I agree with CPD SIG’s post above. My local gunshop is, no joke and not an exaggeration, physically and literally right next door to one of the legal pot shops here in WA. I don’t know how the zoning allowed that to happen, but they’re in a strip mall, guns and weed seperated by a wall. I spent a lot of time at the gunshop this last year in anticipation of some really bad laws going into effect and got to watch some of the steady stream of the clientele at the pot shop. All ages, all types and walks of people in a steady stream. Most of them, I wouldn’t figure for the type to cruise around a shitty neighborhood looking for Pookie. And yet, Pookie’s grade of clientele doesn’t seem to come into my little town all that often.

So yeah, it can absolutely be, and probably honestly is both.

We've had this discussion plenty of times, legal weed isn't going to supplant illegal weed for a lot of reasons, cost, location, nobody is going to setup a weed shop in the hood because they want to sell $400 worth of pot not $10 and the customers they want aren't the same.

Pookie be selling on the corner no matter what.
Underage kids will still buy from Pookie,
people that don't want to be on the radar will buy from Pookie.

It opens up a gateway to grow pot in states with legal grow for the cartels, they can grow pot and eliminate the need to mule it over the border no losses from captured shipments.

quote:

Originally posted by Aglifter:
and we’d need to offer a way for the cartels to legitimize their money... Maybe... We did that in Prohibition, but not sure how that worked out.

Just like it was done with Prohibition: legalize it.

I dislike the "just legalize drugs and everything will be OK" argument. People willing to massacre women and children, as a cartel did recently in Mexico, aren't going to suddenly "go straight." Legalization involves taxing and regulation. Their smuggling to avoid them will continue unabated.

I’m just glad I don’t have to go into the “hood” for my weed anyway. I’ve never done that actually and don’t know anyone who has. Everyone had a guy around these parts who grew it himself or just had a shit ton of it somehow.

I haven’t spoken to that guy in a long time. Guessing he’s outta business lol.

Medical is waaaay better and the expense is worth it, you get your money’s worth with the good stuff and the same amount lasts much longer.

quote:

Originally posted by egregore:
I dislike the "just legalize drugs and everything will be OK" argument. People willing to massacre women and children, as a cartel did recently in Mexico, aren't going to suddenly "go straight." Legalization involves taxing and regulation. Their smuggling to avoid them will continue unabated.

What smuggling? How much alcohol is smuggled to avoid taxes? Probably not much.

The cartels would be stripped of their most important asset: their source of money.

Did not Black Jack Pershing pay Mexican Bandits a visit a tad over 100 years ago with the gang in Green and their Springfield's / M1911's? Some fool named Pancho was a tad out of control and needed to be Panchoed.

Perhaps it is past time for the event to be repeated?

quote:

Originally posted by Kampfhamster:

quote:

Originally posted by egregore:
I dislike the "just legalize drugs and everything will be OK" argument. People willing to massacre women and children, as a cartel did recently in Mexico, aren't going to suddenly "go straight." Legalization involves taxing and regulation. Their smuggling to avoid them will continue unabated.

What smuggling? How much alcohol is smuggled to avoid taxes? Probably not much.

The cartels would be stripped of their most important asset: their source of money.

No, the cartels will continue with business as usual; how will legalization stop them from continuing smuggling dope in? How would it stop them from continuing to operate illegal grows in the US? Simply, it won’t. The only option that will work is to go full nuclear on their asses. Destroy them where they live. Eradicate them like cockroaches. Every operation we discover, burn to the ground with every warm body running it. Stop trying to bring them to justice and serve them up justice on the spot. This is war.

Yes, a war of slow incremental evil. Many narcos supplicate 'Sante Muerte'. Eradicate the cartels and users on a mass scale.

I think Prohibition comparison is a false flag.

When booze was illegal, you didn't have black market users breaking into cars and houses to feed going to the Speak Easy. Users weren't murdering one another over a pint. Nor were they committing robberies.

All of the crime was at the top end, not the users. With drugs, it is pretty much reversed.

My thoughts on it anyways.

quote:

Originally posted by Kampfhamster:

quote:

Originally posted by egregore:
I dislike the "just legalize drugs and everything will be OK" argument. People willing to massacre women and children, as a cartel did recently in Mexico, aren't going to suddenly "go straight." Legalization involves taxing and regulation. Their smuggling to avoid them will continue unabated.

What smuggling? How much alcohol is smuggled to avoid taxes? Probably not much.

The cartels would be stripped of their most important asset: their source of money.

Then to accomplish this, you will have to give out free dope here. That is the only way your premise works.

