International Journal on Criminology Volume 6, Number 2, Winter 2018/Spring 2019 | Page 29

International Journal on Criminology
However, the spectacular drop in prices in the legal sector that can be seen
today should contribute to absorbing part of the black market in the years to come.
Another consideration is the part of the black market that caters in particular to
exports to states that have maintained bans on cannabis in one form or another.
In Colorado, this “booming” situation, according to the US Forest Service, has
involved heavy investment by Mexican criminal organizations in outdoor growing
on Colorado’s large expanses of public lands governed by federal legislation. The
Forest Service assessed the value of the marijuana annually produced in this fashion
at 250 million dollars.
In 2016, John Walsh, the United States Attorney for the District of Colorado,
expressed concern about the increase in the number of illegal plantations in
the western part of the state, where there is a large amount of public lands. The
cannabis grown here is targeted at the Chicago and Florida markets in particular,
and many other actors that have no links to organized crime are engaging in this
practice. Getting a handle on this situation is crucial when it comes to the future
of legalization policy, especially since in 2016, with the support of the DEA, the
prohibitionist of states Nebraska and Oklahoma filed a complaint (that was ultimately
unsuccessful) with the Supreme Court with the aim of suspending, based
on the supremacy of federal legislation over state law, the experiments in progress.
However, the prospect of a challenge seems more likely following the election
of Donald Trump, who is much less in favor of cannabis legalization than
Barack Obama was. The new administration’s attorney general, Jeff Sessions, recently
rescinded the infamous Cole Memorandum, which recommended that federal
judges across the states did not apply federal law against the cannabis industry
where it complied with local laws.
Nevertheless, in a similar vein to what is happening with the segment of
trafficking destined for the domestic market, the phenomenon should gradually
subside as regulation progresses in an ever-growing number of American states.
Today, the effect of insularity is not playing out in the same manner in, for example,
Washington State, which legalized cannabis at the same time as Colorado.
Washington State is in close proximity to Canada, Oregon, and California, which
are following or preparing to follow the same policy as Washington, whereas Colorado
is literally “surrounded” by prohibitionist and relatively hostile states.
The “Balloon Effect”
The second factor that has curbed the impact of legalization is the classic “balloon
effect” 11 of criminal organizations moving to other activity sectors or
turning to other drugs. It seems that the cartels, whose activities are already
11 A piece of police jargon that describes a criminal organization’s shift from one activity to another
or from one geographical area to another. It is a phenomenon similar to the waterbed effect, and
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