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Is Legal Pot Crippling Mexican Drug Trafficking Organisations?

marginalrevolution.com

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Re: Is Legal Pot Crippling Mexican Drug Trafficking Organisations?

#3

Post by brownbat »

Donzo wrote: post #2

I must admit I only read the headline, but I'm sure the organizations are making due with the thin, tight-margins off black market cocaine, heroine, and methamphetamine sales.

There's a Wiley paywall past the abstract.

Would be curious how they separate out the impact on Mexican cartels from cheap fentanyl from Asia.

US opiate overdoses were already high, and they went up 21% last year, largely driven by synthetics. They're not joking about it being an epidemic.

More on the economics of fentanyl vs heroin: https://news.vice.com/article/americas-new-deadliest-drug-fe...

Re: Is Legal Pot Crippling Mexican Drug Trafficking Organisations?

#5

Post by simonh »

Donzo wrote: post #2

I must admit I only read the headline, but I'm sure the organizations are making due with the thin, tight-margins off black market cocaine, heroine, and methamphetamine sales.

I'm really sorry for being pedantic, I'm uusally not like this, but I have seen this frequently on HN. It's making do, not making due.

Re: Is Legal Pot Crippling Mexican Drug Trafficking Organisations?

#6

Post by kurthr »

Donzo wrote: post #2

I must admit I only read the headline, but I'm sure the organizations are making due with the thin, tight-margins off black market cocaine, heroine, and methamphetamine sales.

Well, the article is barely more than a headline and a bunch of mediocre comments itself, although it links to a paper behind a paywall. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ecoj.12521/full

I would guess though that meth (a la Breaking Bad) is too easy to make inside the US for import competition, while heroin has been hit by the dual availability of Pharma delivered Oxy and China delivered Fentanyl/Carfentanil... the combination makes for a bad time in the cartel industry. Of course that makes them more desperate to import other things for pay.

Re: Is Legal Pot Crippling Mexican Drug Trafficking Organisations?

#7

Post by IgorPartola »

kurthr wrote: post #6
Donzo wrote: post #2

I must admit I only read the headline, but I'm sure the organizations are making due with the thin, tight-margins off black market cocaine, heroine, and methamphetamine sales.

Well, the article is barely more than a headline and a bunch of mediocre comments itself, although it links to a paper behind a paywall. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ecoj.12521/full I would guess though that meth (a la Breaking Bad) is too easy to make inside the US for import competition, while heroin has been hit by the dual availability of Pharma delivered Oxy and China delivered Fentanyl/Carfentanil…

Meth is actually really interesting. It's a very democratic drug in that it's really easy for the user to make it themselves. Pot is another one that theoretically lets you grow it yourself, but it's significantly harder and requires a larger investment. From what I gather, as long as you manage to not blow yourself up, the shake and bake method requires very little supplies and tools to make meth.

Edit: to be clear, I am not advocating that anyone use meth. It's a horrible drug that will fuck your life. I do however find its particular properties interesting in the abstract.

Re: Is Legal Pot Crippling Mexican Drug Trafficking Organisations?

#9

Post by Donzo »

simonh wrote: post #5
Donzo wrote: post #2

I must admit I only read the headline, but I'm sure the organizations are making due with the thin, tight-margins off black market cocaine, heroine, and methamphetamine sales.

I'm really sorry for being pedantic, I'm uusally not like this, but I have seen this frequently on HN. It's making do, not making due.

In all seriousness, I greatly appreciate corrections like this in a way that so few people do.

Re: Is Legal Pot Crippling Mexican Drug Trafficking Organisations?

#10

Post by tomrod »

The "Drug Trafficking Organizations" are the cartels. It is important to remember they don't exist to traffic drugs, they exist for the top leader(s) to obtain and maintain power, like a state-in-waiting. As other activities become more profitable, they switch over to those. Marijuana loses its profitability, they can switch to other drugs, guns, smuggling, "coyotes", or legitimate enterprise.

This is what unfettered capitalism (anarcho-capitalism) looks like. I like capitalism, generally, but divorcing morality (or, alternatively, failing to separate socially-contracted power to coerce action) from economic gain results in the violence and brutality.

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