The other aspect of prohibition is a matter of cost, and scale.

Its hard to make good bourbon/scotch/most liquor without a significant investment in equipment and buildings - which makes them easy to find.

And, poorly made stuff is toxic - which keeps people a bit spooked off from buying black market liquor.

No familiarity with pot, but as it is related to a cordage crop, which was a pain to keep out of fields, I suspect its pretty simple to just grow like most any other plant.

The criminal nature of the addicts, might be whether they are hooked on depressants or stimulants. Stimulants seem to cause violent action to feed it.

Drunks can certainly be violent, but I don't think they go on rampages to feed their addictions. Nor do, I think, heroin/weed addicts. They might get violent, because they've lost their inhibitions - and need to be destroyed/confined like any other hairless ape - but I don't think they can actually engender anger.

An acquaintance is a doctor who works on addiction stuff. I'll ask him the next time I bump into him.

quote:

Originally posted by jljones:
Then to accomplish this, you will have to give out free dope here. That is the only way your premise works.

See, that's not an impossible idea. Let people grow their own weed at home, and distribute free fentanyl, as its so cheap, that could be done, especially if some kind of liability shield was offered.

Say you do it in a Slab city, or some desert/swamps/other wasteland, you could probably attract every derelict POS going.

The desert might be best. Easy to keep them from wandering out, and preying on folks/easier to control disease/fecal contamination. Let the charities go do whatever they feel a need to do, but otherwise let the animals roam around as they wish.

If free dope/food/space doesn't get them to leave, then people might be more inclined to recognize them as the predators so many of the street people are, and be more supportive of control efforts.

Could be pretty easily funded by tax credits, if the Feds would surrender some desert, and agree to be responsible for buying/distributing the dope, to shield the manufacturers from liability.

However, it would mean letting addicts die. They will want to push their limits of dope, and to keep them there, large amounts, and high potency, dope would have to be available.

quote:

Originally posted by Aglifter:

quote:

Originally posted by jljones:
Then to accomplish this, you will have to give out free dope here. That is the only way your premise works.

See, that's not an impossible idea. Let people grow their own weed at home, and distribute free fentanyl, as its so cheap, that could be done, especially if some kind of liability shield was offered.

Say you do it in a Slab city, or some desert/swamps/other wasteland, you could probably attract every derelict POS going.

The desert might be best. Easy to keep them from wandering out, and preying on folks/easier to control disease/fecal contamination. Let the charities go do whatever they feel a need to do, but otherwise let the animals roam around as they wish.

If free dope/food/space doesn't get them to leave, then people might be more inclined to recognize them as the predators so many of the street people are, and be more supportive of control efforts.

Could be pretty easily funded by tax credits, if the Feds would surrender some desert, and agree to be responsible for buying/distributing the dope, to shield the manufacturers from liability.

However, it would mean letting addicts die. They will want to push their limits of dope, and to keep them there, large amounts, and high potency, dope would have to be available.

What's that saying?
"There's no such thing as a free meal"

I sure as hell don't want my tax dollars going towards the production of heroin, cocaine, meth, MDMA.... I'm comfortable in saying a lot of others don't want that either.

Weed is one thing, but the rest of that shit? Uuuhhhh, hell no. Even Weed... Most people will say "Sure, legalize it, but I don't want my tax dollars paying for it!"

Now, on the other side of the that coin-
It's a MULTI BILLION DOLLAR BUSINESS.
MULTI
BILLION
DOLLARS

Think about that for a few.

If you have a multi billion dollar business, are you just going to freely give it up?
It's not like the Cartels, distributors, gangs, and people involved play by the rules to begin with. How many Judges, Politicians, Police (et al) have been payed off, muscled, tortured, killed... Killing some random Judge, Senator/Congressman that's going to vote against their way is NOTHING to them. (And location don't matter: South America, Central America, North America- and right in your State Capital) They already do things to protect their business, all of a sudden you expect them to give it up "for the sake of humanity"?

Your talking about messing with the money of people that have no complaints about blowing up a commercial airplane just to take out one person (a politician).


The theory of your drug infused desert utopia would work, but the road to get you there won't.

quote:

Originally posted by Kampfhamster:

How much alcohol is smuggled to avoid taxes? Probably not much.

Maybe not much alcohol, but look at another commodity that is legal, but highly taxed.

Cigarettes. There is major money in smuggling cigarettes from low tax states to high tax states.

There's a big cost in smuggling, but the premium people will pay for the goods they can't get legally is much more. If the goods are available legally and cheaply, there would be no premium to be had, and it isn't worth smuggling the goods.

