In other words, high drug prices give money to gangs. Also, some drugs inherently encourage large gangs - stuff like heroin and cocaine has offshore production, which requires complicated supply chains with large (and therefore violent) gangs. As deplorable as meth cookers are, their small scale and low margins mean they only cause limited damage. Since they work alone, they don't need to shoot disloyal gang members, and they are too small to have real turf wars. And they compete against each other, cutting each others margins, so they don't have the money to hire mercenaries, and it's just not worth getting shot in a gangwar to hold their turf.
I don't like the effect meth seems to have on users though. It would be much better (IMO) to legalise some less damaging drugs. That's the best of both worlds - cheap drugs (so no money goes to gangs, and addicts don't need to steal as much to pay for them), and safer drugs.
(The gist is that large labs tend to spring up whenever they find a bulk source for either chemical and then go away when that bulk source is eliminated)
The most interesting point in this article (for me) was the argument that disruptive market pressure from methamphetamine (in particular, low barrier to entry on the production side) didn't just show "War on Drugs" activity to be ineffective; it showed it to be orthogonal to meaningful consequences.
Production by cartels outpacing interdiction by law enforcement isn't nearly as convincing as an argument for ending WoD activity. On the contrary, it's something that WoD hawks can point to and say "See? We need more [crazy expensive/attractive-nuisance-for-thugs resource X]!"
Modest proposal: The U.S. needs a Manhattan Project for weed/coke/heroin poppy production. Legality of demand isn't required; production just needs to completely undercut the market value of weed/heroin currently imported to the U.S. (or exported from Afghanistan, for example).
Cops don't just get fired when crime goes down. The number of police employed is pretty flexible, you can keep them on if you want. There are plenty of good uses for police.
Solution: anyone who is going to lose their job because of the end of the war on drugs just continues to receive their current salary until their Social Security retirement age, regardless of whether they take a new job or just stop working. It's the only way you'll get buy in from the lower levels of the prison-industrial complex, and ultimately cheaper than continuing what we have now.
I don't agree. What you propose would stop the growth of the industry; who in the industry would agree to this, except the very lowest bottom-of-the-barrel employees, like the night-time guards?
Well, except for the part where calculating income is still as difficult as it was. Somehow, I don't think the piecewise linear function that is progressive taxation is the cause of the difficult parts of the tax code.
It's going to take a lot of LEOs to guard the Manhattan Project weed/coke/heroin territories we instantiate in states that begin with the letter 'I' or 'N'.
"Territories we instantiate in states"? What are you talking about?
What is with the first person plural? The only way "we" are doing this is at a national level. On the other hand individual states could decide for themselves (assuming they can get around federal jurisdiction) but they would certainly not have it done to them.
I can never tell if people are using "modest proposal" the way it's supposed to be used (highly sarcastic) or the way they think it's supposed to be used ("in my humble opinion"-esque): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Modest_Proposal
> Modest proposal: The U.S. needs a Manhattan Project for weed/coke/heroin poppy production. Legality of demand isn't required; production just needs to completely undercut the market value of weed/heroin currently imported to the U.S. (or exported from Afghanistan, for example).
> Beats subsidizing corn for ethanol, at least.
I'm a bit confused by this. Are you suggesting the US produce "weed/coke/heroin poppy" to undercut the cartels? And somehow distribute the manufactured product to users? I've got no problem agreeing with your ethanol joke... but just to be sure, you think the US should produce and distribute drugs, including heroin and cocaine, which are highly, highly addictive?
The US already does produce and distribute illegal drugs. They just do it in secret. If you think I'm crazy, just search for: CIA Cocaine. They've actually been caught red-handed a few times.
Interesting that the report only mentions incarceration rates at the end, but doesn't seem to give any credence to the idea that 'permanently' locking everyone up reduces crime.
The incarceration rate in the US is unbelieveably high, and started exploding in the late 80s. Increasing the incarcerated population fivefold isn't considered to have had a causal effect on the decrease in crime across the board? Come on, pull the other one.
My personal sympathies lie with ending the WoD and lowering the incarceration rate. However, I think a nearly fivefold increase in the rate of incarceration probably has something to do with declining crime as well.
Does anyone have any solid evidence that the jump in incarceration was not the driver of the decline in crime?
Maybe the Levitt paper addresses this. I'll check it out.
I don't buy that raising the incarceration rate leads to lowered crime unless you're putting people away for life. Seems more likely to create a larger number of people on the street with few job skills and a criminal record. Prison is where people who dabble in criminality become criminals for life.
