Drug cartels expanding in the United States are wisest to choose the state with the most lenience toward grow operations. Of the 28 legalization states, only 12 allow home grow operations at all. Among the 12 most lenient, the drug dealer will chose:

A. Washington State, allows 15 plants.

B. California and Oregon, allows six plants.

C. Colorado, allows up to 99 plants for “medical” users.

Recreational users can group personal allocations of six plants into massive co-ops, with large greenhouses of pot that are not tracked or taxed.

They’ll choose “C” for Colorado every time. It’s almost anything goes. Here, the black market can establish large-scale, unlicensed pot grows and meld with all the “medical” users and recreational coops. Law enforcement won’t have adequate time or resources to separate law-abiding operations from criminals exporting product to other states.

This is not theory. For a routine local example, consider this excerpt from a March 4 Gazette story by reporter Kaitlin Durbin.

Read more at The Colorado Springs Gazette.