The Glade 4.0

It wouldn't be. The point is, the more you make it difficult to move MJ, the more incentive you give people to move it (higher prices). You'll have to fight harder and harder, indefinitely. You want to kill a trade? Flood the market. Legalize it.

The product "grows on trees" as it were. You can't kill it. Some markets are like that...

Take, for instance, folks selling stolen property. You can't kill trade in stolen property.

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In time, this too shall pass.

ummmm...his "it" was refering to the last noun - being "the market".

So yes legalizing it and flooding supply precisely because it "grows on trees" would do a nice job of killing the market.

Today is giving me a headace.

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

Um, no - what I'm getting at is that by allowing it to be grown legally here in the US, it will basically become similar to alchohol. Some people will still import it illegally from the south, but nearly 100% will buy it legally from American sources. That will make the illegal import through border security unprofitable, or, at least, much, much, much less profitable. That reduces a serious source of funding for the cartels, by functionally killing their business.

all in all, very poorly worded.

Well then I suppose I should be happy you understood it given your previous performances today.

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

It'll still take labor to produce, and because the drug cartels are known to employ slave labor, that lack of overhead - coupled with reduced enforcement and possibly increased demand - would result in continued operations.

You can't compete legally with illegal behavior. The profit on something you get for nothing will always be an incentive.

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In time, this too shall pass.

I was referring to my statement. That said, suck it.

It will be reduced to the approximate market size of illegal alchohol.

I'll agree that it'll be reduced significantly, but still. The reason mj should be legalized is because it's use doesn't merit criminalization, not because it solves some greater problem.

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In time, this too shall pass.

Clearly cutting the supply will make the price go up. However, that also means the supply is going down and that people won't be able to afford it. They'll thus be forced to grow their own rather than buy it from violent cartels.

Legalizing it just makes it harder to deal with the Cartels who can now make up for the lower prices with volume. They will not go out of buisness if it is legalized.

The goal, in any case, isn't really stopping people from smoking marijuana which is A) unattainable B) of rather questionable public necessity and C) clearly secondary to the issue of violence. The idea is to keep the violence out of the United States. Stopping it on the Mexican side would be nice but isn't really our concern until it spills appreciably onto our side.

There's a reason it doesn't now.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

You can't make that assumption. There are numerous differences between how marijuana is produced and consumed versus how alcohol is.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

You cannot assume that further reduction in price would make importing cost-ineffective, especially since legalization would allow for greater volume.



That probably varies from hacienda to hacienda but in any case I don't give a ****. If they want to spill their violence over here, then they had best move their families.



An internicine struggle between the cartels would cause them to expend resources on each other, improving the position of the Mexican government. I also don't see how it would make it more difficult to ascertain what's going on, since chaos and infighting would be easier to spot than the "calm" of business as usual.



You're hardly back at square one. So they restructure - that doesn't automatically mean they're as effective as before and they have lost the top people in their organizations. The replacements may not be so talented and may not be so willing to be aggressive. Again, these are not fanatics. In any case, forcing it underground makes it less profitable and therefore easier to get a handle on in the long run.



That's A) not my problem and B) not really a problem at all, since I'm not talking about attacking Mexico at large.



I don't see that it necessarily would, nor am I talking about "throwing bombs around". These people are used to dealing with the Mexican government which greatly lacks the resources and skills we possess, especially in the area of intelligence gathering and targeting.

Its considerably superior to sending troops in there because we avoid the expense of yet another lengthy ground war. Troops, if employed at all, should be used in conjunction with airstrikes in an in-and-out approach, destroying targets and then leaving swiftly. It's hardly "playing at war"; in fact it's the opposite. "Playing at war" is what's bought us such lengthy conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq and a military designed to fight anything other than a war.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Taskiss: I absolutely agree.

DE: It doesn’t really seem like we’re disagreeing on any particular point; rather it seems we are agreeing for the most part on how either strategy would go, and just disagreeing on which we prefer. I stand by my previous statement that I think we should go the route of decriminalization before military action. In addition to the reduction in prices that would result, and the reduction of profits to cartels, there’s other benefits: tax revenues, increases in freedom.
Legalizing MJ does not eliminate the option of military action, either, if it is determined that decriminalization does not set back the cartels and gangs significantly. It is always an option. But… I think we need to use that option significantly less than we already do.
That said, per our previous discussion, you’ll remember that I’m serious about securing the border. My preferences away from military action are dependent on our side of the border remaining relatively violence free. If it does not, I want boots, not bombs.

I think that the issues of marijuana legalization and military action to deal with cartels thinking they can rule the roost on this side of the border are separate. I don't see any need for military action right now regardless of legalization and its effects. Military action is what I'm advocating for dealing with foriegn criminals thinking they can bring their behavior up here.

