Is Legal Pot Crippling Mexican Drug Trafficking Organisations? • Hacker News Board

Re: Is Legal Pot Crippling Mexican Drug Trafficking Organisations?

#111

Post by freeflight » Tue, Jan 16, 2018, 12:11 AM UTC

Fnoord wrote: post #98

freeflight wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On what basis are you making such a statement? Afaik many people use meth for performance enhancement and as a cheaper alternative to coke, heroin mostly comes in with people who've built up an opiate addiction through prescription opiates and a cheap escapist solution. Add in a generally very crappy living situation, where these substances are used as means of escapism from reality, and most of the habit boils down…

> On what basis are you making such a statement? That's whats being thought on elementary school traditionally, haha. You don't have to look far though. Look at the usage of Khat by Somalians and Kratom by Thai. If its easily available and socially accepted, its gonna fly and will be very difficult to get rid of. I can't wrap my head around using meth. Speed alone makes my head swirl and everything go fast. Exactly w…

> Exactly which performance would be enhanced by an even stronger upper? Or is it people with undiagnosed ADHD who resort to meth?

I've seen it very popular with people working in shifts doing physically very taxing work, like warehouse workers in logistics, often combined with alcohol as a downer.

I have atypical ADHS and a small line will keep me up (and mentally super focused) for 3 days straight. But the crash that follows is really nasty and can last for up to 2 days. Not something I'd want to go through regularly, I can count on one hand how often I do that in a year.

That's snorting tho, I've heard and read that smoking it is way different and more comparable to a heroin high (short, very intense, mostly fading away). Nothing I would want to do if I want a downer I'm happy enough with some Indica cannabis.

> teenagers in general cause of being unsure as well as having to perform (study). If its more widely and easier available, its also cheaper, and more accepted.

Imho this whole phenomenon of "experimenting teenagers overdoing it" is the direct result of decades-long prohibition and stigmatization politics. Educators and adults keep telling young people "Using this will make you instantly go crazy and addicted, all your teeth will fall out!". But when they try it they notice how it's not that bad, so they underestimate the actual long-term effects and consider them as "just more fear-mongering", which then leads to irresponsible long-term abuse.

The other side of that is the abuse of legal drugs, where people often overdo them as they consider them "safer" due to being legal. For whatever reason way too many people think this whole legal/illegal distinction is made on a scientific basis of the substances actual effects when it really isn't.

Re: Is Legal Pot Crippling Mexican Drug Trafficking Organisations?

#112

Post by losteric » Tue, Jan 16, 2018, 12:19 AM UTC

tomrod wrote: post #89

losteric wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Most of the time. Some counterexamples exist (e.g. buy from the limited healthcare options available to you or be fined [via tax]).

In general, sure, but the context of this thread is drug cartels.

Their unregulated businesses use capital to aggressively expand into other markets, destroy competition, and oppose democratic regulations - behaving similarly to legal capitalist corporations. Though, granted, they conquer with guns and gangsters instead of legal loopholes and lawyers.

Re: Is Legal Pot Crippling Mexican Drug Trafficking Organisations?

#113

Post by vxxzy » Tue, Jan 16, 2018, 12:28 AM UTC

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 wouldn't call it "unfettered capitalism". The fact remains that the these organizations are exploiting a law against a certain substance. A law that was initially put in place due to "moral" concerns.

Re: Is Legal Pot Crippling Mexican Drug Trafficking Organisations?

#114

Post by DickingAround » Tue, Jan 16, 2018, 12:39 AM UTC

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…

What a strange claim about 'capitalism'. This is the opposite of regular or even anarcho capitalism; this is a capitalism where you select out for anyone able to do other trades or generally comply with social norms. Cartels and this kind of behavior don't happen because it's an ultra-free market or something. It happens because regular capitalists aren't participating in that market. What an absurd claim to paint capitalism as bad because the drug war is producing bad players. The exact opposite is true; the players in the current drug war is a perfect example of why this needs to be a freer market.

Re: Is Legal Pot Crippling Mexican Drug Trafficking Organisations?

#115

Post by jgh » Tue, Jan 16, 2018, 12:42 AM UTC

simplemath__ wrote: post #104

geezerjay wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You're asking the wrong question, You only say that because you don't like the answer, as it demonstrates that statist barriers on the market are the true causes of this problem, and a free market economy would render this issue entirely moot. As the history of all communist states demonstrate, state-impose barriers to market creates all sortes of economical,social and criminal problems. Drug trafficking is one of…

His answer demonstrates that statist barriers on the market are the true causes of the problem? How does his answer demonstrate that?

Because the person you are replying to is projecting. The gp never mentioned communism or really any of the things accused of them in the reply. I suspect when you have a system with little government oversight and people unafraid to use violence you naturally end up with something akin to what's going on with the Mexican cartels.

Re: Is Legal Pot Crippling Mexican Drug Trafficking Organisations?

