Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

How a Mexican Drug Cartel Makes Its Billions

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

161–170 of 248 posts

Re: How a Mexican Drug Cartel Makes Its Billions

#161

Post by ElCabron »

Osiris wrote: post #137
ElCabron wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's impossible to run an organization like this for so long and with profits so large, without the help of some (lets call them corrupt) FBI/CIA/DEA agents or politicians inside US. I may be just a sheep but the shepherd and the dogs are always working together. We are driven to believe that all this is Columbia+Mexico vs US conflict when in reality there may be an invisible and silent war inside every country (not…

The article clearly pointed out that corruption is the biggest contributor to the continued survival of the cartels. If, somehow, we were able to make everyone in law enforcement and the government honest, then the cartels would find it significantly harder, if not practically impossible, to do smuggle their goods. It does seem like the war on drugs could be fought more by addressing those that are supposed to be fig…

The smuggling can be stopped in less than a year. A country so powerful and resourceful that sent a man on the moon, waged wars with countless countries, played nuclear chess with the soviets, influences and spies everyone with satellites & drones, can't get to the roots of this drug octopus ? Bullsh*t. They don't want to. They went in Iraq for a bunch of imaginary weapons and in Afghanistan for a terrorist that killed 3000 citizens. If they really wanted to stop the drug dealers they would have invaded Mexico and Columbia 3 times by now, and no one could have stopped them because drugs kill tens of thousands every year. It's all politics and the politicians can play limitless dumb when they want to and no one can arrest them for that. They never admit conspiracy, never admit betrayal of citizen's or nation’s interests, they only admit incompetence cause that is not punished by law and the fools still buy it.

Re: How a Mexican Drug Cartel Makes Its Billions

#162

Post by jberryman »

res0nat0r wrote: post #149
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 always see this argument when it comes to drug violence in Mexico but I don't think it is that simple. If the goventment gets involved I'm sure it will want a highly regulated system, just like it does with all of the alcohol regulations on the books now. If the government says that only X supplers or growers are allowed to legally sell drugs then I can't see how this is going to be cheaper than stuff that is out o…

You're just making stuff up. You mention alcohol regulations; how many people are running moonshine from Canada these days to get around all those regulations and tarifs?

Re: How a Mexican Drug Cartel Makes Its Billions

#163

Post by Yxven »

xelipe wrote: post #152
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…

Legalizing drugs by itself does not imply that the price of drugs will fall and that the violence will end. Lest not forget that, in Latin American, revolutions have been fought because of the impact of the exploitation of the people and land for the cultivation of commodity products such as bananas (see Banana Wars in Wikipedia) and for which gangs like La Mara are a consequence. Drugs for personal use are legal in…

"And legalizing drugs only strengthens the cartels grip on that profit (see OPEC)." OPEC is powerful because they are an oligopoly. The current drug situation is an oligopoly because there are a limited number of people willing to risk their life and liberty to produce and sell drugs. By legalizing the production of drugs in the US, you allow honest US citizens to compete with far less risk. This will break the drug cartel's oligopoly. Whether they maintain their power depends on their ability to compete in a fairer market.

Re: How a Mexican Drug Cartel Makes Its Billions

#164

Post by NickKampe »

jberryman wrote: post #162
res0nat0r wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always see this argument when it comes to drug violence in Mexico but I don't think it is that simple. If the goventment gets involved I'm sure it will want a highly regulated system, just like it does with all of the alcohol regulations on the books now. If the government says that only X supplers or growers are allowed to legally sell drugs then I can't see how this is going to be cheaper than stuff that is out o…

You're just making stuff up. You mention alcohol regulations; how many people are running moonshine from Canada these days to get around all those regulations and tarifs?

Not from Canada, but go to any music festival and you'll find Moonshine is quite common.

Re: How a Mexican Drug Cartel Makes Its Billions

#165

Post by r0s »

xelipe wrote: post #152
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…

Legalizing drugs by itself does not imply that the price of drugs will fall and that the violence will end. Lest not forget that, in Latin American, revolutions have been fought because of the impact of the exploitation of the people and land for the cultivation of commodity products such as bananas (see Banana Wars in Wikipedia) and for which gangs like La Mara are a consequence. Drugs for personal use are legal in…

> Drugs for personal use are legal in Mexico, so the violence itself is not related to the criminalization of drugs

That's a recent development, plenty of violence before that desperate measure.

The entire supply chain needs to be legalized before the violence will end. Killing will stop, former murderers will be caught, and the American drug use rates will stay as steady and unaffected as ever.

Re: How a Mexican Drug Cartel Makes Its Billions

#166

Post by r0s »

_juof wrote: post #110
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 think we should do even more: develop new drugs(and processes) with less side effects. Drugs(and processes) that let you escape reality when you want, but still enable you to manage life reasonably well and be relatively healthy. It's clear that the need or desire to escape reality won't change anytime soon. Instead of ignoring and fighting this reality, we should try to find constructive solutions.

Simply regulating dosage and purity would be a huge safety improvement.

Re: How a Mexican Drug Cartel Makes Its Billions

#167

Post by r0s »

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…

Compare to alcohol prohibition.

Re: How a Mexican Drug Cartel Makes Its Billions

#168

Post by patrickgzill »

Opium Wars - there is at least 1 President who had connections in some way or another to this earlier form of the drug trade.

FDR (via his maternal grandfather Warren Delano).

There are others who also became President, (starts with a B) who are alleged to have been heavily involved while in a secretive government position.

Re: How a Mexican Drug Cartel Makes Its Billions

#169

Post by drhodes »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #134
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…

The problem isn't gangs; it's gang violence. Making their crimes less stringently punished (reducing the paranoia within their ranks) as well as doing more to restrict the flow of arms from the United States (a better use of funds than incarcerating college potheads) seems a more sensible experiment to try before full legalisation. Consider the negative externalities of cocaine use (much higher than marijuana's); the…

> I'm not sure if I want to walk around the street with people high on bath salts and cocaine.

People probably wouldn't be using mystery-chemical-x-mixed-in-some-bro's-tub bath salts if they could get cheap cocaine from a well established business.

Post reply on HN