"To sell it in CA, it must be grown in CA. Same thing with Denver. So your assertion that it gives them legal dispensaries for their product is a false assertion. The moment the dispensary starts dispensing Mexican pot, it is no longer a legal dispensary because it is breaking the law. "

And with the lack of regulation as it stands now, how on earth can police tell whether or not a dispensary has gotten its marijuana from cartels or not? If you read what police are saying, they are saying that this is the problem in California. The fact that on paper it's considered an "illegal" dispensary is all well and good, but the fact is the fact that dispensaries can be "legal" provides great cover for cartels to sell their product. And as we've found out in the Netherlands, dispensaries want reliable product. The fact is the cartels provide more reliable supply since "legal" growers are restricted in how much they can grow. That's why the Netherlands decriminalization efforts have done absolutely nothing to undermine the power of organized crime in the marijuana trade there. Legal growers have also not been able to keep pace with the skyrocketing demand for so-called "medical/legal" marijuana, so the gap is being filled by cartels.

http://www.dutchamsterdam.nl/686-amsterdam-coffeeshops-organized-crime

"Under the ‘gedoog’ principle, home growers in The Netherlands are allowed to have up to five cannabis plants — ostensibly for personal use. As a results of a recent court case, those plants can be any size. However, even home growers with exceptionally green fingers may not have more than 30 grams of cannabis in their possession. At that rate, you’d need a lot of dedicated home growers to supply all of Amsterdam’s coffee shops."

I know the usual response to these inconvenient facts is to say well then the solution is to legalize, legalize, legalize. Well fine but you're going to have to not only legalize, but deregulate. And my point about decriminalization was addressing this notion that it somehow hurt the cartels anyway. The post was addressing the flaws of decriminalization.