A GOP senator and former top Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) official on Tuesday traded thoughts about the state and federal marijuana policy conflict, arguing that legalization laws are enabling foreign cartels to exploit the system in a way that threatens broader public safety.
The discussion took place at a Senate Caucus on International Narcotics Control hearing titled “Dirty Money: Chinese Organized Crime in Latin America.” Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), chair of the panel, raised the cannabis issue and asserted that Chinese and Mexican cartels in particular using marijuana laws in states like Maine and Oklahoma to mask illicit drug trafficking activities.
Even as marijuana remains a Schedule I drug under the Controlled Substances Act (CSA), “the federal government has turned its gaze elsewhere while states have allegedly passed state [legalization] laws—which I used to think were subject to federal supremacy, but only when the federal government actually enforces the law,” the senator said.
Cornyn asked Ray Donovan, former chief of operations at DEA, about the “consequences” of having foreign operators involved in the cannabis market, particularly under the guise of legitimacy in states that have enacted legalization.
Today’s Senate Caucus on International Narcotics Control hearing on Chinese organized crime
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