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Comment by drudu | Hacker News Reader

You serious think that taking away the stream of income that has put trillions of usd in the hands of cartels / organized crime won't have a huge impact?

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I have doubts that it will fix the problem. It's not just drugs that these cartels control--it's kidnapping, avocados, cross-border smuggling, etc.

It's possible the violence might actually increase, actually.

I think it is necessary — even if not sufficient — to end the war on drugs. The only exception I’m willing to make is proper labeling and safe storage conditions. It should ought to remain unlawful to distribute drugs without proper labeling. We will need to come up with labeling standards.

It will remove 90% of their power. The 10% will still be a force for evil, but then it becomes easier to attack them

Look at it another way. Do you really think an industry reaping trillions of dollars is going to go away without a fight?

You mean like putting a lot of money into opposing legalization efforts? Yeah, I expect that.

Wouldn't they be more likely to just enter the market as legal participants? Cartels kill and do heinous things to their competitors because they can't take them to court and sue them and get an injunction to stop bad behavior.

That's not what happened with Prohibition. Crime syndicates providing black-market alcohol didn't just set up as legitimate alcohol vendors, they moved into unrelated markets like controlling labor unions.

Note that labor unions were a legitimate type of enterprise, but organized crime ran them illegitimately anyway. The willingness to break the law is their competitive advantage; it would make no sense to give it up.

Agreed this is too simple and common sense for the government to do.

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