#116

Post by 2_listerine_pls » Tue, Jan 16, 2018, 12:57 AM UTC

tomohawk wrote: post #106

If they really wanted to cripple the cartels, they would impose a tax on all drugs sold by the cartels. This can be done without legalization. If caught with drugs and no tax stamp, you get charged with tax evasion. This would also raise needed revenues.

You need to make it unprofitable by destroying their monopoly:

-Legalize production and possession. However, criminalize sales.

-Also, take the power to classify drugs away from the DEA.

Re: Is Legal Pot Crippling Mexican Drug Trafficking Organisations?

#117

Post by adventured » Tue, Jan 16, 2018, 12:57 AM UTC

Spooky23 wrote: post #110

sigstoat wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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.

I’d suggest that you spend 10 minutes to familiarize yourself with what companies like Standard Fruit Company and United Fruit did in Central America. Their behavior, from undermining the local government to monopolizing trade to death squads is all activity consistent with what the cartels have done. Cartels have better margins, but bananas were pretty deadly. The point is in reference to your extremist position tha…

> I’d suggest that you spend 10 minutes to familiarize yourself with what companies like Standard Fruit Company and United Fruit did in Central America.

The problem is you're contrasting an extremely isolated example versus the millions of corporations that have existed, with many thousands of those corporations having had immense scale, against centuries of vast war, slaughter, repression and genocide by governments resulting in the direct murder of over a hundred million people. That's the parent's very clear point.

Re: Is Legal Pot Crippling Mexican Drug Trafficking Organisations?

#118

Post by CuriousCosmic » Tue, Jan 16, 2018, 1:07 AM UTC

Dirlewanger wrote: post #93

pedro_hab wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, the state deems drugs to be illegal, but anarcho-capitalism is to blame somehow. A lot of people here are so steadfast to the bigger state idea that they see it everywhere as a solution even when it's the cause.

A key difference: Most Western corporate entities aren't physically dismembering their competition. Even in the early days of modern capitalism (late 1800s), that wasn't a thing.

They also don't have a choice of whether or not they can operate legally so they might as well go all in on crime.

While cartels do lots of horrible things, if you had to operate with the constant threat of having all your assets seized and receiving a life in prison, would you operate as peacefully as possible or would you act to instill fear in those that wronged you and/or threaten your way of life.

If the products that the cartels distribute were legal, most cartels likely would either be those western corporate entities or wouldn't exist.

Re: Is Legal Pot Crippling Mexican Drug Trafficking Organisations?

#119

Post by adventured » Tue, Jan 16, 2018, 1:08 AM UTC

2_listerine_pls wrote: post #107

michaelchisari wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 switc…

> but they're dwarfed by pot sales I doubt selling pot is more profitable than the rest of their activities combined. Take The Knights Templar as an example, they operated within a single state and made around a Billion USD in 2013 from Iron ore alone. https://nypost.com/2014/03/17/mexican-drug-cartel-moves-from...

The total all-inclusive marijuana market is solidly a ~$60-$80 billion market in just the US. A legalized marijuana market would be larger than the cocaine, meth and heroin markets combined in the US. If you remove the marijuana market, the cartels lose half of their revenue.

Further, a lot of the other crime by cartels is funded by their marijuana business. It has been a cornerstone of their overall businesses the last 40 years.

That example of you gave, is fringe. The Knights Templar are not doing $25+ billion in annual revenue, which is what the implied extrapolation would be. The total annual 'revenue' for all Mexican cartels, is likely to be closer to $10 billion than not (RAND corporation estimated $6.6 billion for their drug trade, which is the majority of what they do).

There's a critical distinction between traditional corruption and illegal activities by gangs and similar, which is plentiful in 100+ of 195 nations, and the specific effects of the war on drugs. The war on drugs aspect of it, can be relatively easily neutered.

This is a well studied topic.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/17/magazine/how-a-mexican-dru...

Re: Is Legal Pot Crippling Mexican Drug Trafficking Organisations?

#120

Post by coredog64 » Tue, Jan 16, 2018, 1:13 AM UTC

neosavvy wrote: post #76

Hasz wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the poster was getting at the fact that pot users dwarf meth users in quantity, for example. I think the OP got it right -- even if there was no heroin crisis in the US, the cartels would turn to some other money-making proposition. The only way to quash them is to strengthen the Mexican state, whether it be this one or a new structure.

I agree with the fact that the Mexican state needs strength to deal with this. I think I just heard on NPR this morning that more poppies are being grown in Mexico as of late due to perfect climate. I also read the farmers get nearly nothing for their crop, and obviously the high end cartels take all the profits anyways. How would the US possibly strengthen the Mexican Government though, barring massive investment?

End US crop subsidies. Small Mexican farmers can't compete with large, mechanized, subsidized operations in the US. Subsequently they aren't working paying taxes.

This would also be a boon to agricultural nation's in Africa.