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My friend from Central America got upset when nearly everyone at a London party took turns to do coke in the bathroom. He told me a pretty harrowing story of ho

My friend from Central America got upset when nearly everyone at a London party took turns to do coke in the bathroom. He told me a pretty harrowing story of how his family had had their lives ruined by drug gangs. A colleague of mine was on a flight when balloon of drugs burst inside a drug mule. They died. Our appetites fuel a cycle of violence and depravity.

oscarresponse 3y ago
Read the article. El Salvador's gangs are not narcotics traffickers like in Mexico or Colombia. They mainly extorted.
keiferski 3y ago
There is a dead comment pointing this out, but El Salvador gangs are not primarily drug gangs. The article goes into it further, but the short version is: the gangs there are/were focused more on extortion, with a consequence being that they are dramatically less wealthy than drug organizations in Colombia and Mexico.
- pcthrowaway 3y ago
  I don't think the reason they were less wealthy was because they were primarily in extortion and not drugs, it was because they hadn't created a funnel for money from wealthier countries to enter their pockets. I believe some Russian and North Korean gangs have figured out how to do this via extortion (cyber-crime), but the drug trade seems to be another popular way to do it.
  - keiferski 3y ago
    I meant more in relation to other Latin American gangs, which are wealthy because of drugs. The El Salvador gangs are extorting low income people in El Salvador, so cyber crime is not really a lucrative thing.
  - 0xB31B1B 3y ago
    The article goes in depth on this. Basically gangs exist on a spectrum of “business” vs “honor”. Business gangs (drug cartels, mafia etc) concerned with money and the goal is being rich and use illegal means to do so. Honor gangs are concerned with righteousness and respect, their goal is power/control/respect, examples are ms13 in El Salvador, Al qida/taliban,
    - pcthrowaway 3y ago
      Yes, I too read the article, though that was really only one part of the overall theory. The other parts being that poor gangsters engage in more risky behaviour because they don't have as much to lose, and that the overall economic reality of widespread poverty, along with relative incorruptibility of the police and the youth of the average gang member made it harder for them to get organized and accumulate wealth. Overall, it seems like the gangs are victim of the same cycle that poor people everywhere are a victim of: Being poor makes it harder to make better decisions to not be poor. In other latin american countries which were perhaps somewhat wealthier (while still poor by the standards of developed countries), the gangs were better able to accumulate capital which allowed them to improve their organization and eventually get into higher-margin activities that required that organization. In El Salvadore, the gangs were never able to "pick themselves up by their bootstrap" so to speak. While new entrants to gangs in other latin american countries may also be poor, the ones who survive and avoid imprisonment long enough to move up in the ranks have the opportunity to accumulate a relatively considerable amount of wealth (with real compensation being very top-heavy, like any other organization), and the overall higher wealth of those gangs allows for better organization. The profit/honor dichotomy being reflected on isn't unrelated to the other issues.. the gangs which have nothing to lose in terms of wealth have only their honor (which is perhaps a type of perceived or coerced power, even it is primarily over their also-poor neighbours). The theory presented by the author is that the gangs couldn't move towards the profit-focused side of the dichotomy, because they were too poor to have those opportunities in the first place. The fact that they were extorting their poor neighbours is a reflection of the gangs themselves being poor and poorly organized, but the point I was making above is that being in extortion isn't intrinsically the cause of them being less wealthy, the cause was targeting other poor El Salvadorans due to disorganization, rather than extracting money from wealthier pockets (whether that be from drugs, or yes, also extortion)
oefnak 3y ago
You could also say the fact that it is illegal causes the problems, not people using it.
droopyEyelids 3y ago
I thought that type of thinking was specifically an American thing, where we are told individuals must take responsibility for and solve the problems created by huge government/business decisions. Almost every human has an appetite for some sort of mind alteration, but all the harms you describe here are from fucked up legal situations that have been imposed on us to control the profit and political power that trade would shift.
cageface 3y ago
My experience traveling in Colombia was that they are generally quite down on it because of the harm they see the illegal drug trade has done to their country. It's the worst kind of resource curse.
- Gualdrapo 3y ago
  As a colombian, I can confirm. Yet there are people who still idolize Pablo Escobar or think that becoming a drug lord is the only way to be wealthy - besides being a (corrupt) politician, that is. FARC leftovers think that way and that's why they won't stop doing crime. The criminal organizations that came from Venezuela ("Tren de Aragua", "Los Satanás") aren't helping either.
thr0waway001 3y ago
As a Salvadoran, our problems stem more from our own people, joining gangs and extorting and murdering our own. It became a thing after the conflict from the aftermath of the civil war (FMLN vs ARENA). That's when the gangs took over. Consequently, that's why many of us love our current benevolent dictator. Sure he's fucking harsh but he's effective. Anyways, you're thinking more of Mexico. And if you think about it, that's probably why Bukele has been effective. Namely, cause the gangs are separate from the drug cartels even if they may have brushed elbows. The cartel seems more organized and more deeply rooted that I doubt they could be taken down by one man's decisions. Nevertheless, I appreciate the sentiment.

