3 ms·

Well, at the end of the day they would want to make sure that they possessed a certain level of voter influence in the short term and long term. In the short t

Well, at the end of the day they would want to make sure that they possessed a certain level of voter influence in the short term and long term. In the short term, I would bet that the legalized outfits would be co-opted by the drug cartels and used to launder money, and then 'caught' within a year or so. Since devout Christians (especially Evangelical) are their #1 ally, I would guess that numerous churches would start being built in these battleground states, and that the people who would be administering would be told about how future 'proceeds' into their personal and church funds would depend on their conversion rate of the local populace. Probably risky, and not likely to work all that well. tl;dr legalized outfits are going to have overstated connections to criminal organizations and the people in the outer neighborhoods are going to try and won over with rhetoric about separating them from the sinful ways of their neighbors.

gnosis 14y ago
"legalized outfits would be co-opted by the drug cartels and used to launder money" If you were looking to launder money, why would you pick a front that probably had some of the most intense government scrutiny of any business in the country? Furthermore, do you see many legal aspirin manufacturers co-opted by illegal aspirin cartels? Beer manufacturers co-opted by illegal beer cartels? Organized crime has been getting in to cigarette smuggling as high cigarette taxes have made legal cigarettes prohibitively expensive and created a black market for them. But this problem did not exist when cigarettes were plentiful and cheap. We should learn the lesson here and keep legalized drugs plentiful and cheap, so that organized crime has no incentive to get involved and there's no demand for a black market.
- batgaijin 14y ago
  The point of laundering money at legal marijuana outfit would be getting caught, showing the public that there is a permanent 'criminal nature' to drugs such as marijuana. I'm not saying this makes any sort of business sense, it's just a way of influencing public perception.

gnosis 14y ago

"legalized outfits would be co-opted by the drug cartels and used to launder money" If you were looking to launder money, why would you pick a front that probably had some of the most intense government scrutiny of any business in the country? Furthermore, do you see many legal aspirin manufacturers co-opted by illegal aspirin cartels? Beer manufacturers co-opted by illegal beer cartels? Organized crime has been getting in to cigarette smuggling as high cigarette taxes have made legal cigarettes prohibitively expensive and created a black market for them. But this problem did not exist when cigarettes were plentiful and cheap. We should learn the lesson here and keep legalized drugs plentiful and cheap, so that organized crime has no incentive to get involved and there's no demand for a black market.

batgaijin 14y ago
The point of laundering money at legal marijuana outfit would be getting caught, showing the public that there is a permanent 'criminal nature' to drugs such as marijuana. I'm not saying this makes any sort of business sense, it's just a way of influencing public perception.