Cut off the money

Fellow blogger Amy points out an issue that she believes is under represented by the media and largely ignored by our politicians. She highlights the violence in Mexico and along the border that is attributed to the Mexican drug cartels. She is exasperated and searches for a solution. As unorthodox a solution as this might be, it may be time to consider legalizing and regulating drugs to combat the problems that the cartels create.

When trying to solve a problem, it is normally best to determine the root of the problem and mitigate that. In the case of drugs, the driving motivator is the money. These cartels wouldn’t have intense turf wars, kidnappings, murders, and corruption of officials if there was no money in it for them. As a case study, let’s consider the prohibition of alcohol. Most gangster organizations of the time were centered on bootlegging, speak easies, and selling of alcohol. A black market was created by making the substance illegal. Those markets attracted characters that were already shady and the money only enhanced their lifestyle. A direct correlation can be drawn to the cartels in Mexico. If the government were to create laws similar to alcohol and tobacco laws to regulate the sell and consumption of the products, the cartels would have to compete on the open market. A small black market may continue to exist, but it would essentially drop the bottom out of the current market. There wouldn’t be money in it any longer and those cartels would slowly dissolve on their own. The Federal Government would then be able to tax the sale of drugs as they do tobacco and alcohol. This would increase the revenue stream to the government. Freely available drugs would also drop prices for those that choose to use. This would likely drop the instances of burglary that those individuals cite as occurring because they are trying to support their habit.

I definitely don’t support the use of drugs. I don’t think even tobacco and alcohol are healthy habits, much less the harder drugs that are out there. But I do believe that legalizing at least some of the drugs would create market conditions that would eliminate the cartels in Mexico and have more benefits than detractors when evaluating the situation after the fact.