
U.S. Path on Legal Marijuana Forces Rethink in Mexico - tosh
http://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-path-on-legal-marijuana-forces-rethink-in-mexico-1482834602#livefyre-comment
======
Pica_soO
Unemployed farmers and butchers, that's all that remains, if you state-
distribute the drugs and fire the thugs.

With the rise of synthetics, and the first maker-chem-bot not far away- i
wouldn't wonder if the Narcos would do what all businesses do, if the change
is upon them- lobby for protectionism.

Im against drug liberalization, but just to reduce the economic and social
Fallout this would be worth it.

~~~
lazaroclapp
I am strongly in favor of drug legalization, _because_ I am from Mexico. Drug
traffic is ruinous for the Mexican economy, even if you didn't care ethically
about the human cost of a >250,000 death toll in the last 10 years (the drug
war in Mexico is, depending how you count, the 3rd or 4th deadliest armed
conflict in the world today, after Syria, Iraq, and Afganistan[1]).

In purely economic terms, even though some money does flow into the country
through the cartels, the lack of basic security caused by a weak state
interacting with extraordinarily wealthy criminal organizations makes it very
hard for industry to develop: investment doesn't want to come (and if it does,
must hedge against extortion in its plans), there is a huge brain-drain of
skilled talent, and no local wants to take any risk, specially not a business
risk that might put them in the sight of organized crime. Mexico has some
high-tech industry, and it has the potential to develop far more, but it is
stunted by a climate of lack of human security and personal safety. Not all of
it is because of the drug war (Mexico has a level of economic inequality that
makes the divide in the US look quaint, and in practical terms is an
incredibly young democracy, for example). Legalization in the US would not
solve all of Mexico's problems, but it might give it enough breathing room to
reverse what currently feels like a slow collapse...

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ongoing_armed_conflict...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ongoing_armed_conflicts)
(note that the cumulative official death toll number shown there is extremely
under-reported)

~~~
justinpombrio
Crazy question: why doesn't _Mexico_ legalize all drugs and drug trade? The US
would have a fit, but is the good will of the US worth the damage the drug war
does in Mexico?

~~~
WildUtah
Mexico's economy is deeply invested in trade with the USA. Simply declaring
that the drug gangs will be openly allowed to use Mexican territory to try to
deliver drugs to the USA however they want would lead the USA to retaliate.
The most likely response is a closed border and an end to trade.

Mexico is a prosperous country now, in spite of gang problems, and that will
continue only as long as trade is open.

But small personal use amounts of drugs are already decriminalized in Mexico.
I see plenty of people buy, sell, and smoke mariguana in front of cops in
broad daylight. To stop the cartels, you need to allow major companies to
compete and the USA politicians can't ignore that.

And for all the trouble drug gangs cause in Mexico, they kill fewer people
than car crashes. The federal legislature isn't making it the top national
priority or overriding all other concerns for that level of violence.

And, to make a final note, the Supreme Court of Justice keeps threatening to
make mariguana legal nationally as a matter of human rights. The USA probably
wouldn't go as crazy if it happens through a judicial process.

~~~
lazaroclapp
> And for all the trouble drug gangs cause in Mexico, they kill fewer people
> than car crashes.

Debatable, actually. War on drugs related deaths are >250,000 in 10 years by
some counts. Car crash related deaths average 24,000 a year in Mexico. But the
thing is that violence related deaths are worse than car accidents in one
significant way: they erode people's trust in others and the feeling of
safety. They lead to more conservative risk-taking behavior and have far
reaching consequences on people's mental state (would you react the same if
you hear that a university classmate died in a crash than if you learn he was
killed by armed cartel members or the army as collateral damage in a clash?).
Also, beyond the deaths: large-scale organized crime exacerbates corruption,
imposes costs on businesses (extortion), harms free press, etc, etc. Drug
trade in Mexico is definitely a national crisis, in a way I don't think people
who don't live there quite understand (no, is not a Mad Max-like hellhole, no,
not everything looks like in the movie "El Infierno"[1], but that doesn't mean
is just a "localized" crime problem in the sense that gang violence in certain
cities of the US is, is an entirely different beast when parts of the country
are known to be primarily under organized crime control).

In terms of the original comment, Mexico can't easily go against the US in
these matters. But even if it did, the US market would still be both lucrative
and illegal, which means the drug cartels would continue operating much as
they do now. It would still not be worth it for them to obey Mexican law and
it would still be worth it to them to fight for control of drug routes.
Legalization in the US would mean competition from Pfizer, GSK and the like,
which might actually hurt the cartels. Legalization in Mexico would be pretty
much meaningless on its own.

[1]
[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1692190/](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1692190/)

~~~
WildUtah
All homicides in Mexico don't add up to 250k per decade. And at most half of
the total is drug-related.

And car crash related deaths have even more negative externalities than drug
war deaths. They disproportionately kill children and innocent non-criminals.
People isolate themselves from dangerous traffic by avoiding walking, avoiding
healthy neighborhoods, and by driving more in a vicious spiral. They both have
negative social side-effects but car crashes are even worse by most measures.

