[razakel]

>The US doesn't have the maturity to produce cocaine and distribute internally w/o becoming another cartel.

It already does.

Stepan, a chemical company in New Jersey, is the only company in the US licensed to import coca leaf, which primarily comes from a Peruvian state-owned company. The cocaine is extracted and sold to Mallinckrodt for pharmaceutical use (it's used in ENT surgery, as it's both a local anaesthetic and a vasoconstrictor), whilst the remnants are sold to the Coca-Cola Company for use as flavourings.

https://www.nytimes.com/1988/07/01/business/how-coca-cola-ob...

[rootsudo]

Importing vs growing it.

The process to get cocaine from coca leaf is the same as to extract any alkaloid from a plant.

The problem is the supply is not controlled in the USA, is dependent on the government of Peru and the drug manufacturing cartels have tons and tons of land in Colombia just for growing cocaine. It grows naturally.

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/John_Casale/publication...

Look at this map, see Peru, See Colombia?

That's your competition.

[eru]

Competition is good. The goal of legalising is not to make money, but to suck the profitability out of the industry. Especially the illegal part of the industry.