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Is Legal Pot Crippling Mexican Drug Trafficking Organisations?

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Re: Is Legal Pot Crippling Mexican Drug Trafficking Organisations?

#41

Post by cname »

tomrod wrote: post #10

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…

I'm not sure how you can say hierarchical organizations that use violence/coercion are in any way anarchist. Anarcho-capitalism requires voluntary engagement in a system of contracts and so forth. (Whether that could actually work in the real world is debatable but beside the point.)

Re: Is Legal Pot Crippling Mexican Drug Trafficking Organisations?

#42

Post by bretpiatt »

olivermarks wrote: post #31

No.... 'The Sinaloa cartel can buy a kilo of cocaine in the highlands of Colombia or Peru for around $2,000, then watch it accrue value as it makes its way to market. In Mexico, that kilo fetches more than $10,000. Jump the border to the United States, and it could sell wholesale for $30,000. Break it down into grams to distribute retail, and that same kilo sells for upward of $100,000 — more than its weight in gold.…

The marijuana market is twice the size in US Dollars vs. the cocaine market and nearly half the volume of the overall drug trafficking.

http://www.talkingdrugs.org/report-global-illegal-drug-trade...

Re: Is Legal Pot Crippling Mexican Drug Trafficking Organisations?

#43

Post by michaelchisari »

tomrod wrote: post #10

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…

Marijuana loses its profitability, they can switch to other drugs, guns, smuggling, "coyotes", or legitimate enterprise.

Not disagreeing with your larger point, but the fact of the matter is that it's a lot harder to sell people meth, coke, heroin, etc. than it is to sell people pot.

If coca cola were made illegal, something that is bad for you by many metrics but hardly life destroying, people are not going to switch to hard liquor in the same way.

Kidnapping, hard drugs, smuggling, all of these are sources of income, but they're dwarfed by pot sales. The hope is that the cartels can only maintain the empires they have with a huge money maker like marijuana, and without it, they may get more desperate and expand the worst of their operations, but they will still shrink in their influence, power, geography and labor force.

Re: Is Legal Pot Crippling Mexican Drug Trafficking Organisations?

#44

Post by srinivasan »

jzig wrote: post #28
Symmetry wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they're truly profit-maximizing they're already exploiting other drugs, guns, smuggling, "coyotes", or legitimate enterprise as hard as they can already and we should expect them to lose money if one of the markets they work in goes away.

What is a coyote?

Generally - the "willful, illegal transportation of migrants into another country".

If you're interested in reading more into how cartels operate, I'd highly recommend the book Narconomics by Tom Wainwright - https://www.amazon.com/Narconomics-How-Run-Drug-Cartel-ebook...

Editing in an excerpt from Chapter 9: Diversifying into New Markets: “The basic option is to sneak over the frontier with a guide on foot, hoping to avoid the US Border Patrol’s sentries. For those with deeper pockets, or without the stamina to wade through rivers or cross deserts and mountains, there is a luxury option: crossing “in the line,” meaning walking up to the immigration desk with fake documents. Coyotes buy a secondhand visa, and make the client up to look like the person in the photo. A guide surreptitiously directs the migrant to whichever line is moving fastest—a sign that the person on duty is giving the documents only a cursory check. No detail is overlooked: the coyotes even put souvenirs in their clients’ bags to make them look like day-trippers.”

Excerpt From: Tom Wainwright. “Narconomics.” iBooks.

Re: Is Legal Pot Crippling Mexican Drug Trafficking Organisations?

#45

Post by snarfy »

sunyata wrote: post #39
snarfy wrote: post #33

Northwest Cannabis Solutions, one of the largest cannabis growers in Washington State, is run by the Russian Mafia. I'm not sure about Mexican cartels, but legalization certainly hasn't stop organized crime involvement.

Do you have a citation for that? Ive been to a shop or two that felt a little sketchy but this interests me.

No citation unfortunately. My friend who runs a dispensary told me.

Re: Is Legal Pot Crippling Mexican Drug Trafficking Organisations?

#46

Post by sigstoat »

Spooky23 wrote: post #38
sigstoat wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. no. the cartels are what you get when you actively block organizations that are serving huge needs (recreational drugs), from access to peaceful means of c…

How do you explain the historical abuses of power and nasty behavior of the companies that produce things like bananas and pineapples?

"abuses of power and nasty behavior" ... "produce things like"... how is this "question" supposed to be addressable?

how would you defend the historical abuses of power and nasty behavior by government? there's a lot more democide to answer for than there are murders by malign corporations.

Re: Is Legal Pot Crippling Mexican Drug Trafficking Organisations?

#47

Post by CodeWriter23 »

sunyata wrote: post #39
snarfy wrote: post #33

Northwest Cannabis Solutions, one of the largest cannabis growers in Washington State, is run by the Russian Mafia. I'm not sure about Mexican cartels, but legalization certainly hasn't stop organized crime involvement.

Do you have a citation for that? Ive been to a shop or two that felt a little sketchy but this interests me.

I have a testimonial about that. A friend of mine is County Counsel in a California County. He goes after illegal grow ops and shops, shuttling them down. Permits and license fees are required and many choose not to do that. He’ll go after anyone, some are just dumbasses who didn’t check the laws, and others are hardcore criminals with long, gang-related rap sheets.

Re: Is Legal Pot Crippling Mexican Drug Trafficking Organisations?

#48

Post by falsprofet »

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.

I wouldn't be so sure. "To make due" seems correct to me, as a foreign speaker, because the grammar suggests a noun phrase as object, because it works en lieu "to settle debt". It's easy to see how french-illiterate anglophones would mishear due as do. So I guess you make do now. And I have to ask how are you making do today?

Re: Is Legal Pot Crippling Mexican Drug Trafficking Organisations?

#49

Post by losteric »

cname wrote: post #41
tomrod wrote: post #10

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…

I'm not sure how you can say hierarchical organizations that use violence/coercion are in any way anarchist. Anarcho-capitalism requires voluntary engagement in a system of contracts and so forth. (Whether that could actually work in the real world is debatable but beside the point.)

Aren't consumers technically voluntary, if we assume no one's getting addicted to heroin at gunpoint?

Re: Is Legal Pot Crippling Mexican Drug Trafficking Organisations?

#50

Post by QAPereo »

tomrod wrote: post #16
Symmetry wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they're truly profit-maximizing they're already exploiting other drugs, guns, smuggling, "coyotes", or legitimate enterprise as hard as they can already and we should expect them to lose money if one of the markets they work in goes away.

Diseconomies of scale and scope can prevent action in each of these industries, in a static analysis. It may prove to be more profitable to focus on a single industry (e.g. marijuana) than seeking at the present moment to dominate or even enter other industries (e.g. opiods) until market conditions change. As things evolve, they may naturally enter other industries. Heck, even become legitimate. EDIT: Fixed second pa…

Organized crime has typically been highly diversified, and it seems odd that the most successful organized criminal organizations would ignore those opportunities. Typically so-called vice crimes such as illegal prostitution and gambling are the base of the pyramid, with protection rackets, violence for hire, and whichever dugs are in demand. Human smuggling is another source of income, although I don’t know much about those practices in the Americas.
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