Thanking Trump
May 6, 2017 8:15 PM   Subscribe

 
I am having a hard time understanding two things in this article:
  1. How can making smuggling more costly and difficult mean more income to the cartels? If the border were entirely open, surely that would be maximally cheap and surely all of this digging tunnels costs money and other resources. I understand how the mules make more money—their job is more difficult—but is that cost somehow passed along to drug users?
  2. Why is anyone getting marijuana or meth smuggled across the border? Those are in ample supply in the United States, right? Heroin and forms of cocaine have to be grown in very particular places but anyone with light bulbs and bleach can make marijuana or meth, correct?
What am I missing here?
posted by koavf at 10:52 PM on May 6, 2017


Vices aren't crimes. Allow anyone to grow any plant- poppy, coca, marijuana- and decriminalize prostitution and gambling and all vice crimes disappear. Cops could focus on actual violence and theft.
posted by NeoRothbardian at 11:10 PM on May 6, 2017 [3 favorites]


koavf, I believe you're missing the immensity of the demand for illegal drugs.
posted by Lyme Drop at 11:15 PM on May 6, 2017 [3 favorites]


koavf, I believe you're missing the immensity of the demand for illegal drugs.

I would say that's it as well. The demand for meth is tremendous, and if it can be made cheaper and at higher potency in another country, it will be.

For Marijuana, I would imagine the demand for cheap imports is lower in legal states but probably still quite high in places where the drug is harder to find, and more expensive, and of lower general quality.
posted by cell divide at 11:21 PM on May 6, 2017


koavf, the rules of supply and demand. Making it harder to cross the border makes the product more inaccessible and thus they can raise the prices.
posted by ashbury at 11:26 PM on May 6, 2017 [1 favorite]


It could be that it's not that much more costly in terms of labor, but rather more specialized, so that the cartels that know the right tricks and can bribe or threaten the right people can get things through and no one else can, so the cartels centralize control and pricing.
posted by Zalzidrax at 11:32 PM on May 6, 2017 [10 favorites]


@ashbury: If they could raise the price, why didn’t they do it already? Unlike virtually every other good or service outside of heart surgery, drug addicts will do nearly anything to get their fix. Cartels could have just said, “This costs [x] now, don’t ask questions” six months ago. They don’t need a justification—it’s not like a desperate addict is going to follow the supply chain back to the Colombian jungles.

I have heard that the purity of drugs coming thru Mexico is generally higher but that is still pretty shocking to me that virtually anything which can be made in abundance with relative ease could ever be cheaper coming from Mexico. Obviously, it’s true but it’s very counter-intuitive. In the case of chintzy plastic crap coming from China, I understand: there are no labor protections, there is mammoth volume, and a dollar just goes a lot farther there than here. Is the demand for drugs in the United States really as great as it is for plastic garbage?

I have always said that the Mexican drug war would be ended tomorrow if Americans would just give up the two things they never will: free-flowing firearms and a voracious desire for casual drug use. It’s sad that other societies pay so much for our wanton hedonism and unrestrained capitalism with machines that make holes in human beings.
posted by koavf at 12:58 AM on May 7, 2017


How can making smuggling more costly and difficult mean more income to the cartels? If the border were entirely open, surely that would be maximally cheap and surely all of this digging tunnels costs money and other resources. I understand how the mules make more money—their job is more difficult—but is that cost somehow passed along to drug users?

Because the price of illegal goods includes a large risk component. Raise the risks and the prices goes up. When prices goes up profits go up with the prices. Raise the risk in a non-free market and the profit margin zooms up too.

Why is anyone getting marijuana or meth smuggled across the border? Those are in ample supply in the United States, right? Heroin and forms of cocaine have to be grown in very particular places but anyone with light bulbs and bleach can make marijuana or meth, correct?

I live in California. I don't think that there is much marijuana being smuggled into California from Mexico. It's likely that the flow is the other way.
posted by rdr at 1:25 AM on May 7, 2017


"@ashbury: If they could raise the price, why didn’t they do it already? Unlike virtually every other good or service outside of heart surgery, drug addicts will do nearly anything to get their fix. Cartels could have just said, “This costs [x] now, don’t ask questions” six months ago. They don’t need a justification—it’s not like a desperate addict is going to follow the supply chain back to the Colombian jungles."

Supply and demand again. Most dealers have competition and just like anything else, they either need to compete on quality or price. Addicts generally don't have a lot of money. If you raise the price of the drug too much, they'll go elsewhere to get it (or optimally, quit using it). Also for hard drugs, by raising the prices you also raise the crime rate, which is bad for business because the po-po will be hanging around.
posted by disclaimer at 5:18 AM on May 7, 2017 [3 favorites]


I live in California. I don't think that there is much marijuana being smuggled into California from Mexico. It's likely that the flow is the other way.

I think the flow is boutique, high quality weed going south to Mexico in relatively small quantities, and lower quality Mexican weed still imported north but in lower quantities than a few years ago before legalization.

