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It blows my mind that there are multiple organizations that are so large and well armed that even the Mexican government won't touch them. Keep in mind that th

• obilgic 6y ago
  Just because the military is big, It doesn't mean It's efficient and Its easily controllable centrally. Probably there are many groups within the military and many of the higher ups have their own connections with different local organizations etc.
• ardy42 6y ago
  > It blow my mind that there are multiple organizations that are so large and well armed that even the Mexican government won't touch them. Keep in mind that the Mexican military has the 17th most active duty personnel in the world and spent $7 billion last year, and still isn't willing to take on drug cartels stomping on their own sovereign territory. But if the real problem is your army is corrupt, no quantity of guns and personnel will fix that. As far as I know, the cartels are closer to an asymmetric military adversary, and have subverted the Mexican state rather than defeating it directly.
  • bob33212 6y ago
    When everyone knows that they can either get paid off or get killed most people choose to be paid off.
    • nradov 6y ago
      "Plata o plomo" (silver or lead)
      • posterboy 6y ago
        Plata o diploma
    • dylan604 6y ago
      It is an either/or situation. Neither is not an option. Not taking the money means you can't be trusted not to talk, you still get killed.
      • dzamo_norton 6y ago
        And the final possibility, namely both, probably happens a fair bit.
  • amelius 6y ago
    But what if you took down their communications?
• coliveira 6y ago
  The problem in many countries is that the military are themselves involved with drug trafficking. So the fact that they have a relatively large army is not necessarily an advantage, the cartels are most probably infiltrated there.
• coliveira 6y ago
  The other side is also true, the US has the largest army in the world, along with the most sophisticated intelligence apparatus, but it cannot (or doesn't want) to stop the traffic coming from outside its borders.
  • Reelin 6y ago
    > it cannot (or doesn't want) to stop the traffic coming from outside its borders Openly turning that sophisticated intelligence apparatus against the citizenry is simply not politically tenable in the US at present. (Note that I said openly. What Snowden revealed wasn't open.)
    • loeg 6y ago
      Well, this is done in the open: https://www.aclu.org/know-your-rights/border-zone/ https://www.aclu.org/know-your-rights/border-zone/ .
    • sudosysgen 6y ago
      The US already openly uses the entire surveillance apparatus legally anywhere within a few hundred miles of the border.
    • vkou 6y ago
      Are you aware that there's a bit of an ongoing jackboots-gas-and-rubber-bullets crackdown happening across the United States against unarmed civilians? The government has no problem turning its tools against the citizenry - well, particular parts of the citizenry. These aren't hypothetical techie concerns about the NSA seeing your dick pics. This is actual police departments behaving like we live in a police state.
      • Reelin 6y ago
        Indeed. In context, something that would presumably continue indefinitely (border traffic and drug consumption) was being discussed. That would require permanent legislation and normalization of extensive government surveillance. In contrast, the current shenanigans are occurring within a declared state of emergency (pandemic) on top of which widespread protests over an unrelated topic broke out. Even then, what's happening appears to be status quo police brutality that's piecemeal. (As opposed to open, centrally coordinated mass surveillance of everyone's actions - both physical and digital - with the approval of the legislature).
• bigodbiel 6y ago
  As if the military doesn't work for the drug cartels. The truth is that Mexico is a Narcostate.
  • javert 6y ago
    edit: I removed my comment that was here. It was confusing in a way that I didn't intend. It was going to merely generate toxic responses. That was not my intention at all. I'm sorry.
    • ct520 6y ago
      uh - I'm unsure about that. Can you please cite a reference why you believe the US is a narco state?
      • deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
      • amerine 6y ago
        Opiates? Big Pharma? We’re the “legal” drug dealer kingpins.
        • rajamaka 6y ago
          I sometimes wonder - is the current opiate epidemic an argument against the legalization of others drugs?
          • waheoo 6y ago
            Not really, legalisation allows for destigmatization. The opiate crisis happened because weed wasn't legal soon enough. Most opiate users for pain release could swap.
