[freeflight]

Because that's also the case. Big organized crime groups often have access to exactly the kind of logistics required to manufacture and smuggle drugs across large distances.

They have the muscle to stay competitive in a market where there is no state authority to give you guarantees on anything.

This isn't an outrageous claim at all, rather it's a well-known fact: https://www.unodc.org/documents/data-and-analysis/Studies/Il...

That's why prohibition is such a bad approach, it creates exactly the kind of black markets where these organizations make their massive profits.

[rhizome]

Most drug dealers are not "big organized groups." I don't know from Hansa, but I'm betting a big organized group is not likely to use them as a single point of failure.

[freeflight]

Of course, it wouldn't have been their only market, but it's among them. Even something ostensibly harmless as cannabis can finance quite questionable people and groups.

A while ago Arte France released a series titled "Cannabis", where the plot revolves around a shipment of Morrocan hashish lost on the Mediterranean sea, with the consequences playing out all over Europe. And while it's a fictional plot, it still paints a somewhat accurate picture how a lot of this business goes down.

[rhizome]

Of course, it wouldn't have been their only market

That's not how I was using "single point of failure." The failure I was speaking to was identification by law enforcement.

[TeMPOraL]

> Most drug dealers are not "big organized groups."

Who do you think provides them with the drugs?

[rhizome]

Generally? Slightly bigger drug dealers.

Selling to end users is practically a mug's game, so there is no end to the number of people wanting to act as middlemen to avoid it.