Opinions - American country legalizes pot: US move?

[bcubed]

Is this an auto-invade?

Seems to me that, for a poor, agrarian nation, pot legalization would be a license to print money. Unlike extractive industries, where economists have shown most of the economic benefit never makes it down to the people, the fact that marijuana production does not readily lend itself to highly-capitalized efforts seems to suggest a real means to better the plight of average citizens.

Obviously, I can see why a county that is not currently on the US shit list wouldn't do this, but if you're Chavez or Raul Castro, well they already hate you, so what if they hate you even more? For a benefit, you could still keep exportation illegal: you'd probably get substantial "drug tourism" from a myriad of countries.

The sticking point for Chavez would seem to be that he wouldn't want to give up oil profits for ganja profits (though if oil gets much scarcer the US might not have the luxury of an embargo) but the only thing I can see holding Cuba back would be invasion. The critical thing would be legalization of PRODUCTION, versus possesion, or even domestic sales: that would drop the price of the cannabis commodity to the point where it would effect cannabis prices and consumption patterns in the US.

Is it solely the threat of invasion that has all of the Americas marching lockstep with US prohibition policies?