The effect of legalization on the drug cartels

The illegal competition in Mexico would increase unless imports were banned from non compliant countries. Any illegal trade would be wiped out. We would be locked in with the strains we have.
Just random thoughts, trying to see the whole picture.

Locked in with the strains we have? How do ya figure?

Also, your first two sentences completely contradict one another. The illegal trade cannot be wiped out, yet also increase in Mexico at the same time.

I think legalization here in the US would have little effect on the cartels in the long run. They'd simply find another market for their drugs, or gouge prices in order to keep the black market viable and competitive with the legal market. If cannabis were regulated and age restricted, we like to think that would keep it out of the hands of kids... but if a demand still exists, then someone is going to take up the underage share of the market. Who will it be? Well, either the cartels or someone working on their behalf, no doubt.

The real problem is that we've let prohibition go on for far too long, and the cartels have too much power for decriminalization or legalization to have any kind of profound effects on them. Besides, even if cannabis were LEGAL it still has to come from somewhere. Making it legal or removing criminal penalties doesn't address the fact that when there is a demand for a product there must be a supply. And who controls the supply? That's right, the cartels. So now we'd have legal pot, still being supplied by these criminal groups.

In order to truly take the power away from them, we'd have to create our own supply.

In order to truly take the power away from them, we'd have to create our own supply.

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which would limit bringing in new strains, locking us in to what we have.
As I said "random thoughts". I wasn't sure what I was talking about. Good reply however. It is another issue to be addressed.

i think he was saying that it would no longer be illegal to import it from mexico and other such places. who know what kind of restrictions might be in place but what you are saying is that we should only have budlight and coors now that booze is legal.

If it was illegal in Mexico, it would still be illegal to import it. Enforcement would be concentrated at the borders. It would be harder to get seeds from other countries as a result.

doobnVA said:

Also, your first two sentences completely contradict one another. The illegal trade cannot be wiped out, yet also increase in Mexico at the same time.

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I think he's saying the competition over what's left of the illegal market would increase, not overall trade volume.

If that's the case I legalizing it will cause a temporary spike in drug cartel/gang violence even though it would decrease the power of drug cartels in the long run.

doobnVA said:

I think legalization here in the US would have little effect on the cartels in the long run. They'd simply find another market for their drugs, or gouge prices in order to keep the black market viable and competitive with the legal market.

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I'm not so sure about that. The US marijuana market is pretty big and where else are they going to sell it? Europe? That's a lot of expenses for exporting some bammer across an ocean.

The problem with competing with the legal market is that if you could produce higher quality bud cheaper. Some cartel doing a guerrilla grows in a national park isn't going to be able to compete quality/yield wise with a grow on farm land or in warehouses where the grower has increased control over environmental conditions. And they'll still be taking losses due raids.

doobnVA said:

If cannabis were regulated and age restricted, we like to think that would keep it out of the hands of kids... but if a demand still exists, then someone is going to take up the underage share of the market. Who will it be? Well, either the cartels or someone working on their behalf, no doubt.

The real problem is that we've let prohibition go on for far too long, and the cartels have too much power for decriminalization or legalization to have any kind of profound effects on them. Besides, even if cannabis were LEGAL it still has to come from somewhere. Making it legal or removing criminal penalties doesn't address the fact that when there is a demand for a product there must be a supply. And who controls the supply? That's right, the cartels. So now we'd have legal pot, still being supplied by these criminal groups.

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Probably at first that is true. In the long run I don't think that will hold up. Kids don't get beer from Al Capone types still. Eventually the mafia lost control over the liquor market almost entirely. Legalizing marijuana isn't that different.

The cartels aren't going anywhere. They'll just try and put out more meth/coke/etc. But this will weaken them.

h.h. said:

If it was illegal in Mexico, it would still be illegal to import it. Enforcement would be concentrated at the borders. It would be harder to get seeds from other countries as a result.

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I think if it were legal, it would be *easier* to get seeds, not just from other countries, but from here. If it were legal, then having seeds shipped in wouldn't be as much of a hassle, plus we could grow and engineer our own strains more easily.

Anyway, as long as the Single Convention treaty is in effect we won't see outright legalization so the point is moot. What we'd likely see is decriminalization of possession of small amounts for personal use, but probably not the ability to grow our own supply. That would mean we'd be able to use cannabis without worrying about being arrested, but we'd still have to buy from the black market. Kinda the way most states' medical marijuana laws work now. They're protected from arrest (for the most part) if caught in possession, but they can't grow their own and there aren't any legitimate medical dispensaries to buy from, so their "medicine" comes from the black market instead.