This story collapses a lot of popular narratives.
That peoples in USA buying drugs are the drivers of violence in Mexico.
That legalizing drugs would make the cartels and the violence disappear.
That peoples in USA buying drugs are the drivers of violence in Mexico.
That legalizing drugs would make the cartels and the violence disappear.
Nothing will make violence disappear completely.
That said, legalizing drugs will most certainly reduce cartel activity.
Cartels exist because they sell a product with a huge margin that people can't really buy from anywhere else. Even when selling stolen products such as gasoline their market and margin is much smaller.
>their market and margin is much smaller
you think there's a smaller market for gasoline than drugs?
Buying illegal gasoline only makes sense for some individuals in transportation because in Mexico there is no fiscalization on a large portion of the economy (street vendors for example).
Big transportation companies couldn't do it. They need to justify expenses, get invoices, etc. A couple of years back it was easy to get fake invoices since everything was on paper, but there was a reform in 2016 and now all invoices are electronically signed by the Mexican IRS.
Organized crime isn't thriving because authorities don't have intelligence, it's thriving because it has greased the surrounding gears.
In some cities, most gas stations are forced to buy from them.
> Locals know which of them and who's the owner
Why would they know?
And the locals know because the cartels use those stations to fill their tanks for free, and they do that in convoy. At least it was like that 10 years ago, maybe the cartels are more discrete now.
Also, do you think the profits are so big that gangs would fight for territory to be able to sell illegal gasoline?
I seriously doubt it.
>Also, do you think the profits are so big that gangs would fight for territory to be able to sell illegal gasoline?
the article says this very thing in fact occurs!
Also, isn't being an owner-operator a good reason to play by the rules? By using stolen fuel you'd be risking a very expensive asset, and indeed your livelihood.
For people like truckers, etc, if stolen gasoline is not immediately available, they will pump from a gas station.
You cannot get addicted to gasoline.
The question is how lucrative its their new initiatives, how much of structure they are able to upkeep and how much crime there consist of "inherited" structure that is not viable with their new margins.
No organizational collapse looks good, and this is one that didn't look any good even on its best times.
Specifically, I do think they aren't correctly measuring their risks, so the gangs will fall, one by one, while all of them think they are making a great deal.
It would be interesting to see how their revenue progresses with time.
The second narrative is kind of obviously too simple. Of course the cartels won't just dissolve, and maybe they will find ways to sustain themselves indefinitely. But maybe we shouldn't continue to feed them? Surely that doesn't help.
Drugs are much different from gasoline. Gasoline is available everywhere and legal.
The cartels moving to gasoline is like the mafia moving from liquor during prohibition to other trades like racketeering, extortion, etc.
It perhaps signals that drugs are not so lucrative anymore.
A while back, Canada drastically raised the prices of cigarettes, and drive by shootings started up between the cigarette smugglers. It went away after quickly lowering the price again.
Drive by shootings also appeared during WW2 with gas rationing, and went away when rationing was ended.
It's still a massive source of revenue and it's what made these cartels big in the first place. Otherwise, they wouldn't be called "drug cartels".
> That legalizing drugs would make the cartels and the violence disappear.
It would drastically reduce the problem, just like ending the prohibition on alcohol drastically reduced, but didn't eliminate, Mafia activities.
I wonder, however, if drugs had never become illegal would a major crime organization managed to form in the first place?
Mexican cartels have the infrastructure already in place: "Miguel, get 25 guys and hijack the fuel trucks"...or rob armored trucks. That infrastructure, including manpower, political protection etc was built and is probably maintained with drug money.
The link between cartels and US demand for drugs is clear. This is just something local that is happening over and above the international trade.
I'm super skeptical of this argument. My sense is that they'd just diversify into other industries and create their own black markets - and it seems they're already doing this.
Edit: I'm probably not being clear ... I don't disagree with your point. You're correct that they diversified. I just don't think it's wise to use that as a good proxy.
Indeed, though it's often paradoxically employed by some libertarians who advocate for full decriminalization.
The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 caused many opium poppy planters to move to Mexico.
During WW1, WW2, the high demand for opioid-based analgesics like morphine resulted in increased opium planting.
Why were there opium poppy planters in the US in the first place? Opium poppy is not a plant that is not endemic to the Americas. It starts with the opium wars, where the British fought to force China into tolerating their opium trade at the cost of millions of people becoming addicted.
Look at the stats of drug deaths from different drugs over the last 10 years and see the huge spike. I believe double for cocaine, and triple for meth and heroine in just a few years. This is worse than 80s crack epedimic in terms of death. The cartels also didn’t get weaker they became more violent and richer.
I can’t beliebe I was so naive to think about legalizing drugs when I was in college. I am 100% for marijuana, medical marijuana without a doubt should be legal in every state anyone disagreeing has basically no merit. But the rest of them, I’m okay with a mild version of the Reagan crackdowns. We’re a lot less racist and a lot more forgiving from 30 years ago, I think we need to be a lot more forgiving for personal drug use or force the courts the option to send repeat offenders to rehab or prison and 100% they’d choose rehab, prison makes absolutely no sense for heavy hard drug users. We need to be even harsher for heavy drug dealing, gang violence, drug violence, and need far more agents stopping the drug inflows from the southern border and need to beef up our coast guard.
Also need to help the economy of flyover states because a lot of the drug deaths are from there.
Citation needed. They've always pushed all of the above across the border, but you seem to be conflating two unrelated things: legalization in a few states with the opioid epidemic. What seems to be a far more likely driver of the opioid epidemic is the availability of cheap synthetic opiates like fentanyl that are highly concentrated, and therefore easier to smuggle.
First thing I searched up, not the article I originally read but I’ll find it. You tell me how is cocaine related to opiates? Cocaine overdose deaths doubled since 2013...that’s 5 years and it DOUBLED. Cartels are pushing all of these especially meth.
Actually ignore the first link, check out the .gov link here on overdose deaths: https://www.drugabuse.gov/related-topics/trends-statistics/o...
Both links have good visuals. Meth quadrupled in 5 years, FIVE times as many deaths from 1 drug, heroin increased even by a larger magnitude.
Clearly there is a big market for these drugs, so that commerce might as well be part of the local economy instead of the international black market
Addiction and abuse rates would skyrocket, though. With an availability similar to alcohol, that would begin a plague that would envelop the country with astonishing speed. The problem with those drugs now is already a big problem, but if you put them within reach of every single adult you could bring a country to its knees.
Yes, legalizing them would be a boon for commercial interests, but that is practically the only people who would benefit from this. Oh, and drug treatment industries! They'd become as ubiquitous as mental health businesses. Big Constipation would replace Big Tobacco.
> prevent deaths from adulterated drugs.
The influx of death and destruction introduced by that legalization would make adulterated drug deaths look quaint.
Whatever the solution to this problem is, it won't be full-scale legalization. These drugs that are almost impossible to use responsibly, and are guaranteed to be highly addictive.
That's quite an assumption. For example, I don't have thoughts like "I wish heroin was legal, because I want to be a junkie!" Somehow, I'm not an alcoholic nor a smoker, despite them being readily available.
I do love my coffee, however :-)
Legalize weed? Perfect. Cocaine? Probably no worse than alcohol. Opiates? Absolutely not.
Why do you discount the role of my making a choice? I see smokers coughing up their lungs, junkies who care for nothing other than their next fix, and drunks lying in their vomit. It's not hard to choose not to take that path.