~~~
lazaroclapp
> All homicides in Mexico don't add up to 250k per decade. And at most half of
> the total is drug-related.

Homicides were 20,525 in 2015 by official government numbers [1]. Same in 2014
(see same report). Far more than half are crime related, which in Mexico often
means it can be connected to drug trade or other activities of the cartels
(extortion, people trafficking, etc). This has been a 10 years drug war, and
official numbers under-report deaths dramatically, since executions by army
and police are rarely counted as homicides and many other killings by drug
cartels end up never being investigated and reported as "missing person"
cases. This also mostly affects non-criminals, unlike in the US.

Say it is 20,000 a year for 10 years, which seems reasonable based on the
figure in the second page of the report. That adds to 200,000 with only the
official numbers, only counting homicides classified as such. Add all the
missing person numbers (which sure, might partly count displaced migrants, but
just as often means dead and thrown in a clandestine burial) and 250k sounds
conservative.

I believe the US has a similar mortality rate of car crashes to Mexico, and I
can tell you, having lived in both places, that the social side-effects are
not even in the same ballpark. This is not a "terror attacks in developed
nations kill a few hundred a year, cars kills tens of thousands, we over-react
to the first!" kind of argument (which is an argument I agree with), this is a
"we have a death toll from the war on drugs that puts us as the 4th bloodiest
conflict currently ongoing in the world in absolute numbers[2]".

See also: [http://www.insightcrime.org/news-briefs/6062-mexico-
victimiz...](http://www.insightcrime.org/news-briefs/6062-mexico-
victimization-survey-highlights-reporting-gap)

From that article: "Based on the survey results, INEGI estimated that in 10.7
million households in Mexico (33.9 percent of the total) at least one member
of the household was the victim of crime in 2013, or some 22.5 million people
-- a rate of 28,224 victims per 100,000 residents". I don't think you can
quite understand what it is like to know that in a given year, almost 1/3rd of
the population will have to deal directly with crime happening to them. Even
if it is mostly theft or extortion, rather than outright murder.

[1]
[http://www.inegi.org.mx/saladeprensa/boletines/2016/especial...](http://www.inegi.org.mx/saladeprensa/boletines/2016/especiales/especiales2016_07_04.pdf)

[2] Granted, is over a bigger country, but I would still not wish it on
anyone...

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JSeymourATL
Mexican traffickers are expanding their operations to gain a larger share of
eastern U.S. heroin markets. >
[https://www.dea.gov/divisions/hq/2016/hq062716_attach.pdf](https://www.dea.gov/divisions/hq/2016/hq062716_attach.pdf)

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dmix
Non-paywall link: [http://www.foxnews.com/world/2016/12/27/us-path-on-legal-
mar...](http://www.foxnews.com/world/2016/12/27/us-path-on-legal-marijuana-
forces-rethink-in-mexico.html)

The usual web link didn't work for me this time.

~~~
aceperry
That link doesn't go to the full article either. It gives you a link to the
paywall of the article though.

~~~
newjersey
Archived at [https://archive.fo/DhAB8](https://archive.fo/DhAB8)

Screenshot without comments:
[https://i.imgur.com/LbqmLV4.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/LbqmLV4.jpg)

Hope this helps.

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h4nkoslo
It's too late. The cartels were allowed (even encouraged) to grow to the point
where they are no longer controllable by the state. If you legalize the drug
trade, they will continue to assert quasi-legal control over it the same way
that mafias have historically controlled things like garbage removal, and
probably branch out into other activities (as they actually have been doing,
eg "taxing" avocado farmers). They have no reason to allow themselves to be
"outcompeted" by a bunch of MBAs with excellent expertise in logistics but no
guns.

~~~
stale2002
And what happens when the big corporations start getting into the business?

What are the drug cartels going to do? Attack some giant montasanto farm in
the middle of flyover USA?

...with their guns?

And what happens when montasanto highers a couple off duty police officers to
protect their investment?

The cartels have no power in anywhere but the border.

~~~
h4nkoslo
The US has far stronger rule of law than Mexico (one of the reasons so many
Mexicans desire to come to the US), and I'm primarily talking about the
difficulty of uprooting the narcos in Mexico.

That said, yes, I would expect to see a rise in cartel violence in the US at
least out into the medium term. "Attack a farm" is a bit cinematic, but
"threaten executive's children to extract kickbacks" is quite plausible in
certain areas. Their area of influence now tracks traditional drug trafficking
routes & illegal immigration routes, which covers a hell of a lot of the US.
That doesn't mean they're necessarily dominant over that the same way they are
in MX, but is something one should be aware of.

~~~
tomjen3
Their problem is that they will lose most of their income which will reduce
their power. They may try some kidnappings, but then they also have to contend
with the U.S. power plus the ability of the other side to buy protection.

