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Umm, Mexico's border city stability has such more more to do with our illegal immigration policies than our war on drugs. Sure these thugs are funded by our add

Umm, Mexico's border city stability has such more more to do with our illegal immigration policies than our war on drugs. Sure these thugs are funded by our addictions, but should we legalize drugs tomorrow, they'll just find a new revenue stream.

timmaxw 15y ago
> they'll just find a new revenue stream I find it interesting to model gang violence as a market. If drugs are made legal, the demand for thugs will go down. If the supply of thuggery is elastic, then former gang members will leave gangs and find other work. If it's inelastic, they'll find other revenue streams.
- cellis 15y ago
  I've heard that simply decriminalizing weed in many states has had a material, and in some cases profound negative effect on revenue for mexican drug cartels. Furthermore, many consumers of narcotics are "moving upstream" to prescription drugs. But with less revenue, comes more violence initially as the factions squabble fiercely over a bigger slice of a smaller pie. Eventually this will reach an equilibrium and enough producers will drop out or realize it's not worth it and we'll end up with a few kingpins for the CIA to take out (a la Noreaga, Escobar, et al.).
piguy314 15y ago
Two questions: Why do you think there are so many poor people in Mexico, where do narco-terrorists get money to buy weapons? NAFTA is passed > government subsidized US corn exports destroy Mexican corn producers > Poor, unemployed mexicans flood into three places: Factory jobs (US outsourcing), migrant labor in America, narcotics export > Cartels slowly increase in power and wealth over the course of 2 decades > Cartels destabilize government
danenania 15y ago
That's like saying if the internet were shut down tomorrow, Google would just find a new revenue stream. Yeah, maybe they would, but it would be about a million times smaller.

timmaxw 15y ago

> they'll just find a new revenue stream I find it interesting to model gang violence as a market. If drugs are made legal, the demand for thugs will go down. If the supply of thuggery is elastic, then former gang members will leave gangs and find other work. If it's inelastic, they'll find other revenue streams.

cellis 15y ago
I've heard that simply decriminalizing weed in many states has had a material, and in some cases profound negative effect on revenue for mexican drug cartels. Furthermore, many consumers of narcotics are "moving upstream" to prescription drugs. But with less revenue, comes more violence initially as the factions squabble fiercely over a bigger slice of a smaller pie. Eventually this will reach an equilibrium and enough producers will drop out or realize it's not worth it and we'll end up with a few kingpins for the CIA to take out (a la Noreaga, Escobar, et al.).

piguy314 15y ago

Two questions: Why do you think there are so many poor people in Mexico, where do narco-terrorists get money to buy weapons? NAFTA is passed > government subsidized US corn exports destroy Mexican corn producers > Poor, unemployed mexicans flood into three places: Factory jobs (US outsourcing), migrant labor in America, narcotics export > Cartels slowly increase in power and wealth over the course of 2 decades > Cartels destabilize government

danenania 15y ago

That's like saying if the internet were shut down tomorrow, Google would just find a new revenue stream. Yeah, maybe they would, but it would be about a million times smaller.