As for "boots, not bombs" I A) see no good reason why you're advocating that and B) that advocating it in the first place implies that you think there is some sort of need to select between the two, or that they are the only two options available. Any given target should be engaged in the most appropriate manner depending on what it is. An airstrike does not necessarily have to be on a hacienda with a 2000 lb bomb;t hat's merely an example of the intent of the action. Thee are lots of different options in terms of weapons systems, many of which are far less likely to cause collateral damage if there's a reason to be concerned. The children of drug cartel leaders, however, should not become de facto human shields.

As to "using that option too much already", a great deal of that is excessive use of "boots" at the expense of "bombs" in order to appease various sensibilities.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

While this is sometimes true, I don't think it carries with drugs. The most direct corollary IMHO is alcohol and prohibition. Once prohibition was repealed the market basically instantly dried up for organized crime, because alcohol was available legally and relatively cheaply. I would expect a similar result with drugs.

For some folks, sure. They'll grow pot in a pot on their back stoop. But you have to consider the requirements needed to compete with the cartels.

It takes thousands of acres of land, gallons of water, man-hours, and distribution channels (insert the whole FDA and tax overhead here too) to market a single agricultural crop of any kind. The cartels already have those resources.

If you use illegal means to obtain those resources and ignore the red tape, your ability to undercut anyone who has to obtain those legally gives an incredible advantage.

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In time, this too shall pass.

Which is why there's a huge profit in black market tobacco, right?

When you engage in a criminal enterprise, there is increased risk due to the threat of prosectution and incarceration. This increased risk allows all the employees (unless they're slaves working at gunpoint) to demand higher compensation, or they won't participate in the illicit trade and will instead go find legit work.

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

Yes. Exactly.

http://www.voanews.com/english/news/usa ... 26174.html



The premise was introduced that legalization would allow the US to "beat" the cartels. Such legalization would eliminate the bulk of risk and the threat of prosecution/incarceration.

My argument is, because they operate illegally, because they're already entrenched, and because they have the resources they need to operate that they get for a steal , their overhead gives them an advantage - legalization won't solve the problem.

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In time, this too shall pass.

A large part of that comes from the fact that alcohol is a food as well as a drug. It comes in a wide variety of forms, and those forms come in different levels of quality, sometimes drastically different.

There is demand for alcohol beyond the effects of simply getting high. Contrary to the claims of some people, other drinks do not necessarily taste better than alcoholic ones, and the desire to drink them is not exclusively based on their alcohol content. If that were not the case, alcohol-free versions of such drinks, or reduced alcohol versions would not exist.

Moreover, the industry needed to produce high-quality alcholoic beverages was not dismantled wholesale at start of Prohibition, and once Prohibition passed, it was far easier to simply return these systems to use as opposed to the hommeade booze of the gangsters. Imports, likewise, obviated the need for smuggling.

In that respect, legalization might cut down on problems insofar as there would be no more need for smuggling. However the fact is that while most drugs vary in quality, they do not vary much in type beyond means of consumption. There is no significant demand for them outside of their addictive properties unless you include medicinal uses and there is no reason any given drug cannot be legalized for perscriptions but not for general consumption.

Finally, there is no previously-existing industry waiting to be reactivated. On the contrary, the industry is already in the hands of the cartels, who produce these drugs and would already have a competitive advantage. Any new competing industry from legalization would need to break into the market against them. In the meantime, there is no reason to think that they would suddenly become exclusively legitimate businessmen. Legalized importing of drugs would simply create a legal avenue as a smokescreen for other activities.

I'm in favor of legalizing Marijuana, but thinking it will make the cartels go *poof* is wishful thinking.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Just a nitpick point, the brewing industry was completely decimated by Prohibition.

Before Prohibition there were 1400 breweries in the US. After Prohibition there were 160.

http://www.beerhistory.com/library/hold ... able.shtml

True, but 160 is a solid start, especially for trying to revive an industry in the middle of the Great Depression. It sohuld also be noted that the 160 number is given for 1935, but Prohibition on beer ended April 7th 1933.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

And like what happened with alcohol, the organized crime will just switch to another illegal outlet. I think legalizing certain drugs is just going to shift what column we record the crime statistics in. Ok so we aren't busting them for A,B, and C- but going further down the trough and now we are busting them for X,Y and Z. Some look at drugs as a cause, I look at it as another symptom of a deeper issue.

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A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself. ~ John Stuart Mill

Certainly that is true. But it does remove a certain outlet for them. Just because crime will continue to happen doesn't mean it's a bad idea to limit what things are worth being criminal about.

They will be forced to move to goods with less broad demand which no matter what they try to do will cut their revenue.

I'm going to sell candy to children, oh wait now I sell brussel sprouts.

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville