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Comment by dvt | Hacker News Reader

> If I were running things in Mexico I would legalize or decriminalize all drugs

This is a naïve "Bernie bro"-style take. What do you with cartel turf wars? Legalize murder? The problem is not only complex on a local scale (city or country), but there are geopolitical pressures at play as well.

Cartels tend to be very populist, often funneling money back in their communities making them (paradoxically) better. On the other hand, you've also got offshore banks that protect cartels, laundering their money, just as they protect the likes of large tech companies stash their money in tax-free havens. If you want to change that whole machinery, be prepared to take on the world's billionaires.

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The reason cartels need to murder people at all is because the business is illegal and there is no justice system to mediate disputes. F500 CEOs aren't doing drive-bys on each other over patent infringements because they can just sue.

The big mistake you're making is that legalising it also magically brings all the infrastructure to neuter the cartels.

Of course it doesn't, they just transfer to other illegal activities, see: bootlegging by organized crime during prohibition.

The problem the cartels will face is that there is no other business that makes as much money, and it would require a retool of the entire organization (or scale up, at a minimum) to get back to even a fraction of their power.

Cartels are not some unstoppable juggernaut: they run on capital, same as every other business. No money for bribes & no money for foot soldiers == no more cartel at a recognizable scale.

Kidnapping and extortion of wealthy avocado growers is already a lucrative business many cartels have been branching out to.

And Kidnapping of avocado growers is a billion dollar industry? How many are there to kidnap? That doesn't compare to the income generated by cocaine traffic.

> The problem the cartels will face is that there is no other business that makes as much money

This is not true. See this article[1] and HN thread[2]:

> “It’s good business,” El Polkas says with a shrug. “It makes a lot of money.” When I ask how gasoline compares to narcotics, in terms of overall revenue to Los Zetas, he rubs his index fingers together. “Fifty-fifty,” he says. “It’s approximately as profitable as drugs.”

[1] - https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/drug-w...

[2] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18101141

One anecdote and a thread about semi-fictional action movies about Brazilian Special Police Operators? Not exactly the strongest rebuttal.

And a quick search reveals:

>he Mexican government said fuel theft — huachicol as it is known in Spanish — decreased from about 60,000 barrels per day in 2018 to about 11,000 a day in 2019, with estimated savings of $6 billion.

> According to Pemex, fuel theft averaged about 4,440 barrels per day in 2020.

https://www.freightwaves.com/news/despite-some-successes-mex...

I have no idea how good the source is, but there's just absolutely no way black market fuel sales could ever generate the same amount of revenue.

> On 2 July state-owned oil firm Pemex reported a 114 per cent year-on-year increase in illegal tapping during the first four months of 2020, during which authorities recovered 9,291,986 litres of stolen fuel with a commercial value of MXN157m (around US$7m).

10,000,000 only has a commercial value of $7m. Imagine the logistics of scaling that kind of operation.

That might have helped if they did it decades ago. At this point, there are plenty of other victimful crimes—human trafficking, protection rackets—to keep the cartels in business.

Why would the cartels want to legalize drugs?

They don't. It would mean no more risk premium and the involvement of people that could do a better job than them, but don't get involved in the trade for obvious reasons.

It's making a gamble that legitimate drug companies operating with their own security forces and the support of the government could out-compete cartels in both security and economics.

I think it would work absent external pressures. A drug company that can openly operate on the highways and ports, pay for its own helicopters and operate its own militia for security, and call in the police and army at need, has a significant edge over a cartel operating covertly. Unfortunately, a legitimate company would at the very least not have access to the North American market, which would stop it competing with the cartels.

Cartels only exist because of its illegality. Same reason alcohol smuggling gangsters existed during the US prohibition era.

Mexican drug cartels have diversified into other industries, such as avocados. They employ the same tactics as they do with drugs in order to monopolize production.

Legalizing drugs would eliminate the risk premium, but both fentanyl and avocados are high-margin products. The problem is at least partially structural and cultural, not merely regulatory.

Ok, Mexico can stay a drug cartel infested country. I honestly don't see the problem with avocado cartels, at least they are not drug cartels.

