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This story collapses a lot of popular narratives. That peoples in USA buying drugs are the drivers of violence in Mexico. That legalizing drugs would make the
by 21 8y ago
This story collapses a lot of popular narratives.
That peoples in USA buying drugs are the drivers of violence in Mexico.
That legalizing drugs would make the cartels and the violence disappear.
- empath75 8y agoNo one ever seriously suggested the latter. But reducing the size of black markets will reduce the revenue from them. I mean gangs are moving bootleg cigarettes around to get around taxes but it’s not major driver of violence.
- partycoder 8y agoIt starts before that. The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 caused many opium poppy planters to move to Mexico. During WW1, WW2, the high demand for opioid-based analgesics like morphine resulted in increased opium planting. Why were there opium poppy planters in the US in the first place? Opium poppy is not a plant that is not endemic to the Americas. It starts with the opium wars, where the British fought to force China into tolerating their opium trade at the cost of millions of people becoming addicted.
- jimnotgym 8y ago> That legalizing drugs would make the cartels and the violence disappear. I wonder, however, if drugs had never become illegal would a major crime organization managed to form in the first place?
- 21 8y agoRussia has major crime organizations without having a reputation as a narco place.
- zeroname 8y agoEvery country has crime organizations than runs illegal drugs. Mexico or Colombia are special because they're right where the one most profitable drug in the world is produced.
- mkstowegnv 8y agoMexico has only recently become a major poppy growing heroin producer. Before that the cartels were largely making money by dominating the flow of cocaine produced in South America. http://www.eluniversal.com.mx/english/mexico-primary-source-heroin-us http://www.eluniversal.com.mx/english/mexico-primary-source-... A saying in Mexico is that the nation's troubles are due to being so far from God and so close to the United States.
- onetimemanytime 8y agoCan we agree that "mafia" related violence levels are much, much higher in MX? Mexican cartels have the infrastructure already in place: "Miguel, get 25 guys and hijack the fuel trucks"...or rob armored trucks. That infrastructure, including manpower, political protection etc was built and is probably maintained with drug money.
- HarryHirsch 8y agoWe know the answer already. The Sicilian Mafia was a landowners' association and traded in citrus fruit. Vito Corleone was a literary figure, but it's understandable why he was averse to moving into the drug trade.
- zeroname 8y ago> That peoples in USA buying drugs are the drivers of violence in Mexico. It's still a massive source of revenue and it's what made these cartels big in the first place. Otherwise, they wouldn't be called "drug cartels". > That legalizing drugs would make the cartels and the violence disappear. It would drastically reduce the problem, just like ending the prohibition on alcohol drastically reduced, but didn't eliminate, Mafia activities.
- sandworm101 8y agoThey aren't giving up on the drugs. They are just expanding into other areas. The link between cartels and US demand for drugs is clear. This is just something local that is happening over and above the international trade.
- comnetxr 8y agoIt collapses the second narrative, but not the first. It could still be that drug money was the driving force behind the cartels, but after they grew to sufficient size, the cartels could sustain themselves otherwise. The second narrative is kind of obviously too simple. Of course the cartels won't just dissolve, and maybe they will find ways to sustain themselves indefinitely. But maybe we shouldn't continue to feed them? Surely that doesn't help.
- pier25 8y ago> That legalizing drugs would make the cartels and the violence disappear Nothing will make violence disappear completely. That said, legalizing drugs will most certainly reduce cartel activity. Cartels exist because they sell a product with a huge margin that people can't really buy from anywhere else. Even when selling stolen products such as gasoline their market and margin is much smaller.
- nyolfen 8y agoit says in this article that the fuel theft is cheaper and easier, and one former cartel member says it makes as much money as drugs >their market and margin is much smaller you think there's a smaller market for gasoline than drugs?
- glennpratt 8y ago*stolen gasoline
- marcosdumay 8y agoIt's not smaller, it's more constrained. Gasoline prices don't shoot up when the government organizes a big crime fighting initiative. I would bet the interviewed people are not correctly accounting for their risks.
- pier25 8y agoFor illegal gasoline? Yeah totally. Buying illegal gasoline only makes sense for some individuals in transportation because in Mexico there is no fiscalization on a large portion of the economy (street vendors for example). Big transportation companies couldn't do it. They need to justify expenses, get invoices, etc. A couple of years back it was easy to get fake invoices since everything was on paper, but there was a reform in 2016 and now all invoices are electronically signed by the Mexican IRS.
- 2_listerine_pls 8y agoActually, most of the stolen gasoline is purchased by gas stations.