Now, the idea that the drugs involved in the drug glut that brought on the peak in crime have been forced to lower prices without lowering risk - that seems plausible. Venkatesh's books showed us how little foot soldiers were making when the prices were twice what they are now.
The article Levitt's article. I want to note that in that paper Levitt found that the increase in the incarceration rate was a the biggest driver of the decline in crime:
>>As a counter-example, drug use in Mexico is relatively low, approximately 2 percent, whereas in America it hovers around 8 percent. Yet, violence there is at an all-time high. The market and the crime surrounding the trade might have crashed in the U.S., but the death toll has only increased South of the border ever since that region inherited the title of lead cocaine importer. Currently valued at over $3 billion annually, the Mexican cocaine market shows no signs of subsiding, and as long as such a high-valued market exists, violence will most likely follow.
<<
What about the increase in corruption in Mexico? An increase in corruption means more criminals can have drug businesses without being stopped by the cops.
So, when more drug businesses pop-up, there will be less of a monopoly on the supply and the cost will go down over time. It's the same as any normal business.
Even if we legalized all drugs tomorrow, it won't stop the violence. If the Mexican police were actually doing their job, the criminals wouldn't be running the show.
We have criminal gangs in the US and the police here don't have to worry about that. It's mostly because of our justice system and the fact that you can't buy off any cop with some cash.
There are a lot of factors that have gone into this, including but not limited to:
1) "American sized" amounts of money being dumped into a "Mexico sized" economy.
2) (related to the above) The increased utility of any bribe to somebody living in Mexico. (we see this phenomenon in developing nations across the world^).
3) Comparative resources available to the police forces.
4) Pressure from the US to overextend the Mexican police force.
etc.
To boil this all down to "the police aren't doing their jobs" is a huge mistake.
EDIT: ^Apologies, it seems Mexico is now considered a "newly industrialized nation", as of 2011. I don't think this effects my point however.
You can buy off US cop's with cash or threats of violence etc. The solution in the US has been the state cops and the FBI, which rotates people around enough so bribing them is less useful. Now add in an internal affairs office with some real teeth. Which creates a structure where bribed local cops tend to only ignore a subset of crimes.
In other words have overlapping independent organizations all investigating each other and add in people that don't stay in an area long enough to be bribed safely.
The same way the US got to the level where it decided to abolish alcohol prohibition.
This story is not new, just now politicians have a harder time admitting they did something wrong, and the prison (workers) lobby and the DEA will do all they can to continue.
"2) (related to the above) The increased tility of any brbe to somebody living in Mexico. (we see this phenomenon in developing nations across the world)."
Which is what I said. The reason the US isn't third-world is because most cops don't accept bribes. This sort of behavior infects society as a whole.
"3) Comparative resources available to the police forces."
Why are they out of resources? We need to figure things out if we ever want to stop it.
"4) Pressure from the US to overextend the Mexican police force."
It's because the violence and crime is spilling over to the US side of things. If they were stopping these guys, I don't think we would need to overextend anything. Does the US over-extend Canada's police force?
"To boil this all down to "the police aren't doing their jobs" is a huge mistake."
The police aren't doing their job because of a systematic problem of corruption. So I suppose it's just a symptom of a greater problem, but it still doesn't change the fact that there is a huge corruption problem with the Mexican police.
"Which is what I said. The reason the US isn't third-world is because most cops don't accept bribes."
No. You said this: "The police aren't doing their job", which is what I particularly object to. They are doing it as well as anybody could reasonably be expected to.
And before you object to that 'reasonable' qualification, ponder the following: Somebody comes up to you and offers you enough money to pay off a good deal of your debt. But they don't stop there, they give you a choice! You can either accept this money, and go about your business, or you can decline this money, they will cut off your head, rape your wife, then cut off her's too.
Whatever you think you might do here, you cannot reasonably expect people to turn down the bribe.
"Why are they out of resources?"
Well that is really quite simple. Look up the amount of money the US spends on their "enforcement" and the answer should become clear.
"It's because the violence and crime is spilling over to the US side of things."
Look up the history of drug laws sometime. The laws predate the violence.
> There is a reason the police are the ones wearing ski masks down there:
And there's a different reason why SWAT-cops in the US wear masks. The last time I pointed that out, someone mentioned that UK cops also wear masks at times.
Is there any place where the cops never wear masks?
As I understand it, regular beat cops sometimes wear masks in Mexico, which doesn't happen in safer countries, not just special operations. In my brief visit to mexico (an afternoon in Nogales, pretty safe) I didn't notice any cops, but I did see trucks with soldiers in them, probably a third of whom had masks on.