            • Reelin 6y ago
              > Most opiate users for pain release could swap. I'm sorry but I have to call you out on this. It's complete BS - we simply don't have anything that's remotely comparable to opiates for pain relief. That being said I'll second that the opiate epidemic in the US is largely the fault of prohibition. Illegality feeds all sorts of negative cycles that wouldn't otherwise exist.
• kbenson 6y ago
  From the opening paragraph of the Wikipedia article on Los Zetas:[1] The origins of Los Zetas date back to the late 1990s, when commandos of the Mexican Army deserted their ranks and began working as the enforcement arm of the Gulf Cartel. In February 2010, Los Zetas broke away and formed their own criminal organization, rivalling the Gulf Cartel. Needless to say, going after some gang is likely to be different than going after a gang of ex-commando military personnel, and that's before you factor in that there's probably a steady stream of military that still leave to join Los Zetas and that they probably still have active military contacts... 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Zetas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Zetas
  • hchz 6y ago
    Not only are the Zetas not full of military any more, they are fighting constantly between old school and CDN (when they aren't fighting golfos). The current organization is a shell of what it was.
    • sitkack 6y ago
      Sounds like they need some management consulting.
      • hchz 6y ago
        It was a red queen's race that they lost by attracting too much attention. The original cadre of special warfare operators has been eliminated, and their escalation in violence and sophistication of direct action was emulated by others. Cooperation with the government and subverting the state is more powerful than killing entire towns.
• dpoochieni 6y ago
  It does not help that our current president, AMLO, thinks "Abrazos no balazos" is the solution. Hugs not guns Then he captures the son of El Chapo, and because they began threatening the government they let him go. It's just a disaster. At this point my only hope Trump is reelected so he puts some pressure on him to actually do something about the problem.
  • triceratops 6y ago
    They've tried guns for 4 decades and look where it's got them. I'm not saying hugs are the answer. You still have to punish the existing bad guys. But guns definitively are not the long-term answer. It's time for a different approach - one which prevents new bad guys.
    • dpoochieni 6y ago
      Hmmm I'd say it only began in earnest in the 90s. And then you look at the previous Democrat goverment and its cross border gun trafficking operations which certainly didn't help. What I can tell you is it's probably never been so brazen. Couple weeks back they shot the chief of Police of Mexico City in broad daylight in one of the nicest (most expensive) neighborhoods in the country. They killed his bodyguards and gravely injured him despite of having an armored SUV. An attempt like that was unheard of so far
      • triceratops 6y ago
        The "war on drugs" dates back to the 70s or 80s, starting from either the Nixon or Reagan administrations (depending on which way you look at it). Even if we take the 90s as a starting point, that's an entire generation lost to pointless violence. Entire governments corrupted by the deluge of narco profits. The "cross border gun trafficking operations" you're referring to involved about 2k guns, of which 1/3 were recovered. Terrible bungling, surely, but a drop in the bucket.[1] The CIA/Contra cocaine trafficking was probably far more consequential.[2] The brazenness of the cartels comes from the insane profits they earn. They can buy off anyone, and if they can't they can hire anyone to get rid of them. And their insane profits are due to how scarce and illegal their products are in the US. Take away their economic base and they become far more vulnerable. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ATF_gunwalking_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ATF_gunwalking_scandal 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA_involvement_in_Contra_cocaine_trafficking https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA_involvement_in_Contra_coca...
• ct520 6y ago
  I think what you are missing here - drug cartels are essentially mini factions that govern areas in the society. The cartels are the government and the government is public face for the cartels essentially. How this evolved over time has been interesting, but make no mistake about it. They both protect each other interests domestically. It's not that they can't its that they wont. They attack themselves when they're disputes. Its very fascinating and no secret down there.
  • etrabroline 6y ago
    Correct. It's basically the same relationship large financial interests have with the US government. When financial interests have enough influence, they become too big to fail, meaning any "corruption" by the big players is ignored, and so isn't really corruption anymore so much as a part of government policy.
    • teruakohatu 6y ago
      Except there are rules, and when they are broken there are consequences. See Lehman Brothers and Enron. Maybe there are lines in Mexico that cannot be crossed, but from an non-American perspective I struggle to see where those lines are.
      • rapind 6y ago
        Based on the 2008 bailout, it wasn't the banks who suffered the lion's share of the consequences. Maybe the difference isn't so great as we perceive
      • ct520 6y ago
        kiki camarena
      • RcouF1uZ4gsC 6y ago
        > Maybe there are lines in Mexico that cannot be crossed, but from an non-American perspective I struggle to see where those lines are. The main rule is don’t antagonize the Americans too much. The big example is Camarena who was kidnapped, tortured, and killed by the cartels in the 1980s. It brought such a response from the US, that the cartels in general avoid trying to kill US DEA agents.
• umvi 6y ago
  If you try to tax drugs, there will still be a significant black market. Just look at cigarettes - legal, but huge black market because there is money to be made undercutting legitimate vendors with taxed goods.
  • p1necone 6y ago
    A large part of the cost of illegal drugs comes from all the effort needed to avoid law enforcement along the supply chain. I'm sure a legitimate operation could save enough money from being able to just have large scale production and delivery in the open without having to hide it to make up for a few % of tax.
    • bigtechdataeng 6y ago
      I think most of the cost is because of the personal and inventory risk that everyone involved carries. With 100x markup, seizures at borders aren’t as big a deal. And there are lots of people involved, each one adds markup.
    • hchz 6y ago
      Avoid=Pay
    • catalogia 6y ago
      > a few % of tax. The cigarette tax rate in New York is 2500% higher than the tax rate in Missouri. That's more than a few %, and that's just the state tax; NYC has their own additional tax that increases the difference even more.
  • mekkkkkk 6y ago
    A black market will always exist as it does for anything. The problem we're trying to solve is the power of a huge market solely tapped by criminal enterprises. You don't see narcostates formed by black market tobacco or alcohol.
    • eru 6y ago
      > A black market will always exist as it does for anything. A black market only exists when there's legal hurdles to avoid. Some markets have low enough legal hurdles, that there's no black market. (But I agree with the rest of your comment.)
• electro_blah 6y ago
  I'm sure most of the officials are in their pocket. others just won't mess with their business. if you aren't going to play by their rules they will make an example of you.
• randyrand 6y ago
  How well armed are they? I know a common refrain against the 2nd ammendment is that guns don't matter much against tanks, helicopters, missles, etc.
  • alasdair_ 6y ago
    Very. And it’s not just arms, it’s military training and procedures. The cartel mentioned most often in the article (the Zetas) literally WERE the army - they were special forces and commandos that decided to become the muscle for the Gulf Cartel because it paid more. Then the Gulf Cartel learned the problems of relying on mercenaries when the Zetas turned on them as well, becoming one of the most dominant cartels in the world. Anyway, to answer your question: the cartels have tanks, helicopters, ships, submarines, mortars, grenades and missiles. Many of them are crude versions of course (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narco_tank https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narco_tank) but it’s definitely not just small arms fire. A bunch of highly trained ex-commandos with billions in budget and hundreds of thousands of “troops” (in aggregate) that doesn’t much care about hurting civilians can do a lot of damage.
    • noir_lord 6y ago
      > There was a general shifting of position and a group clearing of throats. > 'What about mercenaries?' said Boggis. > 'The problem with mercenaries,' said the Patrician, 'is that they need to be paid to start fighting. And, unless you are very lucky, you end up paying them even more to stop -' (from the book Jingo by Sir Terry Pratchett).
    • 082349872349872 6y ago
      I had the impression that cartels, north of the border, prefer mail bombs to bullets. Yet the narco tanks that image search gives me are uniformly flat-bottomed, suggesting that IEDs are not common south of the border.
  • cookie_monsta 6y ago
    A few years ago there was a live news broadcast on Mexican TV of a running downtown street battle between the cops/feds/army and one of the cartels. I think it was in Juarez. We watched in real time as the state forces retreated, outmanned and outgunned. It's so different to the reality that most of us inhabit that it's hard to imagine.
• accountwhatever 6y ago
  The article addresses your point about the drug trade: "Stories like this are unfolding in industries across Mexico as criminal groups branch out far beyond drugs. Cartels have siphoned millions of dollars’ worth of fuel from Mexican state oil company Petróleos Mexicanos or Pemex in recent years; they steal cargo and pilfer lumber. The tentacles of organized crime extend even into Mexico’s avocado growing regions, where gangs extort farmers and hijack loads of the green fruit."
• papito 6y ago
  Isn't heroin legal in Sweden? I mean, legalize it all. Some people will definitely get hurt and be thrown into a spiral of addiction, but having rehabilitation and counseling programs seems like chump change compared to the drug war boondogle. What would Jesus do?
  • hatchnyc 6y ago
    Very likely will not help except to the extent that it makes selling drugs unprofitable. Any profitable industry--agriculture, tourism, energy, etc.--falls victim to the same.
  • adventured 6y ago
    > I mean, legalize it all. That's obviously difficult. The actual situation is even more difficult: you have to simultaneously deal with the supply and demand factors. It's not enough just to legalize everything (which will never happen, 80-90% of the globe will never do such a thing under any circumstances, regardless of what the US does). If you do that, the demand will of course still be there. Someone has to wipe out the cartel production/supply by competing with it. So the US has to go into the production business for cocaine, heroin, etc. It wouldn't be reliable to leave it to Mexico, it would be too easy for the cartels to hijack and control. Any country that doesn't legalize globally - which will be most of them - will still remain a target for the cartels to sell into. Latin American cartel networks are effective enough and big enough now that they move product globally. Legalize it all requires that a very large portion of all countries go in on that. It will never happen. The US will fully legalize marijuana and it will hardly make a dent in taking down the cartels or reducing cartel violence in Latin America, which demonstrates their considerable staying power. There was widespread opinion that it would make a big difference, in reality it'll have hardly made any difference (Mexico is more violent now than it has ever been in its history).
    • Reelin 6y ago
      > So the US has to go into the production business for cocaine, heroin, etc. Pharmaceutical companies already produce everything you could imagine and more. I can't stress enough how much of a non-issue this concern would be in practice. (Also we already produce an impressively wide range of opiates for medical use.) > Any country that doesn't legalize globally - which will be most of them - will still remain a target for the cartels to sell into. So you're saying we shouldn't try to move in the right direction because our actions alone wouldn't immediately and completely solve the problem? This is an incredibly defeatist point of view.
• throwaway6e8f 6y ago
  This is how “defund the police” ends.
  • cookie_monsta 6y ago
    It looks a lot more like this is how "make guns freely available" ends
    • smabie 6y ago
      Guns are very tightly regulated in Mexico.
      • cookie_monsta 6y ago
        And penalties for drug dealing are quite strict. Therefore neither guns nor drugs are readily available in Mexico?
  • gbrown 6y ago
    If you'd bothered to read past the catchphrase you'd realize how stupid this sounds. It would also help if you gained some perspective on Mexican history - it's never been an issue of lack of funding for police.
  • barry-cotter 6y ago
    This seems unlikely. It would vary a lot by the society in which “Defund the Police” became policy. The last time the US decided to radically reduce law enforcement and severity of punishment for law breaking in the 1960-1970 period it didn’t lead to parastatal organizations with their own militaries. Eventually the public grows sick of the disorder and laws and constitutional barriers that militate against harsh punishment and enforcement get worked around. Before the political reaction you had a broader social reaction in the flight from cities and suburbanization.
• dylan604 6y ago
  To quote Bill Hicks, "There's a big fuckin' drop off after #3 largest military"
• blawson 6y ago
  Another huge challenge about dealing with the drug trade - people with guns and power probably aren't just going to go away because you've changed the dynamics of their most profitable market: https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2019-11-20/mexico-cartel-violence-avocados https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2019-11-20/mexico...
  • stickfigure 6y ago
    They aren't funding armies and bribing governments by skimming off the avocado market. If you take away 90% of their revenue, the cartels' power will shrink quickly. All crime is not fungible.
    • briandear 6y ago
      Check the revenue breakdown of the cartels. It’s far beyond drugs.
      • concordDance 6y ago
        Could you supply a link? Would love to know the revenue breakdown.
