

Graphic: Mexican drug cartels’ spreading influence - holychiz
http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/07/13/mexican-drug-cartels-spreading-influence-graphic/

======
muhfuhkuh
When the government regulates vice, the criminals go legitimate or get
caught/killed doing more outlandish stuff.

Look at California for just a taste of how it could be. Cartels can't push
their outdoor mass produced garbage marijuana in Cali when anyone over 18 can
walk into a Doctor's office, get a recommendation card, walk a few feet to the
dispensary next door, and receive the most quality indoor, top-shelf, out of
bounds Cannabis you could buy. This is decidedly _not_ your father's lid of
smoke in a sandwich baggie licked shut. The Cannabis has often been tested for
anything from potency (THC and cannabinoid or CBD count) to contaminants. Some
3rd parties are actually certifying Organic Cannabis.

Most of that top-shelf Cannabis comes from multi-generational farms in the
Emerald Triangle of Northern California (Mendocino, Humboldt, and Trinity).
They have farmers who have passed down seed and clones from generation to
generation, along with their breeding, growing, and flowering trade secrets.

Cartels only know bulk pricing and murder. More legitimized drug trade will
not only lower cost and increase quality, but would make Cartels seek other
forms as their profit margins evaporate. I'd love to see even the biggest
cartels try to compete with Anheuser-Busch InBev, Pfizer, or Altria group once
Marijuana is legal in the US.

~~~
confluence
You are probably right. But it's probably never going to happen.

Indeed this "war on drugs" will probably remain until there is a generational
shift in power or if some pharmaceutical company saves the world by developing
soma.

For those who don't know what soma is, it's a fictional non-addictive
recreational drug without negative side effects first described by Aldous
Huxley in his novel "Brave New World".

~~~
fghh45sdfhr3
_But it's probably never going to happen._

Sure it will happen. Just not before enough baby boomers die.

~~~
flyinRyan
It's not about baby boomers. Corrupt people within the US government are
making a large amount of money on this conflict and will work very hard to
make sure that revenue stream doesn't close. Why do you think Mary-J was ever
banned in the first place? It wasn't like there was a rash of husbands getting
high and beating their wives, etc.

------
einhverfr
Here's the thing. This is a huge problem. The cartels have been becoming more
heavily armed and more sophisticated for years, perhaps decades. And the
problem is that all this money goes into weapons, tactics, etc. On top of that
the drug tunnels have been increasing in sophistication quite a bit. One
recently discovered one had a railcar system in it. And so the use of
predators in the sky will just keep the rest of us cowed, while the real
criminals are underground.

This is a major national security problem. We can't control our Southern
border because the policies we would need to enact to start doing so (drug
legalization, immigration reform aimed at a real guest worker program) are
political nonstarters. And so we essentually fund a menace on our Southern
border, one which has had enough military contacts to do what they want for
longer than I have been alive (so more than 36 years).[1]

The only sensible policy is to legalize drugs, institute a real guest worker
program, and then step up efforts to control the border. But without those
first two, the latter won't do anything. We are already out-classed there. We
will lose. And if we can't control our Southern border, many bad things will
follow.

[1] My parents were in Mexico before I was born and have witnessed some things
which indicate even then the cartels were able to get the army to do whatever
they wanted.

------
mv
this is sad.... and also a result of a war on drugs. Decriminalization of drug
use would actually allow people to get help without losing their
job/life/everything. There is no reason for this senseless madness.

End the War on drugs. Portugal hasn't fallen apart because they
decriminalized:
[https://www.google.com/search?sugexp=chrome,mod=5&source...](https://www.google.com/search?sugexp=chrome,mod=5&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=portugal+drug)

... Why should we be any different? Clearly empowering cartels and
criminalizing addicts is a problem. Help the addicted!

~~~
mtgx
I'm surprised more people in Washington don't see this as a parallel to the
rising influence of the mob when alcohol prohibition happened. There are
probably no wiser words than "those who don't learn from history, are doomed
to repeat it".

~~~
einhverfr
There's a problem though. If you legalize marijuana and get rid of the
cartels, then what? Are you just going to make that giant industry aroudn drug
enforcement go away?

