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How a Mexican Drug Cartel Makes Its Billions

nytimes.com

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Re: How a Mexican Drug Cartel Makes Its Billions

#61

Post by [deleted] »

vibrunazo wrote: post #45
guelo wrote: post #31

The only way to stop these large criminal enterprises is to legalize the stuff. Just like alcohol prohibition created some of the most notorious American criminals, South American drug prohibitions produce powerful criminals down there. There isn't any large crime related to South American cocoa or coffee imports. Legalize it and then spend money and make laws regulating consumption, it would greatly reduce the miser…

They make most of their money from cocaine and methamphetamine (which can be legally acquired, but that didn't stop traffic). 90% of all cocaine in the US come from mexico. [1] Do you mean cocaine should be legalized? Alcohol is a bad analogy to legalizing cocaine, you should probably be comparing to the Opium Wars instead, which didn't really end well. [2] [1] http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/RL34215.pdf [2] http://en…

[deleted]

Re: How a Mexican Drug Cartel Makes Its Billions

#62

Post by mullingitover »

revelation wrote: post #29

This is a 101 on capitalism. Raw capitalism, where killing someone is cheaper than settling on a solution that works for everyone. One where power amasses. But most importantly: where all actors are innovating. You can be amazed at crudely built submarines and private cell relay stations but really its just market pressure at work. Which brings us back to the obvious conclusion: prohibition doesn't work; the market w…

Yes, exactly.

The war on drugs is a perfect example of capitalism v socialism. In the red corner we have black market capitalists engaged in an enterprise with extremely high risk premiums. In the blue corner we have socialized law enforcement. If you truly believe that capitalism is the superior force, you can't help but know that the war on drugs is absolute unwinnable folly.

Re: How a Mexican Drug Cartel Makes Its Billions

#63

Post by sliverstorm »

superuser2 wrote: post #33
jboggan wrote: post #5

I'd be really curious to know what their IT department looks like.

I'm going to guess low-tech. If I were running a dangerous, cutthroat business, I certainly wouldn't trust my profits, life, or freedom to anything I didn't understand completely. Having an IT department puts Chapo's sysadmin(s) in a position to stage a coup that he can't detect or address until it's too late.

On the other hand, if you were running a dangerous, cutthroat business, wouldn't you want every possible edge to stay ahead?

Re: How a Mexican Drug Cartel Makes Its Billions

#64

Post by dllthomas »

jlarocco wrote: post #46
guelo wrote: post #31

The only way to stop these large criminal enterprises is to legalize the stuff. Just like alcohol prohibition created some of the most notorious American criminals, South American drug prohibitions produce powerful criminals down there. There isn't any large crime related to South American cocoa or coffee imports. Legalize it and then spend money and make laws regulating consumption, it would greatly reduce the miser…

I'm in favor of drug legalization, but it's not going to happen any time soon, and I don't think it would reduce crime even if it did It's hard enough to get pot legalized in most states - the "harder" drugs don't stand a chance. And even if they were legalized, it's not even possible for a big illegal drug operation to "go legit". All of the drug cartels will still have long histories of violence, piles of cash, boa…

It would be hard to accomplish, yes.

With regards to effect, though, I'm sure it wouldn't magically fix everything. It would, however, mean that the cartels would face competition without the overhead of smuggling, which would drop the profit available substantially. They might well move on to smuggling the next most profitable thing, but obviously the next most profitable thing is not as profitable. The power and wealth of the cartels would thus not be growing as fast as it is, which is a much better situation long-run.

Re: How a Mexican Drug Cartel Makes Its Billions

#65

Post by mwd_ »

paulhauggis wrote: post #36
guelo wrote: post #31

The only way to stop these large criminal enterprises is to legalize the stuff. Just like alcohol prohibition created some of the most notorious American criminals, South American drug prohibitions produce powerful criminals down there. There isn't any large crime related to South American cocoa or coffee imports. Legalize it and then spend money and make laws regulating consumption, it would greatly reduce the miser…

At this point, I doubt it will help. Why? The cartels thrive in countries where you can essentially buy off any official. When you legalize drugs, they aren't going to suddenly stop selling it. They will now have a legal business which will continue to fund their criminal empires. We most likely will see an increase in other crimes, like extortion and kidnapping. Drugs are still illegal in the US and we don't really…

Cartels wouldn't have a business selling something like marijuana post-legalization. Just about anybody can grow it almost anywhere so its natural market value is extremely low. I doubt there are a lot of gangs financing their criminal activity off of potato sales or whatever.