        • paganel 6y ago
          Not the OP, am on mobile and too lazy to search for links and it’s also about Italy and not Mexico, but there were some studies made a few years ago that showed that the Calabrian organization ‘Ndrangheta was worth about 50-60 billion euros at the time. They had started getting big in the late ‘80s by smuggling Columbian cocaine into Europe but nowadays I think that the drug trade represents a very small percentage of their revenues. For example I live in a reasonably big Eastern-European capital and I’m pretty sure that the biggest waste disposal thing in our city is controlled by ‘Ndrangheta. Presumably a similar transformation will be carried out by many Mexican cartels when and if the drug trade will dry off.
          • 6y ago
• ransom1538 6y ago
  Mexico is in a civil war. There are a few factions - but this is not a drug war - it is in a total civil war. The difference is: the ability to control government. Taking over towns, expelling the police, trying to murder top police cheifs [1], negotiation of prisoners [3] -- all examples of what happens when a society is divided - in civil war. They are not fighting over pot farms. Killing 24 people in a rehab clinic isn't reported much in the US due to politics [2], but, this country needs international help NOW. The US is purchasing drugs at a massive rate on the I5 corridor and is now a drugged out enabler. I wouldn't expect help from the US. The cash stakes are huge: some cities import drugs in metric tons in the US and avoid prosecution [4]. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/26/world/americas/mexico-city-police-chief-shot.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/26/world/americas/mexico-cit... [2] https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2020-07-01/24-people-killed-in-attack-in-central-mexico-media-reports https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2020-07-01/24-peo... [3] https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/ne8k9w/mexico-confirmed-they-found-el-chapos-son-and-let-him-go https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/ne8k9w/mexico-confirmed-t... [4] https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/public-safety/no-charges-for-personal-drug-possession-seattles-bold-gamble-to-bring-peace-after-the-war-on-drugs/2019/06/11/69a7bb46-7285-11e9-9f06-5fc2ee80027a_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/public-safety/no-charge...
  • 0DHm2CxO7Lb3 6y ago
    I heard that rehab clinics in Mexico are often used by the cartels as safe houses for cartel members, and their weapons are taken away during their stay until they actually go out and do their mission to avoid cartel members to go freelancing.
  • 082349872349872 6y ago
    Strictly speaking it isn't officially a civil war, because the cartels prefer to operate as a mafia instead of as a Party To A Conflict. (or am I showing that I grew up last century, by even considering Geneva Conventions?) According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unlawful_combatant#Prisoners_of_war https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unlawful_combatant#Prisoners_o... they certainly fulfil three conditions: (a) That of being commanded by a person responsible for his subordinates; (b) That of having a fixed distinctive sign recognizable at a distance; (c) That of carrying arms openly; but for whatever reason they feel they have an advantage in not fulfilling: (d) That of conducting their operations in accordance with the laws and customs of war. Nota Bene George Washington would return, unopened, letters from the British that were not properly addressed, because he wished to emphasise that his men were regulars. In more recent news, the sundry poorly regulated US militia may have (a) and (c) but fail on (b), while the "boogaloo" have (b) and (c) but fail on (a), and neither has yet shown any sign of how far they might observe (d).
• throwaway554234 6y ago
  One of the most interesting instances of this was the East India Company. Using it’s own army and navy, it eventually colonized Hong Kong and large parts of India.
• andrepd 6y ago
  I'll just add that the cartels are so unimaginably brutal, not bound by even the slightest pretense of laws of warfare, that it is impossible that anyone resist to bowing to their demands. I'm talking "refuse to be bribed and we will skin your teenage son alive in front of you and send the video to his mother".
  • sudosysgen 6y ago
    If you have an army, that's when you answer that you'll have them hanged. You have to actually hang them after. It's brutal, but the cartels have to be treated in the ways that you would treat terrorists.
    • Discombulator 6y ago
      That is a comforting thought, but the “tough / law and order / war on drugs” response has already been tried extensively under president Calderón, and the result was an explosion in violence and killings, without overall reducing the power of cartels. Unfortunately it is not that simple.
      • rbanffy 6y ago
        The source of the power of the cartels lies north of the border. It's not possible to fight them only in Mexico without tackling their funding sources.
        • eru 6y ago
          At least some US states have started legalising some drugs. That should pull some of the revenue into the legal economy?
          • dragonwriter 6y ago
            If something is prohibited by the federal government but not additionallt prohibited by the state government, it is not part of the legal economy.
