[echelon]

If the US legalized drug possession and taxed their sales, the cartels would disappear overnight and we could use the additional tax revenue to fund healthcare.

We'd create an economic boom from the farming of hemp to new drug manufacturing companies. As other countries loosen up, we might even have an export economy.

Stability in Mexico could make our neighbor a more attractive manufacturing and trade partner.

The old generation that believed in drug wars is dying or dead. It's time to change US policy.

I don't even use drugs and I think our position is stupid.

[zeckalpha]

They would pivot from drugs to some other market. Cartels are startups, too.

[aeortiz]

They already have! They extort business for their "protection" from rival gangs, they bleed off the production of cash crops like avocados, and even sell gasoline stolen from oil ducts.

[theptip]

They might pivot, but do you believe that there is an equivalent TAM out there that is untapped?

[echelon]

Would they still have guns and murder people when their activities are no longer illegal? I have trouble thinking they would bother funding an army. There's no need.

[burnthrow]

Yes, significant parts of Mexico are essentially a failed state. Violence is used to gain control. Extortion, kidnapping, human trafficking, etc. are big business, hopefully none of those are legalized.

[echelon]

That's disappointing, but makes sense.

Without drug revenue, can they sustain their power? Isn't that their primary income source?

If that revenue stream ends, could the police finally flush them out?

[joveian]

I'd guess it should have a significant impact and hopefully would make enough difference to slowly erode their power, but I think they already have fairly significant non-drug income and could likely increase that in various ways. In addition to what others mention, they engage in illegal mining, logging, and poaching and likely have substantial export income (this may be new in the past couple of decades and it is obviously hard to tell how extensive it is and how connected the people engaging in those activities are to the cartels involved in the drug trade). They kidnap for labor as well as extortion and can make use of slave labor as long as they control territory. Even if drugs are legalized they will likely keep a small part of that market based on price, convenience, and in some cases violence towards current customers who try to switch to legal supply. It at least seems like the earlier the US legalizes drugs the better chance that it will have a large impact on the cartels.

Most of the reporting I've seen attributes this wider focus to the splintering of cartels due to the recent Mexican drug war that started after Vincente Fox was elected to be the first non-PRI president in almost a century. While that didn't end collusion it did end the stable relationships the PRI had with particular cartels (research has looked at this on the state level and found that the level of volence correlates with when a state elected non-PRI government). Calderon greatly expanded this conflict and either started or expanded the policy of going after the heads of the cartels in the hopes that arresting or killing them would cause the cartels to collapse. Instead, it caused them to splinter with different groups both incresingly violent in competition with each other as well as looking for new sources of income. It seems like AMLO is trying to return to the old PRI model of unofficially recognizing particular cartels as controlling particular areas (or nearly officially in the Sinaloa Cartel case), but so far it doesn't seem to have changed much.

[zeckalpha]

I don’t see why they wouldn’t pivot to another illegal market.