[luckyno13]

While I agree with you, the illegal drug trade got these guys started and off the ground, I think at this point they would have other avenues to keep themselves in business. I hear the human trafficking business is quite lucrative and booming these days down their way.

[tormeh]

Well, you can't really be a small cartel. Even if the other businesses are profitable, a cartel needs a certain size to pay for constant expenses like bribes, armed forces etc. Politicians and the police don't give you a discount because you're small and people still need to be just as intimidated even though you're doing less shit.

Just removing one illegal activity might knock the sum value of dangerous, illegal activities below the threshold where cartels can work.

[eam]

Just to add some more. The legalization of pot hurts cartel's income. I read somewhere, that pot accounts for 60% of the cartel's profit in a multi-billion dollar industry! I mention this because of the recent trends in the US where states are beginning to legalize it. I'm sure they weren't too happy to hear that Oregon and Alaska legalize it as it only takes part of the profit away. Once the US is fully legalized, it won't be a hugely profitable business anymore so they will hurt. This means less profits, which means less power for them. With less power, then perhaps there will be less violence in Mexico?

[jeangenie]

What would stop the cartels from investing in legal storefronts and capturing profits regardless? (This certainly shouldn't be construed as an argument for the morass we have now, just an interesting aside.)

[eam]

Nothing would stop them, but there would less of an incentive in such business considering the profits wouldn't be as enormous as they are now in the underground market. Profits are huge because the supply is low (and risky) and the demand is high. Legalization, I would think would bring up the supply, after all it would be legal to farm it in mass-production just like tobacco, dropping prices significantly.

[rizzom5000]

Presumably nothing if the money they use to invest is considered legitimate.

Nevertheless, it really seems logical that as a society we should prefer that market competition occurs legally in a open and free market rather than violently in an illegal and black market. The difference between the two types of economic activity is tremendous.

[jeangenie]

It's certainly logical but my question is if it will actually impact Mexican cartel revenue as much as some people claim.

If the alternative to cartel weed is industrially-farmed weed propping up another unholy conglomerate I'm not sure either is better.

[DanBC]

Has anyone done a comparison of the death rate from unholy conglomerates and the Mexican drug cartels?

[ganeumann]

Many of the states that have legalized marijuana require that no part of that trade cross state borders (including growing it, packaging it, investing in it, etc.) (This may be true of all the states that have legalized it, but I'm not sure.)

So the Mexican cartels can neither sell the stuff they grow in Mexico in the states nor own the storefronts legally. Doesn't mean they can't do it illegally (they seem to be good at hiding their illegal activity, after all) but they can't go legit.

[jeangenie]

My assertion is that, with the backing of enterprises raking in 12 figures annually, it's within their operational capability to obtain all the necessary parts to do exactly that.

To be fair, I think it's entirely possible that there are enough savvy businessmen in the cartel to realize that it's wisest to prepare for any number of likely outcomes of legalization. Just imagine Goldman Sachs with more beheadings.

[mentat]

They're already heavily invested in Bay Area real estate according to my contacts.

[gohrt]

The cartels power is centered in Mexico. They can't monopolize USA storefronts.

[jeangenie]

What do Americans use to buy drugs? Hint: It's US dollars.

[penprog]

sketchy drug dealers on street corners

[marcosdumay]

There isn't as much profit in doing a legal activity.

[bdavisx]

According to this: http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-157.html, repealing alcohol prohibition "dramatically reduced crime, including organized crime, and corruption". While organized crime and "the mob" obviously still existed afterwards, they lost a lot.

[api]

That's what makes prohibition so ugly. It's like YCombinator for psychopaths.

Combine that with the psychological acclimatization that it offers and it gets even uglier. It creates this on-boarding process for hell. Dealing drugs really isn't wrong in most cases -- it's a voluntary activity. It only gets morally questionable when you start "pushing" and doing so with addictive substances. But it is illegal, and doing it lands you in a world of people who flout the law and commit other crimes as well. Once you're in that world you're apt to pick up a taste for other kinds of illegal activity that really does involve hurting people, especially if you are at all psychologically prone to amoral behavior. In some cases this can take people all the way to unspeakable evils like trafficking children for sex slavery or contract murder.

Prohibition is an unambiguous social evil. Anyone who still argues for it is either corrupt, ignorant, delusional, or simply hasn't thought about it very much.

[gohrt]

> Prohibition is an unambiguous social evil.

So, drugs should be legal, but "pushing and doing so with addictive substances" should be... also legal?

[api]

They should be regulated and taxed in proportion to their harmfulness, and addiction should be treated as a medical problem not a criminal one.

[jacquesm]

> I hear the human trafficking business is quite lucrative and booming these days down their way.

You may be on to something there. How about removing restrictions on immigration at the same time? That should definitely knock the wind out of them.

[ufmace]

The fight against the cartels seems to be more like a war than conventional police work. One of the main themes of any war is logistics. Anything you can do to disrupt the enemy's logistics is pretty much always good, even if it isn't a perfect solution. You rarely get to completely destroy the enemy at a stroke, but instead you have to keep chopping off bits until they are defeated and discredited.

Yeah, legalizing drugs won't make them vanish overnight, but it will remove a hugely profitable revenue source from their arsenal, and that's always worth doing.

[pessimizer]

We should keep tightening up immigration, too. Send 'em back where they came from!

edit: So nobody sees an association between human trafficking and tightening of immigration policy? Good to know.

[luckyno13]

Sure, if you are talking about smuggling illegal immigrants INTO the country. But immigration would have nothing to do with the kidnapped individuals that are being taken OUT of the US to be used in the sex, labor and (in this case) engineering trades.

[pessimizer]

It's insane that conservative Christian marketing and lobbying has made human trafficking synonymous with sex trafficking, which accounts for a miniscule portion of it.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/06/23/how-mexico-...

The cartels completely control passage over the southern border, which I'm pretty sure is more lucrative than all of US prostitution combined (although I'd be happy to be corrected.)

[luckyno13]

I dont think it is synonymous at all. It just happens. I am not sure if it is an imbalance of where it occurs, if it is as high in Mexico, as say it is in Russia or Africa.

But just a quick search shows that even in 2010 the sex trafficking and crimes were on the rise in California-

http://www.fbi.gov/sandiego/press-releases/2014/cases-involv...

I am the last person to be convinced by anything conservative or Christian for that matter. The trafficking situation just seems to have become more apparent to me over the last 5 years or so, whether or not the situation itself is actually worse.

[Spooky23]

Most people need not look further than a local Chinese restaurant to find human trafficking.

In one case in my area, waitresses are shipped up from NYC daily on the Chinatown bus (3+ hours) to work for pennies.