[cbrauchli]

The issue is less about whether people like El Chapo will profit on drugs and more about the 50,000 people murdered due to illegal trafficking. People might smuggle cigarettes, but they don't usually murder to do so.

I also think people would be much more willing to tax drugs than food. The reason food is not taxed more heavily is because of industrial heavyweights lobbying congress extensively. There is relatively little money spent in pro-legalization lobbying.

Furthermore, drug legalization in Portugal has made it easier to treat users of particularly dangerous drugs (such as heroin) and has in fact reduced use. Portugal might not have the same drug culture as the US, but it's still a promising result.

[dhughes]

> Portugal might not have the same drug culture as the US,

That's what I mean. I often deal with people from Monaco and work with a guy from Portugal and the difference in culture between southern Europe and here (US/Canada) is striking.

It's interesting to see how similar Monaco and Portugal are generally speaking. People from each area seem shocked by the excess we take for granted.

Food for example eating out and having a near litre container of sugar water plopped down in front of you doesn't raise an eyebrow here yet S. Europeans (as I call them) seem almost nauseated seeing it. Food is the same pounds of meat and lots of everything else, years ago a family would eat what one person eats today. None of the people I speak with eat after 8PM and most meals are small except maybe noontime, Portugal may be later.

I can't see the same results here for legalizing drugs we are a culture of excess, me first, I'm better than you, you-can't-handle-it-I-can kind of culture. It couldn't be more different going by what I can gather from speaking to locals from S. Europe.

As for cigarette smuggling not causing deaths, a car bomb going off in downtown Montreal killing an 11 year-old boy because rival biker gangs fight over smuggling turf, strip clubs (prostitution front) is pretty similar. Add to that Native American Mohawk warriors on the NY/Quebec border.

[cbrauchli]

Hmm. It's tough to say. I see what you mean now. Food is one thing, because it doesn't carry the negative stigma that drug use does here. The US is also extremely friendly towards obesity, from what I see. Obese people do not undergo anywhere near the same amount of humiliation as they would elsewhere. You're completely right though that the food culture in the US is one of absurd excess. I'm just not sure that excess would carry over to drugs.

Re: cigarettes, they're actually smoked much less than in Europe, despite being cheaper and having less graphic warnings. Alcohol is certainly consumed differently as well, but most people grow up and stop binge drinking past a certain age.

I don't really know about the cigarette smuggling you're talking about, so I won't comment on that. If you can point me to an article about it, I'd be interested to read more. I do find it hard to believe that it's had the same effect on communities as drug trafficking in Northern Mexico.

[dhughes]

It seems the majority of cigarette smuggling goes on at the Quebec/NY border. The two big players involved are the Rock Machine/Hells Angels (Bandidos and Bacchus) and Mohawk Natives who reside in the border region.

There is also quite a bit in eastern Quebec and New Brunswick , it's into the remainder of Maritimes the border really where a lot of this occurs.

CBC.ca has news of it from time to time mostly when violence erupts, a lot of it occurred in the 90s when the Rock Machine and Hells Angels were separate club but I think they merged, violently.

Of the regions involved all are areas of high rates of smoking. Even here where I live where the federal tax centre building is the local news found illegal unmarked cigarettes outside the smoking area! Imagine if in the US the IRS workers on their smoke break smoked illegal cigarettes and just put them out on the ground, ballsy!

http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/Mohawks+gangs+tobacco/14...

(PDF) http://www.cisc.gc.ca/annual_reports/documents/2001_annual_r...