Fun fact: in 2014, economists in the UK analyzed illegal markets and found that drugs contributed about $7.4B a year to their GDP - roughly as big as their advertising industry. Sex work generated about $8.9B to GDP. Combined, drugs and sex were worth more than agriculture.

and yet we deny these markets legitimacy because of perceived morality without paying any mind to the idea that this is not a supply side issue and scarcity doesn’t increase the price

cannabis prices have been found to be inelastic in demand: it’s about -.33, so a 10% rise in px leads to a 3.3% drop in demand. Cocaine is something like -.17, and heroin -.09. Even if you massively drove up the price, you will not drive down demand, but you will reward cartels.

If you wanted to attack this from the demand side, you’d probably have much more success. Better rehab for addicts, so they actually get clean and get help. Better, more honest resources for teenagers, so they don’t feel the need for as much experimentation and rebellion

Assuming you manage to drive demand down, price would fall. Cheaper illegal drugs sounds bad, until you recognize that this has already pushed down consumption, and demand - the overall market shrinks and the zetas etc find something more profitable (like people) to smuggle

My overall point is that really regardless of what illegal business is taking place, attacking supply only serves to reduce consumption by driving px up - and this drives up criminal revenue. All you’ve done by killing coca plants is making cartels stronger.

at the expense of hurting the already poor coca farmer, who would just as easily grow tomatoes etc if they had the capital and ability to switch. Why are we punishing the poor Colombian farmer instead of the bloodthirsty cartel?

The other incredibly stupid policy wrt drugs is that money is no object for the US - as long as the money is spent on enforcement instead of prevention. The DHS disbursed $35B from 2002 - 2011 to state and local police forces for toys. Yet prevention money is a fraction of that.

Cuts to rehabs and jails are the first to be made, and sure you save a couple grand, and no one loves the idea of prison being a grand old time, but treating it as an education center instead of a holding cell leads to lower rates of reoffending and therefore less money is spent

There was a study done that tried to calc cocaine consumption vs government spending on intervention. $1M spent on controlling supply = 10kg not consumed. $1M on supply chain interception = 20kg not consumed. Prevention in school (1m) = 25kg. Treatment for addiction? 1m = 100kg.

So you spend the same money, a million dollars, but instead of spending it on burning poppy fields or spraying roundup on coca plants, just by spending it on treatment for addicts, you get 10x the return. What a dumb business decision to say no, I’d rather be ineffective!

Oh, and if you’re still uncertain about the “make jails better”: you realize that in the conditions they are in, they serve as recruiting grounds for gangs and cartels? If you weren’t in a gang before prison, you most certainly are after. Why do you think that is?

The fact here is that if a government won’t make a prison safe or provide resources for prisoners, guess who steps in? Criminals with gang ties who can offer protection, who have resources, and who need foot soldiers. I’m more talking about SA than USA but concept is the same

Really, cartels get the public on their side by doing what is in essence social corporate responsibility: they build parks, give old ladies money, they feed their people, because the government fails to provide basics.

And then, the response by say the Peruvian govt isn’t to offer subsidies to make farmers grow tomatoes instead of coca, it’s to spend vast sums on helicopters to spray roundup. Rather than shell out for services, we prefer to hunt ppl down when they turn to crime to survive.