Extortion and kidnapping must be way less pleasant and much more difficult than dealing drugs. It's very hard to believe that they could scale up to be the same sort of revenue source.

As for the US and its supposed success, sure, it's better off than Honduras, but it still spends a fortune on law enforcement and has a massive prison population. I don't want to think of how many lives have been ruined over needless drug-related convictions. US demand and money are also what's fuelling a lot of the violence in Latin America.

Re: How a Mexican Drug Cartel Makes Its Billions

#67

Post by vlisivka »

vlisivka wrote: post #49
dsrguru wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People who have lived in big cities in the U.S. would strongly disagree with you. There are entire areas that are dangerous to walk in thanks to drug gangs. Legalize the stuff and dealers can't continue forcing out the competition with guns, since that competition will be the local supermarket.

Alcohol is already legal, so why gangs are not gone?

:-)

Re: How a Mexican Drug Cartel Makes Its Billions

#68

Post by jlmendezbonini »

vibrunazo wrote: post #45
guelo wrote: post #31

The only way to stop these large criminal enterprises is to legalize the stuff. Just like alcohol prohibition created some of the most notorious American criminals, South American drug prohibitions produce powerful criminals down there. There isn't any large crime related to South American cocoa or coffee imports. Legalize it and then spend money and make laws regulating consumption, it would greatly reduce the miser…

They make most of their money from cocaine and methamphetamine (which can be legally acquired, but that didn't stop traffic). 90% of all cocaine in the US come from mexico. [1] Do you mean cocaine should be legalized? Alcohol is a bad analogy to legalizing cocaine, you should probably be comparing to the Opium Wars instead, which didn't really end well. [2] [1] http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/RL34215.pdf [2] http://en…

Let me quote [1] "An estimated 90% of cocaine entering the United States transits Mexico."

The key word here is "transits". Every other country in Central America, and some in northern South America are part of that "transit" too. Mexican just happens, to its bad luck, to be next to the biggest consumer.

Nobody is arguing to have cocaine accesible by kids at the grocery store. The argument is to legalize it to regulate it and, as someone below commented, to bring the prices down so is no longer such a profitable business.

Re: How a Mexican Drug Cartel Makes Its Billions

#69

Post by flatline »

jlarocco wrote: post #46
guelo wrote: post #31

The only way to stop these large criminal enterprises is to legalize the stuff. Just like alcohol prohibition created some of the most notorious American criminals, South American drug prohibitions produce powerful criminals down there. There isn't any large crime related to South American cocoa or coffee imports. Legalize it and then spend money and make laws regulating consumption, it would greatly reduce the miser…

I'm in favor of drug legalization, but it's not going to happen any time soon, and I don't think it would reduce crime even if it did It's hard enough to get pot legalized in most states - the "harder" drugs don't stand a chance. And even if they were legalized, it's not even possible for a big illegal drug operation to "go legit". All of the drug cartels will still have long histories of violence, piles of cash, boa…

I'm reasonably sure that suitable mechanism design could be performed to make full legalization not only possible but much more desirable than the current scenario. It would require extensive reworking of legal and economic regulations and public policy. The first hurdle is legitimizing this type of research. From casual reading on the subject, I haven't seen any serious research like this in regards to the US, though admittedly I haven't looked very hard, but for obvious reasons the public coffers are not exactly overflowing to fund serious investigation into the matter.

Re: How a Mexican Drug Cartel Makes Its Billions

#70

Post by theorique »

elorant wrote: post #41
paulhauggis wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At this point, I doubt it will help. Why? The cartels thrive in countries where you can essentially buy off any official. When you legalize drugs, they aren't going to suddenly stop selling it. They will now have a legal business which will continue to fund their criminal empires. We most likely will see an increase in other crimes, like extortion and kidnapping. Drugs are still illegal in the US and we don't really…

Legalizing drugs means that the street price will drop by 90% and that will eventually make drug trafficking obsolete. This of course doesn't solve the real problem which is consumption.

Why is consumption the real problem?

Even if so, moving to a harm reduction / medical model is more likely to fix the addiction problem than criminalizing (or worse, militarizing) the consumption side of the equation.

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