I think the issue is more around the regularity with which authoroties have to conceal their identity.
I'm shocked at the number of closed-minded members of the HN community. If the answer to the violence in Mexico isn't: "let's legalize all drugs!", I get down voted.
I wasn't a troll and explained my points, yet nobody wants to listen. It's sad. It's becoming more and more difficult to fight this mentality.
I thought this was a community of intelligent people, yet I'm beginning to realize that this just isn't the case anymore.
Your third paragraph doesn't follow from the first two paragraphs. The first two paragraphs make the interesting conjecture that increased police corruption in Mexico lowers drug prices in the US. This is something potentially worth discussing.
The third paragraph asserts that legalizing drugs won't stop the violence, and that Mexican police aren't "doing their job." The first point contradicts the original article, and thus requires supporting evidence (e.g. quotations from the original article, followed by references to contradictory studies). The second point is simply unnecessarily accusatory, and is ignorant of the reality expressed by burgerbrain (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3228850).
Meta: you've commented (and I've responded) in this pattern before. You start with something that will be perceived as inflammatory by the typical HN crowd (e.g. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3172594), then follow up with a complaint about the votes you receive or the changing HN culture (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3172744). Maybe you're not trolling on purpose, but it sure looks like it.
As I said before (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3173159), you'd do a better job of conveying your message and be less likely to start a flame war if you restructured your arguments to be more appropriate to the audience -- present evidence, apply logical analysis, and draw a logical conclusion. State your assumptions (e.g. in this case if you believe that absolute societal order is more important than individual freedom, state up front that your argument depends on that). Most importantly, if you want others to change their minds, be willing to change yours if the argument goes the other way.
FWIW, I don't think you're right, but that your point presents a reasonable argument, and thus shouldn't be downvoted.
As to the police doing their jobs, you have to keep in mind that the drug organizations in Mexico columbia are heavily armed, more so than the local police. The Zetas for example, rose to power after being founded by Mexican special forces, a group analagous to our Green Berets. When you combine this strong knowledge of tactical warfare with a callous ruthlessness, they're not so easy to just shut down.
They are also very well financed. The drug gangs in the U.S are a joke compared to Mexico. They can't even be put in the same league. Drug gangs in the U.S. are like retail corner shops. Drug organizations in Mexico are like Walmarts, supplying these corner shops.
So in effect you have drug organizations which are more powerful than in the U.S. and a law enforcement system which is weaker than the U.S. Law enforcement couldn't easily stamp out these organizations (without HEAVY loss of life) even if corruption weren't an issue.
Troll or not, I think your post is being downvoted, at least in part, because of the gaping logical chasm you constructed. It may help if you explain exactly how falling cocaine prices would increase corruption in Mexico.
"If the Mexican police were actually doing their job, the criminals wouldn't be running the show."
This suggests a very simplistic understanding of the issues surrounding Mexican police. You're just mindlessly finger-pointing and didn't even hint at ways the Mexican police could counter some of the obstacles they face.
I hate the downmod system here as well - entirely anonymous and trivially easy to reduce someone else's comment - but I can see why your comment might have been downmodded.
>What about the increase in corruption in Mexico? An increase in corruption means more criminals can have drug businesses without being stopped by the cops.
The article isn't about why prices went down, it's about why violence went down. If corruption leads to lower prices and less violence, corruption is a good thing.
It would stop a significant amount of the violence as explained by the fucking article.
It is impossible to police drugs. Drugs even get into US max security prisons. The most fucking locked down place on Earth. If you can't eradicate it there how do you plan on eradicating it outside?
"It would stop a significant amount of the violence as explained by the fucking article."
I'm sorry, I read the article and I disagree. I'm merely giving a different view and you have to get all angry about it. You should use more logic and less emotion when dealing with issues like this.
"The most fucking locked down place on Earth. If you can't eradicate it there how do you plan on eradicating it outside?"
I never said anything about eradicating it. I'm saying that the decrease in Cocaine prices might have to do with the increase in the corruption of Mexican officials.
Not all views are equal. Just because creationism is an alternative view doesn't mean it should be given the same weight as evolution.
Views are comprised of smaller discrete points which can be objectively measured. I think some people have dissected your arguments and determined that added up it comes up short when compared to the other view.
I thought the drop in crime rates coincides with the advent of video games. More teenagers spending time on the consoles and less time shooting each other.
