In small-town USA, business as usual for Mexican cartels

"jeff744" said
Only way to get pot out of the hands of gangs is to legalize it, then using the money you make from the additional taxes you can fund better healthcare or use it to increase the ability of police to track and take down groups involved in heavier drugs. Hell, maybe even drop a few bombs on some gangs in Mexico.

"Gunnair" said
Only way to get pot out of the hands of gangs is to legalize it, then using the money you make from the additional taxes you can fund better healthcare or use it to increase the ability of police to track and take down groups involved in heavier drugs. Hell, maybe even drop a few bombs on some gangs in Mexico.

"jeff744" said
Only way to get pot out of the hands of gangs is to legalize it, then using the money you make from the additional taxes you can fund better healthcare or use it to increase the ability of police to track and take down groups involved in heavier drugs. Hell, maybe even drop a few bombs on some gangs in Mexico.

"jeff744" said
Only way to get pot out of the hands of gangs is to legalize it, then using the money you make from the additional taxes you can fund better healthcare or use it to increase the ability of police to track and take down groups involved in heavier drugs. Hell, maybe even drop a few bombs on some gangs in Mexico.

Why Legalize Drugs?

We believe that drug prohibition is the true cause of much of the social and personal damage that has historically been attributed to drug use. It is prohibition that makes these drugs so valuable – while giving criminals a monopoly over their supply. Driven by the huge profits from this monopoly, criminal gangs bribe and kill each other, law enforcers, and children. Their trade is unregulated and they are, therefore, beyond our control.

History has shown that drug prohibition reduces neither use nor abuse. After a rapist is arrested, there are fewer rapes. After a drug dealer is arrested, however, neither the supply nor the demand for drugs is seriously changed. The arrest merely creates a job opening for an endless stream of drug entrepreneurs who will take huge risks for the sake of the enormous profits created by prohibition. Prohibition costs taxpayers tens of billions of dollars every year, yet 40 years and some 40 million arrests later, drugs are cheaper, more potent and far more widely used than at the beginning of this futile crusade.

We believe that by eliminating prohibition of all drugs for adults and establishing appropriate regulation and standards for distribution and use, law enforcement could focus more on crimes of violence, such as rape, aggravated assault, child abuse and murder, making our communities much safer. We believe that sending parents to prison for non-violent personal drug use destroys families. We believe that in a regulated and controlled environment, drugs will be safer for adult use and less accessible to our children. And we believe that by placing drug abuse in the hands of medical professionals instead of the criminal justice system, we will reduce rates of addiction and overdose deaths.

For the sake of the argument, let’s go ahead and assume that everything you’ve heard about the dangers of drugs is completely true. That probably means that using drugs is a terrible idea. It doesn’t mean, however, that the drug war is a good idea.

Prohibition is a textbook example of a policy with negative unintended consequences. Literally: it’s an example in the textbook I use in my introductory economics classes (Cowen and Tabarrok, Modern Principles of Economics if you’re curious) and in the most popular introductory economics textbook in the world (by N. Gregory Mankiw).The demand curve for drugs is extremely inelastic, meaning that people don’t change their drug consumption very much in response to changes in prices. Therefore, vigorous enforcement means higher prices and higher revenues for drug dealers. In fact, I’ll defer to Cowen and Tabarrok—page 60 of the first edition, if you’re still curious—for a discussion of the basic economic logic:

"The more effective prohibition is at raising costs, the greater are drug industry revenues. So, more effective prohibition means that drug sellers have more money to buy guns, pay bribes, fund the dealers, and even research and develop new technologies in drug delivery (like crack cocaine). It’s hard to beat an enemy that gets stronger the more you strike against him or her."

People associate the drug trade with crime and violence; indeed, the newspapers occasionally feature stories about drug kingpins doing horrifying things to underlings and competitors. These aren’t caused by the drugs themselves but from the fact that they are illegal (which means the market is underground) and addictive (which means demanders aren’t very price sensitive).

Those same newspapers will also occasionally feature articles about how this or that major dealer has been taken down or about how this or that quantity of drugs was taken off the streets. Apparently we’re to take from this the idea that we’re going to “win” the war on drugs. Apparently. It’s alleged that this is only a step toward getting “Mister Big,” but even if the government gets “Mister Big,” it’s not going to matter. Apple didn’t disappear after Steve Jobs died. Getting “Mr. Big” won’t win the drug war. As I pointed out almost a year ago, economist and drug policy expert Jeffrey Miron estimates that we would have a lot less violence without a war on drugs.

At the recent Association of Private Enterprise Education conference, David Henderson from the Naval Postgraduate School pointed out the myriad ways in which government promises to make us safer in fact imperil our safety and security. The drug war is an obvious example: in the name of making us safer and protecting us from drugs, we are actually put in greater danger. Without meaning to, the drug warriors have turned American cities into war zones and eroded the very freedoms we hold dear.

"jeff744" said
Only way to get pot out of the hands of gangs is to legalize it, then using the money you make from the additional taxes you can fund better healthcare or use it to increase the ability of police to track and take down groups involved in heavier drugs. Hell, maybe even drop a few bombs on some gangs in Mexico.

"OnTheIce" said
Only way to get pot out of the hands of gangs is to legalize it, then using the money you make from the additional taxes you can fund better healthcare or use it to increase the ability of police to track and take down groups involved in heavier drugs. Hell, maybe even drop a few bombs on some gangs in Mexico.

"jeff744" said
Only way to get pot out of the hands of gangs is to legalize it, then using the money you make from the additional taxes you can fund better healthcare or use it to increase the ability of police to track and take down groups involved in heavier drugs. Hell, maybe even drop a few bombs on some gangs in Mexico.

"OnTheIce" said
Not a chance. If they were concerned about drugs being laced with stuff, they'd have already stopped.

We've been told pot isn't addictive so stopping if you're afraid of the product being contaminated is easy.

"jeff744" said
Not a chance. If they were concerned about drugs being laced with stuff, they'd have already stopped.

We've been told pot isn't addictive so stopping if you're afraid of the product being contaminated is easy.

"OnTheIce" said
Not a chance. If they were concerned about drugs being laced with stuff, they'd have already stopped.

We've been told pot isn't addictive so stopping if you're afraid of the product being contaminated is easy.

"jeff744" said

Explain why people drank medicinal alcohol during prohibition.