• SOMA_BOFH 6y ago
  >Imagine if we could figure out how to legitimize it Legalize it and the gangs go bankrupt or pivot to another black market. It's unfortunate many do-gooders are more interested in enforcing their mores on others than working toward harm reduction. People will always crave drugs and humanity has always had junkies. Embrace this with compassion, not intolerance.
  • 77pt77 6y ago
    >pivot to another black market They're already doing that with the avocado trade.
    • gbrown 6y ago
      Yeah, but this is a multi-generational problem - it's important not to give up just because they try to diversify in the moment. Anything that cuts into their margins in the long term makes them weaker, less able to recruit, less competitive for labor. Taking away the black market markups will absolutely hurt these terrible organizations.
  • briandear 6y ago
    https://www.newsweek.com/some-mexican-cartels-have-begun-human-trafficking-drug-operations-are-disrupted-1501258 https://www.newsweek.com/some-mexican-cartels-have-begun-hum...
  • perryizgr8 6y ago
    > People will always kill and humanity has always had murderers. Embrace this with compassion, not intolerance. See how that "always been like this" logic doesn't make any sense? I have yet to hear a coherent reason why drugs should be decriminalized or legalized.
    • KozmoNau7 6y ago
      When you do drugs, you're only really harming yourself. Comparing it to murder is a false analogy.
• ypcx 6y ago
  I think most of us would agree that all drugs (drug use) should be decriminalized. But even if you go as far as to imagine the Mexican cartels being (eventually) legitimate businesses, the strong competition between them would not subside, so they would still fight each other and keep their grip on the government and the population. (Then there's also the ties they have to the governments of the target markets, and their policy making.) I think to solve this situation, you'd have to diminish the demand for their product in the target markets, which is next to impossible due to the addictive nature of the product. One way to do this would be to legalize and promote therapeutic use of drugs which are known (among many other positives) to break drug addiction (in just a few sessions), like psilocybin mushrooms or Ayahuasca.
  • newacct583 6y ago
    > if you go as far as to imagine the Mexican cartels being (eventually) legitimate businesses, the strong competition between them would not subside, so they would still fight each other Exactly. Just look at the much larger market contested by the Apple/Google blood feud for an example! This doesn't actually happen. The expense of running a private army makes a firm catastrophically non-competetive vs. the new flood of now-legal competitors selling at a much lower price.
    • racnid 6y ago
      I wonder how that works in a world where more than a few competitors are willing to chainsaw apart the upstarts.
      • HPsquared 6y ago
        It'd be a brave new world of businesses trying to fly under the radar and evade 'prosecution', I guess!
      • eru 6y ago
        Keep in mind that the actual drug producers are just as much victims of the drug cartels as anyone else. Legalising the production of drugs would make it so that they could, at least in theory, turn to the police for help.
• m463 6y ago
  Personally, I am surprised journalists dare to write about it. Journalists are an endangered species in mexico.
  • creaghpatr 6y ago
    Journalists should ‘cancel’ the cartels.
• xkcd-sucks 6y ago
  Most goverenments are deferential to sufficiently large corporations... so not a surprise
• briandear 6y ago
  This isn’t just about drugs. Human trafficking, extortion, theft. Legalizing drugs would barely make a dent in the cartel’s revenues.
  • eru 6y ago
    You could legalise migration, too, that would make a bit dent in trafficking. I wonder if it would make a bit dent, if Mexico just legalised production and distribution of most drugs? Instead of waiting for the US to get their act together.
• mirimir 6y ago
  > ... even the Mexican government won't touch them. The distinction between government and gangs in Mexico is subtle. Just as in the US, many former military become mercenaries. But unlike US mercenaries, Mexican mercenaries operate domestically.
• Bobbcatt 6y ago
  >Mexican military has the 17th most active duty personnel in the world Most of whom are regular conscripts who are not worth anything in anti-insurgency, urban guerrilla style of warfare that's happening. > employ 450,000 people and make $25 billion annually most of whom are not security personnel. It's better to compare $25 to mexico's GDP, which is astronomically larger. Mexico could slow down the drug trade, but why bother, when the damage would be greater than letting it run.