> Cartels only exist because of its illegality.

Wait, what? You are saying there are no cartels in enterprises where the underlying good is legal? For example, oil cartels don't exist? The cartel will exist if the existance of the cartel causes it to make more money than would otherwise be the case. You should read about all the knee cappings and dirty dealings standard oil did in the U.S. When the US had mob problems, yes the mob was involved in prostitution and gambling but it was also involved in port unloading, ice delivery, meat packing, unions, and plenty of other legal goods/activities. Many of the organized crime issues the US struggled with were related to fixing elections and paying off city workers, particularly in big east coast cities like NY, Boston, and Chicago, where loyalty to the machine meant city contracts, city jobs, etc. There was fixing of construction contracts, service contracts, garbage delivery, etc. All of these goods/services were legal.

Cartels are just organized crime, and what causes an end to cartels is rule of law. As long as there is no rule of law, it will always be more profitable for someone to break into a store and take something than to obtain it legally, and it will always be more profitable to burn down a rival company's factory than to outsell the factory by lowering your price, and it will always be more profitable to seize market share with a gun than with a better product and to extract payments by offering protection to small businesses who can't rely on the police to protect them because there is no rule of law. The idea that a country without proper rule of law can get rid of organized crime by legalizing everything they do seems pretty far fetched. The Sicilian mafia existed because of a lack of rule of law, not because of drugs. It took up drugs, it took up other activities when the opportunity arose, but it far predated them. Mexico has a rule of law problem and a corruption problem, and really a weak central government problem. Fix that, and cartels can be brought under control.

> For example, oil cartels don't exist?

Oil cartels are a different kind of cartel. They don't go around casually murdering their rivals, let alone innocent people as acceptable collateral damage.

Khashoggi was casually murdered by the Saudis https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Jamal_Khash...

they certainly do. Ever heard of saudi arabia? They also murder people all over the world, and they are much, much powerful than the petty drug cartels of mexico.

Parent mean “[Drug] Cartels” not all cartels

the cartels in mexico are just powerful organized crime syndicates, involved in oil theft, human trafficking, local elections, various rackets, as well of course as drug smuggling. They would still fight for territory and control of key industries and would still be a state unto themselves.

That's not something most people associate with cartels in Mexico.

It's obviously he means drug cartels, not cartels in general

Cartels would continue to exist though. Because there are always other illegal services that need to be provided. Prostitution, gambling, murder-for-hire, mercenaries, unlicensed surgeons, as well as a still-extant illegal drugs market because they are merely cheaper, or sold to those who cannot buy the otherwise state-approved drugs(underage, banned for some reason).

None of that provides 1% of the income that illegal drugs does.

What does "Bernie bro" add to this?

Perhaps a better term would be populist-tier.

I don't think it is naive at all. Drug decriminalization programs have success in the Netherlands and Portugal. Prohibition on drugs is similar to prohibition on alcohol in the US in that it is a source of funding for organized crime.

The source of the violence in Mexico is drug cartels. Drug cartels take profit from the illegal drug trade. Eliminate the illegal drug trade and you will greatly reduce the funding for organized crime.

Attacking their funding is the solution. Cartels would not be popular if they did not have money. If they cannot smuggle illegal drugs they will have lots less money.

These turf wars exist because these people have a lot of power from trafficking drugs over a very widespread area. In the moment that every person can have a coca plant in their house, the trafficker loses this power.

These cartel bosses have fancy cars and luxurious homes. We could drone them all day every day if we wanted, but we don’t because they are employees of our intelligence services. They pay their tribute and they get to be rich, while “our” side gets a fat black budget not accountable to congress.

The banks who launder the money only get fees and no jail time because they are working under the table for the same agencies.

This is a serious accusation you have no proof of, it doesn’t belong here.

There is plenty of proof that the CIA facilitated cocaine transports to get their weapons in Nicaragua?

We are talking about current cartels in Mexico, not Iran-Contra

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA_involvement_in_Contra_co...

The Iran-Contra affair is irrelevant to the topic at hand

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