Of course if the goods are legalized, but are quantity constrained by regulation and heavily taxed (think pot in CO), that would leave a margin that might be enough for the smugglers to make money. I'm interested to see how much illegal pot is being sold in Oregon. OR regulates it's legal pot market much less than CO, and the supply of legal pot is greater relative to demand, leading to lower prices.

quote:

Originally posted by gearhounds:

quote:

Originally posted by Kampfhamster:

quote:

Originally posted by egregore:
I dislike the "just legalize drugs and everything will be OK" argument. People willing to massacre women and children, as a cartel did recently in Mexico, aren't going to suddenly "go straight." Legalization involves taxing and regulation. Their smuggling to avoid them will continue unabated.

What smuggling? How much alcohol is smuggled to avoid taxes? Probably not much.

The cartels would be stripped of their most important asset: their source of money.

No, the cartels will continue with business as usual; how will legalization stop them from continuing smuggling dope in? How would it stop them from continuing to operate illegal grows in the US? Simply, it won’t. The only option that will work is to go full nuclear on their asses. Destroy them where they live. Eradicate them like cockroaches. Every operation we discover, burn to the ground with every warm body running it. Stop trying to bring them to justice and serve them up justice on the spot. This is war.

quote:

There's a big cost in smuggling, but the premium people will pay for the goods they can't get legally is much more. If the goods are available legally and cheaply, there would be no premium to be had, and it isn't worth smuggling the goods.

Of course if the goods are legalized, but are quantity constrained by regulation and heavily taxed (think pot in CO), that would leave a margin that might be enough for the smugglers to make money. I'm interested to see how much illegal pot is being sold in Oregon. OR regulates it's legal pot market much less than CO, and the supply of legal pot is greater relative to demand, leading to lower prices.

I have a friend in the anti-drug biz. Large illegal grows continue unabated, and in states that have legalized for recreational use. This tells me that there is still a thriving market for weed outside of the regulated system.

Then we have coke, heroin, meth, fentanyl, pills of every variety, etc. Things that will never be legalized (if they do, it will be the end of the country) despite misguided beliefs that said legalization would somehow be a good thing. No, seeking these killers out wherever they are to be found and eradicating them is the only way to deal with them. And if Mexico isn’t all in 110%, it will never happen without us saying “Ok, we’ll handle it and fuck sovereignty”.

quote:

Originally posted by gearhounds:

quote:

There's a big cost in smuggling, but the premium people will pay for the goods they can't get legally is much more. If the goods are available legally and cheaply, there would be no premium to be had, and it isn't worth smuggling the goods.

Of course if the goods are legalized, but are quantity constrained by regulation and heavily taxed (think pot in CO), that would leave a margin that might be enough for the smugglers to make money. I'm interested to see how much illegal pot is being sold in Oregon. OR regulates it's legal pot market much less than CO, and the supply of legal pot is greater relative to demand, leading to lower prices.

I have a friend in the anti-drug biz. Large illegal grows continue unabated, and in states that have legalized for recreational use. This tells me that there is still a thriving market for weed outside of the regulated system.

Then we have coke, heroin, meth, fentanyl, pills of every variety, etc. Things that will never be legalized (if they do, it will be the end of the country) despite misguided beliefs that said legalization would somehow be a good thing. No, seeking these killers out wherever they are to be found and eradicating them is the only way to deal with them. And if Mexico isn’t all in 110%, it will never happen without us saying “Ok, we’ll handle it and fuck sovereignty”.

I agree.

The problem is two-fold

1. The demand of the drugs is so high that makes them so profitable that someone will always fill the vacancy of a trafficker taken out of the game.

2. We upset the balance of power in Mexican cartels by taking Chapo out of the gang. Now there are so many cartels popping up with nobody keeping them in check combined with each cartel fighting each other for more territory or power. They're all smuggling whatever illicit drug they can make big money on. And, combined with the fact that the Mexican government has become so corrupt in the past 10 years, or too weak to fight them, it's become a complete free for all for the traffickers.

Cartels have partially moved on to people smuggling. There will always be something to supply. And our Politicians are most likely part of it. I would be surprised to see any effective action against Cartels

quote:

Originally posted by icom706:
Did not Black Jack Pershing pay Mexican Bandits a visit a tad over 100 years ago with the gang in Green and their Springfield's / M1911's? Some fool named Pancho was a tad out of control and needed to be Panchoed.

Perhaps it is past time for the event to be repeated?

I would agree but nowadays if we bomb it we rebuild it...fuck that