• Oricle 6y ago
  Plus the Mexican cartel is backed by HSBC and other big entities from around the world. People forget easily how HSBC only got a slap on the wrists when they got caught! The people you have been warned about for millennia are behind all of it. The ones hat like to call themselves 'gods chosen' when all they are is unempathetic ass wipes who hate everything gentile! But alas, it's always those you can't critsise even though the evidence goes back millennia lol. 'i never let schooling get in the way of my education'
• posterboy 6y ago
  > It blows my mind that ... Arguably the government is the Mafia. > These guys just throw up repeaters and not only do they not try to hide them, they actually mark them to show who is going to be destroying your life if you take them down. Oh, and you have to pay if you want to work on your own legitimate equipment that is rightfully on that tower. As I said, modulo "rightfully" which I won't take away from you just for sake of the argument. > The illegal drug trade exists on a scale unimaginable to most people That's why the previous two remarks are necessarily exagerated. If the government governs and the drug trade drug-trades, pretty much by definition--Isn't that a bit myopic (I'm at a loss for words here, as much as you are). I mean, the tinfoil hat says: if governments wanted to sustain a deadly drugmarket they could not do it in the open. The counter-point, that nobody would want this, is evidently wrong, and that unreasonable cartells did it only for the money is again myopic, if money is really about power. > Mexican cartels employ 450,000 people and make $25 billion annually (...). The Mexican military would have to be incredibly skilled to take them on with 177,000 people and a $7 billion budget. Wow, that's incredible--how one could draw such a black and white back of the envelope calculation cobbled together on a quick google search. Not only is the us-versus-them perspective quite difficult, reducing moral to a binary number. It is also conflating a lot of that in the economic measuring stick that is the dollar. Seen another way, that's 250.000 tons market capitalization of Mexican cocaine and equivalent substances p.a. (at a guessed street price of $100 per pure gram). This would be a gram per day for 1/10,000 of the population, if they compete in a market of ca. 10 billion potential consumers in the market. Realistically though, the street price is grossly inflated after each border. So, if the inflation would be x100, you'd have to have a 1% share of the population in the developed world (more, if my numbers are too high) being highly addicted daily drug users, who can afford to spend between 10 and 100$ a day. This seems like something is off--my numbers, sure, if Mexico is more of an intermediary than a producer.
  • mycall 6y ago
    Mexico is getting into production now that their supply chains with China was disrupted (still is?)
• xorcist 6y ago
  What you describe is a failed, or at least failing, state. What makes you think these para military groups would stop taking over society if they are made legal? Look at other mafia run states. Most of them aren't dependent on the drug trade. It's a parasitic part of the economy that won't let the rest of the economy flourish.
• rumanator 6y ago
  > It blows my mind that there are multiple organizations that are so large and well armed that even the Mexican government won't touch them. One of those organizations was a Mexico Army unit. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Zetas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Zetas
• johnchristopher 6y ago
  If somehow drug was legalized in the Mexico then I suppose the army would have to product "legal" producers from cartels waging war on them to defend their turf ? Are cartels lobbying to prevent drug legalization ? I suppose they make more money on illegal drugs than they would if they converted to legalized drugs (if it'd ever come to be)
• deleted 6y ago
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• wolco 6y ago
  Stopping the illegal trade by force is foolish and just creates more smaller players Stopping the illegal trade by making it legal destroys everything. But it also destroys a lie we've been telling ourselves.
• onetimemanytime 6y ago
  Don't think of them as one. I'm the General in charge and I don't care of what happens, when I'm offered $50 Million for protection. Especially when refusal means death for my entire family. This is repeated in every situation or region. Now I'm in charge and this is my chance to get rich and survive. A lot of these narcos carry multimillion dollars in cash with them, if they get caught they buy their way to freedom. $2 million and let me go. Why would someone not take especially if the one up the chain will probably still free him...? A state, any state, can take on private armies. They can get all the help needed from USA and EU if they were weak. Even Escobar was beaten, one way or another. Cartels employee a lot of people but the state can make them fight each other and then take on the winner. But then, what does Mexico have to offer to the many millions that wet their beaks in the drug trade? Go work daily on corn fields for $x a day when you can make $xx on opium ones?