U.S. drug czar: Marijuana now biggest moneymaker for Mexican cartels

By Mark Stevenson
ASSOCIATED PRESS
5:15 p.m. February 21, 2008

MEXICO CITY – Marijuana is now the biggest source of income for Mexico's drug cartels and the U.S. is committed to cracking down harder on traffickers, U.S. drug czar John Walters said Thursday.

“We're trying to increase the force with which we're attacking this problem,” Walters said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press. “This is a focus because of the overlooked importance marijuana has in the violence.”

Walters made the comments following a meeting with Mexican officials who want the U.S. to prosecute marijuana cases more zealously to reduce the amount of cash gangs can spend on guns.

Mexican Attorney General Eduardo Medina Mora discussed the subject with Walters and U.S. federal prosecutors from the border region Thursday during a meeting in the Baja California resort of Los Cabos.

Walters said the U.S. government is seeking additional resources to prosecute traffickers of marijuana, which now earns cartels about $8.5 billion or about 61 percent of their annual estimated income of $13.8 billion. Cocaine sales earn the cartels about $3.9 billion, and methamphetamine about $1 billion, he said.