I remember writing a report on the failure of the war on drugs...and this was 13 some years ago when I was in junior high. Sad to see drug policies still haven't changed much since then.
Prison guard unions would be one. The War on Drugs is a major contributor to the sad statistic that the US has more prisoners than any other country on the planet (not per capita, more prisoners, period). That means good business for prison guards, and the prison guard union wields a disproportionate amount of power, at least in California.
One possibility: big financial institutions. Michael Rupert has done a lot of work in this area. IIRC, the illicit drug trade is the world's largest commodity market -- bigger than oil. That money has to go somewhere, and wherever it goes it is bound to be massively influential. Rupert argues that the links to big financial institutions are often quite clear, and he backs up his arguments with fairly prodigious research.
Aside from the prison/leo system mentioned below, Drug cartels have a vested interest in the continued war on drugs. There is no way they could reap the profits they currently get in any other way.
The Correctional Peace Officer union is the second strongest/most powerful union in California (behind California Teachers Association). Privatized prisons also contribute great deals of money to political candidates.
Keeping the prisons full simply means arresting people for behavioral mopery instead of pharmaceutical mopery. As long as the public supports a high incarceration rate, the prison guards unions have a license to print money.
And police departments and officers should likewise dislike the War on Drugs. It takes low staffing levels to investigate whether people have crack in their pockets. Doing, you know, actual investigations of crimes requires considerably higher staffing, plus the toys are way cooler.
Actually, LOTS of people benefit. In no particular order:
1) Wackenhut (GEO group), private prison operator, and the entire prison complex (guard's unions etc)
2) Law enforcement. Even if the DEA had a 99% interception rate, that economics of the trade mean that it is still profitable at 1% supply. Hence, no matter how many busts the DEA makes, they will always need more resources/money/helicopters etc.
3) Banking and Finance. Drug money is the global financial system's liquidity float. It kept Wachovia solvent for nearly a decade.
4) The US Treasury. Do your own research. Suffice it to say, opium production in Afghanistan now exceeds pre-Taliban levels.
This indicates to me that there might be a strong connection between the prison-industrial-complex and the military-industrial-complex with that connection being drugs. Meanwhile, Big Finance amorally profits from all (including illegal) activity.
What I'm most curious about is what keeps the demand for drugs in the US so high? If the demand dropped off, so would the supply, prices, and number of criminals.
I recognize that I'm a deviant on the other side - I abstain from drugs, alcohol, and smoking. A bias for optimum brain, liver, and lung capacity/health seems like the rational choice. So why do so many forgo that? More pointedly, why do more Americans forgo that than citizens in other countries? My hunch is pop cultural influences (is there an episode of Entourage or How To Make It In America where someone doesn't use?), but a root cause analysis would be nice. Maybe it's related to per capita GDP? Education? Economic divide?
> A bias for optimum brain, liver, and lung capacity/health seems like the rational choice. So why do so many forgo that?
If you want to maximize long-run happiness over the course of your lifespan, it's not entirely obvious that the rational choice is to abstain from drugs and alcohol. Many drugs cause little to no impairment to long-term cognitive function, especially when used in moderation. And according to the people that use them, some drugs have admittedly great benefits, ranging from spiritual enlightenment to making music sound better and food taste better to simply broadening one's perspective.
I recognize that I'm a deviant on the other side - I abstain from drugs, alcohol, and smoking.
Same here and for similar reasons (although I still strongly oppose the WOD). But at least with alcohol, I'm pretty sure the optimal amount isn't zero in our current society. Not drinking has definitely interfered with my social development, which wasn't great to begin with. I don't plan to start now--among other reasons I can't stand the taste--but the advice I'd give to my 18 year old self is "go to parties, get drunk, and learn to enjoy it".
I, too, dislike the taste, although if that's your only issue there are drinks with enough other ingredients to mask it (mudslides, pina coladas, daiquiris, etc.).
Supposedly the max health benefit is 1 drink a day, followed by zero, and more than one is detrimental. However, there are studies that say a glass of red grape juice give similar benefits as one drink. I don't know anybody who follows that advice with any discipline, though.
Not drinking doesn't affect my social enjoyment in the least. First, I find that most professionals (my social group) these days drink less than they did 10 years ago. But I was in a social fraternity in college and have no problem being at parties, bars, clubs, etc. with other people who are drinking. In fact, it's the opposite - I've found my NOT drinking affects the enjoyment of some drinkers. They get self-conscious about it, perhaps guilty. People don't want to drink alone, so if I'm with only one other person they usually won't imbibe. And I've found that those who are actively agitated by my not drinking are those who are alcoholics or marijuana addicts. That's rare, and they stop socializing with me, but I'm dodging a bullet and I'm not at a loss for friends.
