Since all things political are viewed through the lens of money these days, let's consider one economic inevitability of closing down all or most of the medical marijuana providers. These are providers who obey California law, pay income and business taxes (making their business significantly publicly transparent) and in some locales cooperate directly with local law enforcement to maintain the legal status of their operations (mainly growers). This structure of accountability and enforcement is more transparent than not and leaves the practices of the suppliers under the scrutiny and control of state and local government.

The market for marijuana, both medical and illicit, has had time to mature to the point where municipalities seek to include the dispensaries in their local tax base and the businesses actually welcome the taxes in order to be fully integrated as businesses within their communities. There is a significant desire to legalize marijuana just as alcohol is. This state of cooperation has lead to safety and consistency of the product; safe, rational and transparent transactions involving the product; security from organized criminal involvement for sellers and clients/patients.

Now imagine this market in the well-armed hands of Los Zetas and the Sinloa drug cartels of Mexico. Imagine bodies hanging from over-passes or dumped headless within 100 yards of a school. Imagine traveling to Prom Night in small convoys of armored SUVs. Do NOT imagine that any police department in California could counter an experienced, well-trained, well-armed (with weapons purchased in the US) urban guerrilla force, which is the model the Mexican cartels have successfully followed. Not even LAPD can match their fire-power and mobility. These groups already have a cross-border culture: their members revolve through prisons on both sides of the border; they have gang representation and alliances with the US; weapons are consistently and easily purchased in the US (especially when incompetence is multiplied by Fast and Furious career-building within the Justice Dept.); they grow marijuana on US public lands to keep their supply chain close to the customer base. I do not know if the cartels off-shore their assets in US financial institutions, but it would make sense for them to hedge against currency fluctuations and minimize cross-border transfers of cash.

The Mexican cartels are waiting right now to capture completely the market for marijuana in the US. One could grow cynical watching the misguided actions of the Justice and Treasury Departments pave the way for their unimpeded entry. The most professionally run dispensaries are the core model upon which we can rationally and in a controlled manner, legalize marijuana. And legalization with taxation is the only way we can establish a market that excludes the hyper-violent drug cartels from colonizing our communities and spreading social and political chaos hundreds of miles north of the border.