If you examine the size of the global narcotics industry (in dollars) and you read the list of the Forbes richest humans, you will note an interesting dichotomy. This gigantic industry apparently only produces street level hoodlums and has no political influence or ability to control USA politicians. How likely is this?

I agree with you that we could take a lot of wind out of the sails of the drug cartels by legalizing drugs. I think this is one of many examples of the right policy move but one that has no chance in hell of working. Kind of like the right policy in the war on terror is to recognize that we caused the problem by repeatedly screwing the people of the Middle East (both dirctly and more frequently through oppressive proxy governments that supported our economic needs) and then stop. Not going to happen either...

Tragically, I think that the most likely political outcome of these problems is for states to further crack-down on the problem, thereby adding fuel to the fire. We'll fund narcotics enforcement in the US, and we'll give money and training to the Mexican state to do the same there, all of which will play into the hands of the drug cartels...

I think this is blindingly obvious. Once Prohibition was repealed the lucrative profits from bootlegging/speakeasies/etc vanished, and so did the likes of Al Capone, Baby Face Nelson, Pretty Boy Floyd, and the rest. 'The Mob' did not disappear, but retreated into the more benign background of gambling/numbers/casinos, protection rackets, an so forth. Think about it: the U.S. had carloads of mobsters driving around making hits on people with Tommy guns. There was a running gun battle between the Feds and the Mob.

Decriminalize drugs, and the profit motive for the cocanistas and all the other drug lords goes poof in a heartbeat. It is just that simple.

I really don't want to hear any moralizing from the self-appointed guardians of America decency out there about this. Plain old cigarettes have killed over 400,000 people per year for decades and no one says boo hoo to any of that. In fact, plenty of people (some who I personally know) and politicians go to great lengths defending the 'right' of God-fearing patriot American tobacco farmers to grow their poison and profit from it. Plenty of beer-soaked bubbas would start a revolution if we tried (again) to crack down on alcohol, the abuse of which aslo kills many people each year. These apologists always invoke personal responsibility and personal liberties when they defend the legality of these substances...but draw their own arbitrary line at invoking the same philosophy about currently banned substances. Hypocrisy much, anyone? I have never taken any illegal drugs, nor have I ever smoked, save for one tentative puff when I was 12 (it tasted disgusting). I drink a beer or a glass of wine once per month, maybe. My wife and my almost adult children are the same. Even though tobacco and alcohol are legal and available to us, we choose not to use the former and my wife and I barely imbibe the other very infrequently. There is your personal liberty, personal morality, and personal choice. BTW, I do support the right for government buildings and restaurants, libraries, stores, etc. to ban these things...second-hand smoke is NOT a choice for those who are breathing it and harmed by it. Do what you want in your home. For those who would talk about driving/working under the influence of drugs: There are laws and there should be very stiff penalties for that. This still does not obviate the right to ingest substances on your land/in your home.

Of course these ideas will never fly here, not in small part due to the the huge business that is the American Prison Industry. I've said this before here and I'll say it again: The US Government obtains many things from prison (slave) labor...office furniture (UNICOR, formerly Federal Prison Industries, with each desk having a slip of paper that is the 'Escape-Proof Guarantee), military uniforms, and much more. I would speculate that there are plenty of bribes being paid out to government officials in various 'law enforcement' and 'Dept of Justice' and legislative bodies to keep the co-dependent drug cartel BAU system rolling right along unhindered.

The little old ladies and other moralizers are supporting a paradigm that is rotting us from the inside out. If you can't stop people from doing it, legalize it, tax it, and educate against it.

What is truly sickening is seeing how the drug lord/drug trade has been and still is glorified in many American movies and TV shows. Another industry that would suffer if the current paradigm is broken. How many movies could be made about someone buying weed from Wal Mart?

Rant Off/

In a related question, does anyone know what happens to the demand for narcotics when the economy tanks? On the one hand people don't have as much money to spend, so you might think it would go down. On the other hand lots of people are stressed and depressed, and that would suggest that demand might go up.

I agree completely.

But Mexico already tried to legalize some drugs. And guess who raised such a fuss that then president Vicente Fox vetoed it?

That's right, Mexico's benighted and uncaring neighbor to the north:

Mexican legal drug proposal rejected

Fox vetoes bill amid growing U.S. criticism

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/mexico/20060504-9999-1n4fox.html

It's obvious alright - to those of us in touch with reality. Our fearless leaders, on the other hand truly believe (or, at least must claim to believe if they want to qualify for elected office) that tracking down, arresting, processing, convicting and jailing people for possession or use of various forbidden shrubbery is not only acceptable but vital for a healthy and moral community. These people are delusional. And if we continue to let these nutters run the show we're just as bad.

Prohibition is a de-facto government subsidy to organized crime. The only way to take these gangs down, whether they're in Mexico, Columbia or the streets of Vancouver, is to remove the black market that funds them. This can not be done by force. When you take down a big dealer or network, supply is removed and demand holds - prices rise, and this funds a gang war between the half-dozen or so smaller entities underneath them to determine who gets to fill in the gap left in the black market. The bigger the gap, the more prices rise, and the more incentive to fight over it. In other words, these PR-friendly crackdowns always lead to nothing more than increased body count and a re-organization of the black market with the most aggressive and violent elements tending to prevail.

The utterly transparent fiction that drug laws have anything to do with public health is made a complete mockery by the medical and social effects of the two currently legal recreational drugs - Alcohol and Tobacco. Anyone who tries to tell you drugs are illegal because they're bad for you is either massively misinformed(most of the public) or lying to you(cops – see below).

The biggest impediment to drug law reform is law enforcement itself, since next to organized crime, they are the group with the most to lose should prohibition end. Drug enforcement is a huge component of police budgets, and no self-respecting police chief is going to kiss that amount of his budget goodbye without a fight. Not every cop is on board with the prohibitionist fiction, and there are voices in the darkness (http://www.leap.cc), but the ones high up the police ranks (and their overlords in the US DEA especially)know the true stakes and are staunchly supportive of further crackdowns and rabidly against any liberalization of drug laws in order to safeguard the interests of the law enforcement community. Needless to say, when you find that the cops and the gangsters are on the same side of a political issue, it's a red flag that something very rotten is going on.

Legalize it!