oscarresponse 3y ago

Read the article. El Salvador's gangs are not narcotics traffickers like in Mexico or Colombia. They mainly extorted.

keiferski 3y ago

There is a dead comment pointing this out, but El Salvador gangs are not primarily drug gangs. The article goes into it further, but the short version is: the gangs there are/were focused more on extortion, with a consequence being that they are dramatically less wealthy than drug organizations in Colombia and Mexico.

pcthrowaway 3y ago
I don't think the reason they were less wealthy was because they were primarily in extortion and not drugs, it was because they hadn't created a funnel for money from wealthier countries to enter their pockets. I believe some Russian and North Korean gangs have figured out how to do this via extortion (cyber-crime), but the drug trade seems to be another popular way to do it.
- keiferski 3y ago
  I meant more in relation to other Latin American gangs, which are wealthy because of drugs. The El Salvador gangs are extorting low income people in El Salvador, so cyber crime is not really a lucrative thing.
- 0xB31B1B 3y ago
  The article goes in depth on this. Basically gangs exist on a spectrum of “business” vs “honor”. Business gangs (drug cartels, mafia etc) concerned with money and the goal is being rich and use illegal means to do so. Honor gangs are concerned with righteousness and respect, their goal is power/control/respect, examples are ms13 in El Salvador, Al qida/taliban,
  - pcthrowaway 3y ago
    Yes, I too read the article, though that was really only one part of the overall theory. The other parts being that poor gangsters engage in more risky behaviour because they don't have as much to lose, and that the overall economic reality of widespread poverty, along with relative incorruptibility of the police and the youth of the average gang member made it harder for them to get organized and accumulate wealth. Overall, it seems like the gangs are victim of the same cycle that poor people everywhere are a victim of: Being poor makes it harder to make better decisions to not be poor. In other latin american countries which were perhaps somewhat wealthier (while still poor by the standards of developed countries), the gangs were better able to accumulate capital which allowed them to improve their organization and eventually get into higher-margin activities that required that organization. In El Salvadore, the gangs were never able to "pick themselves up by their bootstrap" so to speak. While new entrants to gangs in other latin american countries may also be poor, the ones who survive and avoid imprisonment long enough to move up in the ranks have the opportunity to accumulate a relatively considerable amount of wealth (with real compensation being very top-heavy, like any other organization), and the overall higher wealth of those gangs allows for better organization. The profit/honor dichotomy being reflected on isn't unrelated to the other issues.. the gangs which have nothing to lose in terms of wealth have only their honor (which is perhaps a type of perceived or coerced power, even it is primarily over their also-poor neighbours). The theory presented by the author is that the gangs couldn't move towards the profit-focused side of the dichotomy, because they were too poor to have those opportunities in the first place. The fact that they were extorting their poor neighbours is a reflection of the gangs themselves being poor and poorly organized, but the point I was making above is that being in extortion isn't intrinsically the cause of them being less wealthy, the cause was targeting other poor El Salvadorans due to disorganization, rather than extracting money from wealthier pockets (whether that be from drugs, or yes, also extortion)

oefnak 3y ago

You could also say the fact that it is illegal causes the problems, not people using it.

droopyEyelids 3y ago

I thought that type of thinking was specifically an American thing, where we are told individuals must take responsibility for and solve the problems created by huge government/business decisions. Almost every human has an appetite for some sort of mind alteration, but all the harms you describe here are from fucked up legal situations that have been imposed on us to control the profit and political power that trade would shift.

cageface 3y ago

My experience traveling in Colombia was that they are generally quite down on it because of the harm they see the illegal drug trade has done to their country. It's the worst kind of resource curse.

Gualdrapo 3y ago
As a colombian, I can confirm. Yet there are people who still idolize Pablo Escobar or think that becoming a drug lord is the only way to be wealthy - besides being a (corrupt) politician, that is. FARC leftovers think that way and that's why they won't stop doing crime. The criminal organizations that came from Venezuela ("Tren de Aragua", "Los Satanás") aren't helping either.

thr0waway001 3y ago

As a Salvadoran, our problems stem more from our own people, joining gangs and extorting and murdering our own. It became a thing after the conflict from the aftermath of the civil war (FMLN vs ARENA). That's when the gangs took over. Consequently, that's why many of us love our current benevolent dictator. Sure he's fucking harsh but he's effective. Anyways, you're thinking more of Mexico. And if you think about it, that's probably why Bukele has been effective. Namely, cause the gangs are separate from the drug cartels even if they may have brushed elbows. The cartel seems more organized and more deeply rooted that I doubt they could be taken down by one man's decisions. Nevertheless, I appreciate the sentiment.