Post
Topic
Board Politics & Society
Re: ISIS impregnates 9-year-old girl
by
Spendulus
on 15/05/2015, 22:39:05 UTC
...
For sure your four border states are not going to vote weed legal, because of the horrific power it'd give the Mexican cartels to move right into the USA.  But all power to DC, Colorado, etc...

Can I question that? It seems to me that if one of those states legalized pot, the primary loser would be the Mexican cartels. The illegal status of MJ is essential for their survival. If I were a drug lord I would donate millions to any candidate that will fight to keep MJ illegal. It would be a disaster if people could grow their own.

Okay, let me translate that.  Lower PRICES for weed would be a proportional loss for the cartels.

But aren't we seeing, not lower but higher prices?  That's what I read at least about legal weed in Colorado. 

And believe me, you do not want these cartel gangsters positioning themselves at the borders of say, Texas and Arizona....this has nothing to do with weed being legal or illegal.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexican_Drug_War

By the end of Felipe Calderón's administration (2006–12), the official death toll of the Mexican Drug War was at least 60,000.[79] Estimates set the death toll above 120,000 killed by 2013, not including 27,000 missing.[80][81]


No, there is near universal agreement that the black market is what elevates price. It was true with alcohol prohibition and it's the same with drugs. The illegality makes it profitable for those who are willing to take the risk, or have the firepower to be untouchable.

It is not the illegality, but the level of enforcement of those laws which creates high prices.

For example I once say a whole row of tables - maybe 25 - right across the street from the courthouse in Capestown, S Africa.  I asked one of the guys selling weed - "Dakka" was it legal.  He laughed and said "Oh, no, man.  But the police are busy with important things like murder and rape.  They don't care."

This would not have been a case where the "fact of illegality" affected price.  Or maybe just to the degree that some payoffs were involved.