~~~
InclinedPlane
Yes. You must. It won't be easy, but it's a necessity.

~~~
einhverfr
The point is, there is organizational inertia regarding lobbying etc which
more or less guarantees that Congress cannot act on this.

The best thing is to force a Constitutional crisis by states refusing to
cooperate with federal drug enforcement. Given the recent health care reform
case, the federal government has far fewer options than they did before the
ruling on the Medicaid expansion issue there. They certainly cannot cut off
all funding, and certainly cannot even cut off a large amount of funding.

------
qwerty
Based on that extensive (NYT?) article from a few weeks ago, it doesn't look
like Mexico will ever be able to pull itself out of this mess. The article
suggested that most of the govt and police force was either in bed with the
various cartels, or too terrified of them in order to do anything about it.
It's a very lucrative arrangement for everybody but the poor bystanders who
might become civilian casualties in the endless turf wars.

It feels like the only way to fix this is to tweak the "demand" variable,
perhaps through legalization.

~~~
bmj
_It feels like the only way to fix this is to tweak the "demand" variable,
perhaps through legalization._

I wonder what the cartels' reaction would be to legalization? Would they
willingly give up their massive amounts of wealth to become part of a
regulated system?

Edit: Removed HTML tags. Duh.

~~~
jonhohle
Illegal drugs just have the right risk/return balance. Legalizing would change
that (probably a race to the bottom for cost). While this would disrupt a
cartel's primary cash flow for a short period, there are still plenty of
illegal things to move (secretly) and sell - weapons, humans, counterfeits,
actually dangerous drugs which would probably remain illegal (meth, cocaine,
heroine).

Legalization might hurt a cartel long enough for them to be unable to pivot,
but like any business, they've found an expense to cost ratio that they like.
When their industry (again, largely transportation of contraband) Is
disrupted, they will die, but more likely adapt.

------
DannoHung
Why would the government want to legalize drugs when having cartels to fight
gives them reason to assume more power?

------
zackmorris
Just saw Savages (by Oliver Stone). The War on Some Drugs passed the point of
believability probably during the Reagan era and is now just another war on
Other People. I wish someone like Mark Zuckerberg or Richard Branson would
just spend a few million dollars to end it, at least for the benign drugs like
marijuana that are provably less destructive than alcohol or tobacco.

As a side note, I wonder how things like Silk Road will affect it, once
enforcement isn't really feasible anymore.

------
antidoh
Looking at those thick arrows reaching into the US, with even thicker arrows
close behind them, makes me think that this will be the thing that tips us
over into an overt police state.

------
james4k
The death toll charts are pretty shocking. I mean, an increase of over 300% in
5 years? Wow.

~~~
InclinedPlane
There is a civil war going on in mexico, that's the only way to describe it.
Armed insurrection against the government with a force of over a hundred
thousand soldiers, and so far the death toll has been in the range of ten
thousand civilians a year or more.

And yet you probably haven't seen as much news coverage of what's going on
there as you have of, say, goings on in Syria.

It's a peculiar civil war though because one side doesn't care about ruling or
controlling territory per se, they just care about being able to operate their
business.

~~~
theorique
Yes, nearly 50,000 people have died in Mexico since Zedillo essentially
declared armed war on the cartels in 2006.

Almost 10,000 people per year.

Given the scale of the violence, you'd expect more news coverage in the USA. I
didn't learn of this until I traveled in Mexico for a while last summer.

~~~
maw
I think you mean Calderón.

~~~
theorique
You're right - it was Felipe Calderon who declared war on the narcos in 2006.

------
ahi
I have a hard time imagining the Tijuana and Gulf Cartels operating large
organizations in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

------
mumrah
Aren't they missing a cartel in NM - specifically a large production facility
in ABQ?

------
DanielBMarkham
Couple of interesting points.

First, the cartels are probably the biggest supporters of the current drug
laws. It's like being given a magic bottle that makes money all of the time --
as long as you're willing to use violence, which was never a problem for them.

Second, I am not optimistic about the U.S. political system growing a set of
cajones anytime soon, but damned if there isn't a tiny bit of movement, from
both parties. [http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/48203995/ns/world_news-
the_new_y...](http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/48203995/ns/world_news-
the_new_york_times/)

Third, and most importantly, we're always going to have smuggling. Always had
it, always will have it. I think the goal here is to allow a lot of things to
be smuggled but to keep the total dollar amount down. The drug trade is tens
of billions of dollars, and it involves moving plants that grow as weeds.
High-value art, rare fish, or any of a hundred other things really shouldn't
be getting that much attention. There simply isn't enough money there to
corrupt the system. The key problem (as far as customs goes) is rampant
smuggling destroying control over the border. That's the problem to address.
(I'd add that legalization would sure help a lot to address it.) We need to
decrease the complexity of the customs laws and increase the focus of
enforcement. Trying to ban something that huge sections of the population
consume, or trying to control tens of thousands of random little items, are
both ways to destroy the entire idea of having a customs office in the first
place.

