants, who, ironically, are oftentimes fleeing the rampant cartel violence. If a single industry were responsible for this amount of death and carnage in any single nation, any person concerned for the well-being of other humans would feel obligated to take some form of action.

With scores of young people vigorously supporting a number of social justice campaigns, awareness of ethical production is widespread. However, marijuana use has also increased over the past few years, with approximately 30 percent of all university students using marijuana at some point within the past year and 17 percent using it within 30 days of when they were asked, according to the CORE Institute. Evidently, there is no connection in the minds of many that the marijuana they are enjoying originates mainly from criminal organizations responsible for atrocious human rights violations.

Not knowing where your weed comes from is just as bad as not caring. If recreational users were really concerned about the origins of their marijuana, they would stop using the drug on principle and out of respect for human life. It’s unreasonable to assume that cutting the amount of cartel marijuana that is bought would stop these organizations in their tracks. Thus, the reason people should stop consuming is because it is wrong to buy goods that have hurt those producing them; it’s the principle that matters.

Obviously, marijuana is still illegal in the eyes of the federal government, so there is no oversight or legal pressure for your local dealer to source the production of your weed, especially considering that he may be the fourth or fifth person to handle it. But the chance that a random person on the street smoking cannabis is using a good that came from a Mexican cartel is high, and the additional chance that it’s from a cartel’s American-based farm raises the odds even higher. Our current social paradigm, which turns a blind eye to this blatant hypocrisy, must be altered soon, if only for ethical reasons.

As legalization continues and the legitimate cannabis industry continues to grow, regulation will be important not only because it is wrong for our goods to come from organizations that harm other people but also for health purposes. Ensuring that recreational and medical cannabis is not laced with other drugs or chemicals is vital as legal restrictions and the taboo around enjoying marijuana are lifted. Ethical production of our goods is socially responsible, and as marijuana is consumed by more individuals, it should fall under the same scrutiny as other consumable goods.

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