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They might be only able to do those other things since they are able to pay an army to terrorize, intimidate and bribe local and state government's into allowing them to exist and set up these protection racquets. It takes a lot of money to be able to be more powerful then a government, I don't think selling avocados or logging could generate that much

Neither of these things will be affected by someone quitting drugs. Stop building houses and stop eating avocado now.

"The cartels won't be affected if their major source of income gets cut off."

Yes, sure, they've diversified. But those legal operations aren't their largest sources od income, not enough to sustain their current operations if it was just the legal ones. Most of the legal ones are used to clean some of the income from drugs.

And besides, I'm pretty sure the cartels are doing this for the money. Sure, it's not all it's about, but I'm sure it's the largest motivator. If drugs we're legal and the easiest ways for the cartels to keep in business was to do it legitimately, and they were actually allowed to, they could use the legal systems to actually enforce deals and debts, so the enforcement methods they use now would be obsolete and even counterproductive to profits.

People won't stop using drugs. Just like they didn't stop drinking during prohibition. But we can take the trade away from the gangsters and put it in legal markets and regulate the product and business to make it safer for users.

Are you telling me they're doing the same shit as our actual government now? We may as well consider them a country at this rate.

It wouldn't end them ENTIRELY, as there were ruthless organizations before drugs, too. What it would do is make it much less profitable. Meaning less to kill someone over.

Little effect in what regard?

Portugal set the standard years ago. Legalize it and divert all the money that would go to incarceration to inpatient and outpatient rehabilitation for drug addiction.

I think legalizing weed didn't make that much of a difference because the whole claim that buying random weed from a random dealer put money in cartel or terrorist pockets was a lie.

Not that there weren't any large weed organizations, they just weren't murdering people at the scale the cartels are or doing it to fund violence.

They'd also rely a lot on temporary workers since trimming was really the only labour intensive step, and then it would be sent out into a distribution network that wasn't so much an organization as it was a collection of independent or small scale distributors. Which in some locations might have been gangs, but I'd guess was mostly normal people looking to make some extra money.

We don’t need to legalize. If we decriminalized, then took the money for jailing and funded mandatory treatment, we could do what Portugal did in the early 00’s.

I am sure. Legalize all of it. Legalize it, regulate it, tax it, use half of the new income for prevention and education, one quarter for medical support for addicts and the rest fills the coffers. You take away the power from the criminal gangs, while at the same time increasing your tax revenue, adding new legal avenues of business and minimizing the health impact considerably.

Dammit it happened again. Honey, prepare my resignation speech again

Mexico is a large country. There are perfectly safe parts and dangerous parts.

I go to CDMX all the time. You stay in the whitey neighborhoods it is one of the best cities on earth. I've never felt in danger even like I have in Tulum or Cancun on occasion (and usually by police)

Turns out they are diversified and are in a whole lot of industries now. Like the Italian mob and olive oil.