Legalize all drugs and all of this ends tomorrow in the blink of an eye.
Which is a good argument for immediate across the board legalization. The recovery is going to be a very long process. Unfortunately I doubt that will happen. Even the idea of marijuana legalization is scoffed at by a city (Washington DC) which is fueled by the very cocaine and pills it purports to abhor.
I would propose creating an open database dedicated to tracking individuals known or believed to be associated with violent drug cartels. Perhaps call it a crowd sourced intelligence network.
Knowing that a government official being anonymously accused of being corrupt recently went on vacation in a foreign country and stayed at a 5 star hotel would go a long way in validating suspicions when combined with other data points, such as their relatives purchasing large quantities of real estate.
Presumably no cartel member or corrupt official operates with complete anonymity. When hundreds of individuals are able to combine their reports together, the "social network" of a criminal organization should be completely visible to all.
While I strongly advocate individual anonymity and privacy rights, anyone who explicitly infringes and impedes the rights of others has no rights.
This is a guerrilla war which can only be won by its own victims.
Doesn't most violence associated with these drug cartels take the form of fights over supply/territory? What will they be fighting over if they are no longer the suppliers?
Economics aside though, if you use the end of prohibition as an example of what might happen, you might over estimate the speed of commercialization. This is because prior to prohibition there was a thriving liquor business, and that business simply returned (within one generation so people who had run legal liquor stores before where around to run them again). This situation does not exist for drugs, medical pot clubs not withstanding.
I'm not really worried about the employment angle because cartel jobs aren't productive jobs. Essentially you're freeing up labor for the productive part of the economy which makes for a higher standard of living for everyone.
It might take a year or two to have nicely packaged heroin from well known companies available in pretty boxes in liquor stores, but I think you'd be rid of all the cartel violence within 6 months.
Given the various occupy activity, and the quantity of money that drugs influence, it seems like the 1% would figure out how to move all that money to them if they could do so without risking being arrested, extradited, murdered, Etc. Perhaps an unintended side effect, or perhaps not, but until recently I hadn't given a lot of thought to who would benefit most financially from such a change.
US policy is less about who would benefit from legalization (everyone) and more about who would suffer. If prohibition were ended there would be massive cuts in the budget and staff of the ATF, DEA, police, the entire boarder security industry, infantry defense contractors, prisons, courts and law firms.
Many politicians went to law school. No one wants to put their friends out of work.
EDIT: Or Arizona or Texas, I guess would be the more relevant point.
Edit: Looks like pot is actually the #1 crop in the US http://www.drugscience.org/Archive/bcr2/cashcrops.html (if their numbers are accurate.)
Pot cultivation went way up after 9/11 due to the increase in border security. It just isnt cost effective to smuggle a kilo of pot versus a kilo of coke. Pot is pretty difficult to move in large amounts so it make sense to grow it north of the border. Wholesale pot might go for 2-3k per key while coke might go for 10-20k per key.
It's a separate problem with no solution unless profit dries up.
The drug lords have invested a bunch of money setting up smuggling networks and equipping mini-armies. Legalize drugs and they'll just switch to smuggling something else.
I agree drugs should be legalized, but it's because I don't like the government telling me what I can do.
For any of them that are really in it for the thrills the time would depend on their reserves, but I doubt it'd last longer than a few months for any of them.
Fake designer clothing? If this hypothetical market existed they would already be there.
For example, in Europe, cocaine got significantly cheaper and rather easy to find. This led to a a considerable increase of its popularity during the last three years or so. Cocaine is starting to take 'market' from cannabis based drugs which are much less dangerous and carry much softer consequences.
'Legalize drugs' is a too naive statement, the drug situation needs to be carefully analysed and adequate solutions need to be put in practice based on as much factors as possible.
That said, generally, in developed countries I think consumption decriminalization is a positive thing at present time. It makes room for advances in thins like hygiene, medical treatment of addicts, etc. without creating easier access to drugs.
Giving any small group of humans the right to decide which properties drugs have and how important/dangerous those properties are is EXTREMELY dangerous. This is not kids stuff. Millions live and die by these decisions. Who do we trust to make such decisions?
You claim that the drug situation should be carefully analysed. Well, it must be analysed by someone, right? Who will do the analysis? Who deserves this power? Who do we trust enough to make unbiased decisions in this domain?
Another underlying assumption that you seem to be making is that drugs are bad. You want to allow room for advances in hygeine, medical treatement, etc. but you don't want people to do more drugs.
I want people to do more drugs. I want there to be more and deeper research into drugs. I want people to trip more. I want cocaine and heroin addicts to have easy access to ibogaine. I want there to be less shame associated with having gone through a period of heavy addiction. I want people to smoke weed and do mushrooms and LSD and 2CE on their days off rather than getting drunk.
"Legalize drugs" is not an over-simplification, it is a purification. It is the only position which is consistent with freedom and mutual human respect. It is the only position which has any hope of allowing humanity to move towards a healthy and mature stance on drug use. Your attempt to cast it as a "simplification" is a subtle (and all-too-common) context-switch from the land of ideals into the land of hubristic utilitarianism/pragmatism.
http://www.theatlanticcities.com/jobs-and-economy/2011/11/co...
Also, illegality has had no effect on use rate.