Drug Intelligence Brief

Mexican Marijuana in the United States - September 1999

The Marijuana Threat

Marijuana seizures along the U.S. Southwest Border reached record-high levels in 1998. According to the El Paso Intelligence Center (EPIC), marijuana seizures during 1998 totaled 743 metric tons, representing a 700-percent increase over 1991 seizures. Simultaneously, marijuana use among teens in the United States has doubled since the early 1990s.

Mexican marijuana comprises a significant portion of street-level or commercial grade¹ marijuana currently available in the United States. Marijuana from Mexican sources remains the lowest-priced marijuana in the nation. Moreover, intelligence sources indicate that Mexican traffickers have increased theirefforts to produce more potent forms of marijuana, including sinsemilla. In addition, marijuana’s potency or THC content, traditionally regarded as weak, has increased steadily.

Despite record border seizures, Mexican marijuana remains readily available within every DEA Field Division’s area of responsibility. Mexico-based polydrug trafficking organizations, which have long recognized the enormous profits to be realized from a growing user population, have enhanced and strengthened their production, smuggling, and distribution capabilities to ensure a continuous supply of drugs to U.S. communities. These organizations are engaging in border violence, as witnessed in the June 1998 murder of a U.S. Border Patrol Agent in Nogales, Arizona, and the possible connection to the July 1999 gangland-style executions of seven farmhands on a marijuana plantation in Sinaloa, Mexico.

Marijuana Use in the United States: Teen Use Rises Significantly

A dismaying U.S. drug trend in the 1990s is the surge in youth abuse of marijuana, particularly among high school students. The National Household Survey on Drug Abuse (NHSDA), although showing a decline in marijuana use on a monthly basis among the general population since 1985, indicates a dramatic increase in use among youth, defined as the age range from 12 to 17.

Percentage of Youth Ages 12-17 Reporting Marijuana Use in the Past Month

NHSDA data additionally indicates a significant increase since 1991 in the percentage of U.S. residents using cannabis during the past 12 months and a decline in the percentage of citizens perceiving a great risk from regular cannabis use. Furthermore, according to the Drug Abuse Warning Network, the number of nationwide marijuana/hashish emergency mentions quadrupled from 16,200 in 1991 to 64,700 in 1997.

The 1998 National Survey by the Columbia University Center for Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA) further cites the extensive social use of marijuana among teens. One of the more alarming findings of the survey pertains to use among early teens. Whereas only 14 percent of 12-year-olds stated “they [could] buy marijuana if they wanted to,” 50 percent of 13-year-olds stated they were able to buy the drug easily. Moreover, 45 percent of high school students said they could buy marijuana in an hour or less, whereas only 14 percent said they could not buy it at all.

Foreign Sources of Marijuana: Mexico Ranks First

DEA Field Divisions reported in 1998 that Mexico was the primary or secondary foreign source of marijuana available within virtually every domestic division, and it ranked as the primary source for marijuana within DEA Field Divisions along the U.S. Southwest Border. The following chart is a divisional breakdown of foreign marijuana sources for 1998, indicating a minimal deviation in foreign sources of marijuana per division throughout the 1990s.

Primary Foreign Sources of Marijuana by Domestic DEA Field Division for 1998

Mexican Marijuana Prices Remain Stable

Prices per pound vary considerably, depending on consumer proximity to the Mexican Border and quantity purchased. From the mid-1990s to the present, prices for commercial-grade Mexican marijuana remained relatively stable. On average, marijuana can be purchased in Mexico for approximately between $100 and $200 per kilogram. In DEA Field Divisions along the U.S. Southwest Border, Mexican marijuana sells for approximately between $400 and $1,000 per pound. In Border District Offices, the price is even lower; the McAllen, Texas, office reports wholesale prices of from $150 to $300 per pound.

In the Midwest and Northeast, the prices increase to, on average, between $700 and $2,000 per pound. Using low-end figures, 500 pounds of marijuana can be purchased in Juárez, Mexico, for $50,000 and sold in St. Louis, Missouri, for $400,000. As marijuana is purchased closer to the cultivation sites in Mexico and sold to U.S. consumers at greater distances from the U.S. Southwest Border, the profit margin increases significantly.

