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by DanBC 4974 days ago
> Why jump to something else that's illegal?

It's going to be difficult for many members of criminal gangs to move into mainstream employment. Violent murderers probably don't make great employees.

It's a shame that the less violent low-level offenders will also find it hard to escape the life of crime, and it'd be great if there was some Mexican legal cannabis co-operative that rehabilitated gang members.

The cartels don't have a distribution network that would scale to legal distribution. Catapulting bales of cannabis over the border isn't useful for legal businesses.

While their networks aren't much use for a legal business they are useful for more illegal business. People trafficking is a high profit business. Gun running is high profit business. Other drugs - heroin, cocaine, amphetamines, are all still illegal and unlikely to become legal any time soon.
1 comments
chrischen 4974 days ago
It's clearly pushing them into a less optimal corner. If it were more optimal, they'd be doing it right now anyways.
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loeg 4974 days ago
Right, it's likely they're already in those markets (harder drugs, etc) in some way and are saturated: they can't pump more money out of them. Taking away marijuana revenue takes away a fixed amount of their income.
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ryanmolden 4974 days ago
Cartels make far more money off "hard drugs" than they do off marijuana, and smuggling hard drugs is easier just due to size (a kilo of cocaine is tiny compared to a kilo of marijuana) and relative lack of tell-tale signs like odors (dogs can sniff out packaged cocaine and meth, humans can sniff out packaged marijuana). I served on a grand jury a couple of years ago and a DEA agent, testifying in a big meth smuggling indictment, said the local authorities had cracked down so efficiently on small, local meth labs that it opened a big door for cartels to become the suppliers. Violence and volume rose rather immediately. I think legalizing marijuana is probably a good step, and it will take >0 dollars from cartels, but I highly doubt it would be a serious impediment to them, the will continue with other drugs, local (to Mexico) activities like kidnapping and extortion, and branching out into other organized crime activities (fraud, loansharking, etc...)
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chrischen 4973 days ago
Where are you sources?

The article says this:

"That makes it almost as important to their business as the cocaine trade, which is worth about $2.4 billion."

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