> I don't plan to start now--among other reasons I can't stand the taste
I'm not trying to pressure you into drinking, but there are a lot of different kinds of alcohol out there. I used to hate beer, but after a few months of starting off with hard ciders, I've actually found some whose taste I really like. Same with liquors - some stuff I absolutely will not touch because the taste is actively unpleasant to me, but some tastes great.
You just have to find out what you like, if you're interested.
If abstaining from something secludes you from your peers, then the abstinence likely would have a larger negative effect.
That said, in college I did go out drinking with friends quite often. Just because that's what everyone did, and it was fun. My best memories are from then.
My hunch is that's it's both - kind of a feedback loop. It shows a certain lifestyle of a highly select group, and those outside that group (viewers) want to emulate it.
Good point. In fact I think that those who abstain are often those who consume the most media into their adult years (what else are they doing while everyone is out having fun).
I'd like to know that too. But for the record: "Alcohol Consumption per Capita" does not tell us HOW alcohol is consumed (I can drink 1-2 bottles of beer 7 days a week, or binge drink on weekends). To me "Binge Drinking" implies an aim towards delirium.
The evidence is personal experience. I'm not trying to publish a peer reviewed article, just convey personal experience that may be insightful to others as to why things appeal to people.
If you'd like to run a study to falsify my hypothesis you're welcome to, posting vaguely relevant stats is not such a falsification if you want to go all theory of knowledge on my statement.
It's the idea that to a large segment of the populace that when they turn the age of majority they should go consume large amounts of alcohol simply because their now "of age". Or that when they consume alcohol before the legal age they should consume as much as they can because they may not get the opportunity again in the near future.
Instead of looking at alcohol consumption per capita you'd probably want to look at alcohol poisoning per capita near the age of majority. (I have no idea what the stats on that actually are). In my personal experience not too many people consistently binge drink much past the legal age for drinking (because they discover it's actually quite boring).
I'll just point out that your chart, while relevant, doesn't necessarily disprove the original statement. Binge drinking is defined as a certain number of drinks in one night (four for women and five for men, I believe). It's possible that other countries drink more, but they spread it out, so they end up binge drinking less often.
The article claims lower prices mean less profit / less incentive for dealers, and that sounds logical, but I would think that an important knock on effect is that the incentive for corrupt police officers is lower and there is less money available to buy off politicians/judges/contract killers/etc.
Interesting. The assertion here is that violent crimes is a coercive measure used by gangs to maintain a monopoly, when enables them to become price setters through inducing artificial scarcity.
after doing some research, i'm not sure if this article is accurate. the price of cocaine plummeted in the late 1980's, but the drop off in homicide didn't start until mid 1990's.
did you read the article? It's all about how a traditional market (cocaine) got disrupted by startups (meth labs). With the lovely side effects of proving the War on Drugs as useless as we thought it was.
Agree. People sometimes see geeks as (dont have a good english word for it, in german we say "Fachidioten", maybe One-subject-idiots) One-Subject-Idiots.
I think its awesome that HN somethims gets into other subjects, the community holds a nice balance without to much regulation.
First of all, it's intellectually dishonest, if done the way you were doing it. It'd be more correct to simply say "no, it's about current events/politics, and that interests me".
However, there's something about that in the guidelines:
"Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime".
Also, "anything that interests the group" is a terrible way to run a site like this, because eventually the group grows, and if you don't place limits, you'll start getting Ron Paul stories, taser stories, etc... etc...
It's yet another drug article. As a bet, I'll buy you a nice bottle of wine and ship it from Italy if one of those hits the front page of the site without generating a "we should fix the problem by legalizing drugs" discussion.
It's true that drug war articles are fairly off-topic for HN. I'd rather see more mathematics and CS content.
However, I think it's pretty apparent that ending the drug war would benefit more people in much more profound ways than all of the software everyone on HN has ever written. In fact, I'd say only the computer revolution as a whole has benefited humanity more than ending the drug war would.
If you can't think of a list of 10 things in short order that matter a lot more to the world than software and web startups, you're not trying very hard.
But that doesn't mean HN should be dedicated to those things.
I don't like the effect meth seems to have on users though. It would be much better (IMO) to legalise some less damaging drugs. That's the best of both worlds - cheap drugs (so no money goes to gangs, and addicts don't need to steal as much to pay for them), and safer drugs.