[Mexican living in Mexico here]

There's a GREAT book about a lot of that, at least the Mexico side. It is called "Narcoland: Mexican Lords and Their-Godfathers" (original name "Los Señores del Narco) by Anabel Hernandez. She is a renowned journalist in Mexico who has lived threatened to death for several years, by several narcos and government officers.

The book shows how the real "Lords" or "Godfathers" of Drug Trafficking are not some illiterate-uneducated kid from a small town in the middle of nowere in Mexico who becomes a "drug kingpin" with all connections and whatnot (CEOs and Cofounders who have struggled doing real word/legal relationships know that's a fairy tale), but rich people in Mexico, members of the elite class.

That's why nothing real happens with cartels. The real bosses are people who have the real power, they control the government, control the narcos and control the money in Mexico. It's no conspiracy theory, everything is documented in that book.

Here in Mexico society just "knows it". "Secreto a voces" they say it is, every state and city knows their narcos. To give you an example, in the "La Laguna" area of Durango, an ex-mayor, prominent businessman in the region and VERY rich guy named Carlos Herrera Araluce has been known to be a narco and in relationship with narcos. He was an elected officer (city mayor!!) with everybody knowing what he was doing. And the same is "known" in each state. You just have to ask some of the locals.

In reverse chronological order:

1940s: Mexico was the top producer of opiates during WW1 and WW2. After those conflicts ended, the opium planters turned to illegal trade.

The opium poppy plant, the plant from which opium and related opiate drugs are produced, is not endemic to the Americas.

1882: The US Chinese exclusion act caused the expulsion of many Chinese, among them, opium poppy planters. Many of them relocated to to Mexico where they started planting opium again.

1860s: The Chinese immigrants involved in opium trade had opium dens in San Francisco and other places. They became addicted during an opium epidemic in China.

1839: The Chinese as a nation were against opium use, but the British forced them to legalize opium. All that is known as the Opium wars, which was the British weaponization of opium to extract wealth from China to make up for the lost money in the Americas.

1776: The British lost the American revolutionary war and started to accumulate a trade deficit with other countries, notably China.

Conclusion: The East India Company was the first modern narco organization, Lord Palmerston is personally responsible for centuries of drug related violence. The guy was an educated person (in fact, 2x Prime Minister) and knew what he was doing all along.

This comment will make everyone angry but it is the truth.

Because the U.S. reports actual numbers and doesn't just vaporize its own people :)

It doesn't need to be cheaper when a possible outcome of the alternative is a bullet. There are always people who turn to illegalities because they're forced to, and would gladly make less money in order to lessen their chance of imprisonment or worse. The easier you make it to make a living legally, the more people will turn away from crime and the stronger they'll oppose it in general.

> I doubt doing things legally will ever be cheaper than illegally

Economies of scale.