Despite legalization in some states, local marijuana pushers peddle in the old fashioned way

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EL PASO — Colorado and Washington State approved legal sale and personal use of marijuana last year paving the road for the rest of country to light legally, but, until that occurs, cannabis users will have to procure their weed the old fashioned way — from drug pushers.  

The illegal drug providers include individuals who put themselves at the risk of getting caught by police while obtaining the drugs from major traffickers and, then disbursing their product to a plentiful clientele anxiously awaiting their high.  

One local drug pusher who travels regularly from here to California to get his merchandise at the best market price now marvels at the irony while drug sellers are just retail merchants paying taxes elsewhere, he is considered a criminal here.  

In the meantime, he travels to get the best wholesale price. “They would give me 10 pounds every month, maybe 20,” said a source who wishes to remain nameless.

Senators grapple with federal-state marijuana law enforcement

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WASHINGTON – Senators searched for a balance Tuesday between increasingly lenient state and federal laws concerning marijuana. “Experts fear they will create a big marijuana industry, including a Starbucks of marijuana,” Sen. Charles E. Grassley, R-Iowa, said. Members of the Senate Judiciary Committee spoke at a hearing with people on the frontlines of the marijuana issue. Twenty states and the District of Columbia have laws allowing medical marijuana, and 16 of those have decriminalized possession of small amounts. Colorado and Washington have legalized the recreational use of marijuana.

El Paso has a front row seat on the unending killing in Juarez

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EL PASO, Texas — About a century ago, El Pasoans lined themselves up near the border for a good view of the revolutionary war raging just across the river as gunshots and war cries echoed from the brush and dirty water. A hundred yeas later, El Paso once more holds a ringside seat to the bloodshed of Mexican souls. Last week, shots fired from Mexico hit the windows of El Paso’s City Hall. Although no one can be sure how or when the bulk of the violence will die down, many students at the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) have their opinions. “A lot of people have told me that maybe if they legalize marijuana in Juárez it would be better because then the drug lords would loose some of their power,” said Lindsy Gutierrez, a music major.  She sat in the shade outside the Fox Fine Arts building of UTEP reading a book on poetry.