THC Content Slowly Climbing

According to University of Mississippi analyses, the THC content of commercial-grade marijuana has slowly risen over the years from an average of 3.71 percent in 1985 to an average of 5.57 percent in 1998. These analyses also show a corresponding rise in sinsemilla THC content from 7.28 percent in 1985 to 12.32 percent in 1998. The national averages of THC content for commercial-grade marijuana are as follows:

Average THC Content of Commercial-Grade Marijuana (Percentage)

Marijuana Trafficking Remains Unabated

The principal sources of Mexican marijuana are the following Mexico-based polydrug organizations: the Sonora organization under the leadership of Miguel Caro-Quintero; the Tijuana organization, which the Arellano-Felix brothers run; and to a lesser extent, the Juárez organization, headed by Vicente Carrillo-Fuentes. These organizations smuggle significant amounts of marijuana, Mexican heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine, and amphetamine into the United States. Through an extensive organization of associates in the United States, often related through family or regional ties, Mexican organizations control the transportation and distribution of marijuana and other drugs from hub cities along the U.S. Southwest Border to drug consumption markets throughout the United States. As a result of long-term alliances with Colombian organizations, Mexican organizations increasingly have become organized, specialized, and efficient, with individual components steadily consolidating power and control over well-defined areas of responsibility and geographic strongholds. DEA offices in Texas also report an increase in Mexican marijuana smuggling by profit-motivated, independent entrepreneurs.

Drug trafficking organizations use a wide range of methods to smuggle marijuana. The most common method employs a variety of vehicles, such as commercial vehicles, private automobiles, pickup trucks, vans, mobile homes, and horse trailers, to cross ports of entry (POEs). Marijuana is concealed within numerous areas in the vehicles including the tires, fuel tanks, seats, and false compartments. Large quantities commonly are placed within the structure of tractor-trailer rigs. DEA offices in South Texas, where one-third of all marijuana seizures occur, report an increase in traffickers moving marijuana across the Rio Grande River. Once across the river, the marijuana is loaded onto trucks. Another prevalent method involves organized, large-scale shipment by Federal Express and other shippers, aided by corrupt employees. Organizations of Jamaicans appear to be involved in dispatching Mexican marijuana by parcel carriers.

Marijuana also is transported via rail from Mexico to the United States. The DEA Los Angeles Field Division reported an April 1998 seizure of 3,264 kilograms of marijuana and 19.37 kilograms of cocaine from a rail-tanker car in Colton, California. The train had entered the United States through the Calexico, California, POE. In addition to vehicles and rail, backpackers continue to smuggle Mexican marijuana in small quantities across the border.

This trend is particularly evident in the Imperial County Resident Office (ICRO), which leads the San Diego Field Division in marijuana seizures. According to the ICRO, backpackers account for between 30 and 40 percent of all marijuana seizures.

Record Border Seizures

The escalation of trafficking of all drugs from Mexico has resulted in an increase in federal, state and local law enforcement manpower in the mid-1990s along the U.S. Southwest Border. A corresponding increase in law enforcement investigations, operations, and interdiction efforts has resulted in record seizures of drugs along the U.S. Southwest Border. Border seizures of marijuana rose from 103,000 kilograms in 1991 to over 700,000 kilograms in 1998—a 700-percent increase. The largest quantity of seizures occur in Texas, given its 1,276-mile border with Mexico.

U.S. Southwest Border Marijuana Seizures (kilograms)

Conclusion

With its low cost, increasing potency, and extensive availability, Mexican marijuana remains an appealing commodity to American consumers. Ostensibly in response to an unabated U.S. demand, DEA offices along the U.S. Southwest Border report an abundance of cross-border trafficking of Mexican marijuana. There are indications that many organizations are joining in marijuana trafficking, believing that it attracts lower levels of law enforcement attention and lesser penalties. Furthermore, the profits in trafficking Mexican marijuana have lured numerous independent entrepreneurs into the business, in addition to traditional polydrug syndicates operating from Mexico.

Increased marijuana trafficking across the U.S. Southwest Border has had a negative impact upon the United States, particularly as Mexican marijuana syndicates expand their newly established U.S. spheres of influence. Whereas several years ago, Mexican marijuana traffickers were limited to markets along the U.S. Southwest Border and on the U.S. West Coast, an emerging trend line of expansion to various other regions of the United States, particularly the Midwest and East Coast, shows the effect of marijuana trafficking there as well. In recent months, there have been indications of increased distribution to the southeastern United States and the Caribbean, particularly San Juan, Puerto Rico.

¹According to the University of Mississippi’s Potency Monitoring Project, commercial-grade marijuana is all forms of marijuana that are not sinsemilla (i.e., the unfertilized flowering tops of the female cannabis plant). Commercial-grade marijuana includes loose and kilobrick material, as well as fertilized buds containing seeds.