- propman 8y agoLegalizing marijuana (btw I’m a huge proponent) was supposed to hurt the cartels and decrease violence but has made cartels much more violent and brutal. Instead of pushing weed across the border, they’ve been heavily pushing Meth, Heroine, and Cocaine instead. Their distribution from the north east to Chicago to LA is insane, they’ve got people hooked on these terrible drugs. Look at the stats of drug deaths from different drugs over the last 10 years and see the huge spike. I believe double for cocaine, and triple for meth and heroine in just a few years. This is worse than 80s crack epedimic in terms of death. The cartels also didn’t get weaker they became more violent and richer. I can’t beliebe I was so naive to think about legalizing drugs when I was in college. I am 100% for marijuana, medical marijuana without a doubt should be legal in every state anyone disagreeing has basically no merit. But the rest of them, I’m okay with a mild version of the Reagan crackdowns. We’re a lot less racist and a lot more forgiving from 30 years ago, I think we need to be a lot more forgiving for personal drug use or force the courts the option to send repeat offenders to rehab or prison and 100% they’d choose rehab, prison makes absolutely no sense for heavy hard drug users. We need to be even harsher for heavy drug dealing, gang violence, drug violence, and need far more agents stopping the drug inflows from the southern border and need to beef up our coast guard. Also need to help the economy of flyover states because a lot of the drug deaths are from there.
- wolco 8y agoIf they legalized meth and cocaine that would remove the cartel from the market.
- propman 8y agoThen they’d push heroin, fenatyl, synthetic opiates, etc. they’d push weapons, other illegal stuff and no way should meth be legal in flyover country. Cocaine is mehh no strong feelings either way there
- culot 8y agoIt seems the bigger problem is not specifically what they are trafficking, but their ability to get it north of the border. Much more stringent border controls are definitely a good idea. That would diminish the seemingly unlimited supply of cheap Mexican labor though. Tough call.
- marcosdumay 8y agoThere is no doubt that a fully formed criminal organization would diversify its income if the drug money suddenly vanished. The question is how lucrative its their new initiatives, how much of structure they are able to upkeep and how much crime there consist of "inherited" structure that is not viable with their new margins. No organizational collapse looks good, and this is one that didn't look any good even on its best times.
- gleenn 8y agoFTA, the stolen gas money already is as good or a bigger source of money than the drugs
- marcosdumay 8y agoThere's another comment of mine on the thread, but basically, I doubt the small gang their interviewed has the big picture correctly (distressed gangs are not famous for correctly assessing the big picture). Specifically, I do think they aren't correctly measuring their risks, so the gangs will fall, one by one, while all of them think they are making a great deal.
- dstick 8y agoThe Los Zetas are not a small gang. Have you read the article in full? It’s really interesting with a good build up. They start with the small-timers and build up to the big league.
- marcosdumay 8y agoFrom the article, they seem to be a paragovernamental organization that gets money from small gangs like the ones at the start. It would be interesting to see how their revenue progresses with time.
- remarkEon 8y ago>That legalizing drugs would make the cartels and the violence disappear. I'm super skeptical of this argument. My sense is that they'd just diversify into other industries and create their own black markets - and it seems they're already doing this.
- vermontdevil 8y agoLike the American mafia after alcohol prohibition ended.
- remarkEon 8y agoThe institutions of Civil Society in Mexico and the United States are extremely different, both in terms of their scope and adherence to rule of law. Mexican Cartel activity today and organized crime of the post-prohibition era in the United States are not exactly apples to apples. Edit: I'm probably not being clear ... I don't disagree with your point. You're correct that they diversified. I just don't think it's wise to use that as a good proxy.
- your-nanny 8y agothe American mafia may have diversified after prohibition ended, but it also diminished.
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- moorhosj 8y agoYou should be skeptical of that argument, which is why nobody has ever really used it. Drug cartels have long been in the business of people trafficking, kidnapping, illegal casinos and weapons trafficking. Drugs are one of their most lucrative industries, but certainly not their only income stream.
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- someguydave 8y agoagreed. Mexico has demonstrated that it cannot run itself, some other country must step in and provide governance.
- mersenne 8y agoWhat an ignorant comment.
- someguydave 8y agoIgnorant of what, precisely?
- WalterBright 8y agoLegalizing alcohol after Prohibition greatly reduced the scope of organized crime. Drive by shootings disappeared (only to reappear following the rise of the War on Drugs). A while back, Canada drastically raised the prices of cigarettes, and drive by shootings started up between the cigarette smugglers. It went away after quickly lowering the price again. Drive by shootings also appeared during WW2 with gas rationing, and went away when rationing was ended.
- kumarvvr 8y ago> That peoples in USA buying drugs are the drivers of violence in Mexico. Drugs are much different from gasoline. Gasoline is available everywhere and legal. The cartels moving to gasoline is like the mafia moving from liquor during prohibition to other trades like racketeering, extortion, etc. It perhaps signals that drugs are not so lucrative anymore.
- ASalazarMX 8y agoImpunity is the great facilitator for organized crime. Legalizing is just one side of the work needed to control it.