Small marijuana farmers have been just waiting for the day when pot would be legalized – the time has come in many places and now suddenly they are competing with the drug cartel?  This growth did not just happen in the last day or two – it has now just come to view.

Bringing ex-drug dealers into the world of medical enterprise does not seem like a wise idea.  These are the guys who have been expanding illegally for decades.   Their sense of ethics might be a bit different – even though it might be looked at as a “profession” of sorts.

Additionally, regardless of any hype, they have been selling the gateway drug – the gateway to heroin, methamphetamine, cocaine and prescription medication.

“So many smalltime marijuana operations have sprung up in the U.S. that they are starting to make a serious dent in the profits of Mexico’s violent drug cartels, the Washington Post reported Oct. 7.

Experts say that the modest growers have accomplished what decades of arrests and drug seizures have tried and failed to do, hitting international cartels in the wallet. The trend toward small, local marijuana cultivation has been fueled by the crackdown on the U.S.-Mexico border as well as state medical-marijuana laws.

Up to half of the marijuana consumed in the U.S. is now produced domestically, with boutique growers using hydroponics to produce high-quality, potent marijuana that is craved by consumers. “What’s happened in the last five years, it’s just gotten totally, totally out of hand, as far as a green rush of people coming from all kinds of different states and realizing the kind of money you can make,” said Jack Nelsen, commander of the Humboldt County Drug Task Force in Northern California, which has become a major marijuana-growing region.”

http://www.jointogether.org/news/headlines/inthenews/2009/small-marijuana-producers.html