Heroin and forms of cocaine have to be grown in very particular places but anyone with light bulbs and bleach can make marijuana or meth, correct?

Most of the US still isn't legal for weed at the state level, and of course it is still not legal federally. So while Californian production has picked up (and less so, legal production in Washington, Oregon, and Colorado), it is not yet being grown by big ag, so the quantities produced can't meet the national demand for weed and there is still a demand for imported weed, despite its generally lower quality. For meth, think of the difference in unit cost to produce it "artisanally" in home-built kitchen labs in trailers and garages, versus in a cartel-owned warehouse with industrial chemists and materials bought in bulk.
posted by Dip Flash at 6:23 AM on May 7, 2017 [2 favorites]


Tighter borders favor the cartels because they are the organizations that have the scale and size and institutional know-how to penetrate challenging borders at scale. They are digging the tunnels, flying the drones, bribing all the right people. But those means of smuggling are expensive in terms of overhead. When borders are lax, small time operators can out compete them by smuggling without as much overhead and this forces prices on the US side of the border back down by increasing the overall flow of drugs into the consumer market.

National and international law enforcement such as the DEa and UN office on Drugs collect price information at various stages along the smuggling routes to at a sense of where the value is being added. There is a large price jump between the Mexican border town and the US border town.
posted by seejaie at 6:34 AM on May 7, 2017 [6 favorites]


In the case of chintzy plastic crap coming from China, I understand

China also makes drugs. What their relationship is with Mexican cartels, I do not know. Someone should write an article on that, flog it to the Times.
posted by IndigoJones at 6:38 AM on May 7, 2017


Why is anyone getting marijuana or meth smuggled across the border? Those are in ample supply in the United States, right? Heroin and forms of cocaine have to be grown in very particular places but anyone with light bulbs and bleach can make marijuana or meth, correct?

In order to manufacture chemical compounds, including meth and other synthesized drugs, you need precursors- ingredients and reactants. US law enforcement has worked to cut off or restrict supply of precursors for large scale synthesis of methamphetamine (and other drugs), making bulk production in the States difficult or impossible.

There's various pathways to synthesize meth. Some are apparently easier than others, but the main starting points are either pseudoephedrine/ephedrine, or phenylacetone, aka phenyl-2-propanone/P2P.

The Chemical Diversion and Trafficking Act requires that products on the DEA list of chemicals be restricted and tracked. Buying chemicals on the list (like P2P) attracts significant law enforcement attention.
The Combat Methamphetamine Epidemic Act of 2005 restricts ephedrine/pseudoephedrine sales. It's the reason you have to sign a pharmacy logbook to buy flu medicine.

With bulk supply of precursors restricted, even if you can get the ingredients, US producers are forced to use suboptimal production pathways that are even more difficult and dangerous, with consequent toxic byproducts and hazards, like phosphine gas. Small scale production still occurs, but it's not exactly Breaking Bad:
In recent years, a simplified "Shake 'n Bake" one-pot synthesis has become more popular. The method is suitable for such small batches that pseudoephedrine restrictions are less effective, it uses chemicals that are easier to obtain (though no less dangerous than traditional methods), and it is so easy to carry out that some addicts have made the drug while driving. It involves placing crushed pseudoephedrine tablets into a nonpressurized container containing ammonium nitrate, water, and a hydrophobic solvent such as Coleman fuel or automotive starting fluid, to which lye and lithium (from lithium batteries) is added. Hydrogen chloride gas produced by a reaction of salt with sulfuric acid is then used to recover crystals for purification. The container needs to be "burped" periodically to prevent failure under accumulating pressure, as exposure of the lithium to the air can spark a flash fire. The battery lithium can react with water to shatter a container and potentially start a fire or explosion.
Mexican cartels can get bulk supplies of the precursors, making it easy for them to produce large amounts of methamphetamine, which can then be smuggled into and sold in the US.
Mexican traffickers import the raw ingredients — or precursors — into Pacific ports such as Lazaro Cardenas in Michoacan. Back in 2007, Mexican security forces busted record quantities of a precursor called pseudoephedrine, much coming from China.

However, after Mexico cracked down on pseudoephedrine, the traffickers have switched to other ingredients.

Forensic profiling on meth smuggled through Mexico into the US in 2013 shows that 90 percent of it used a recipe with an ingredient called phenyl-2-propanone, or P2P, according to a report by the International Narcotics Control Board.
If the alternatives for US meth users are illegally buying precursors to make the drug, or buying the drug itself, you know which one wins. To paraphrase that alleged Barbie quote, meth is hard, let's go shopping.
posted by zamboni at 7:22 AM on May 7, 2017 [6 favorites]


koavf: "If they could raise the price, why didn’t they do it already? Unlike virtually every other good or service outside of heart surgery, drug addicts will do nearly anything to get their fix."

Arguably they already have done so and are reaping profits disproportionate to the risk which is why we are seeing the drug wars in Mexico from factions seeking to control the smuggling.
posted by Mitheral at 7:27 AM on May 7, 2017 [1 favorite]


Small scale production still occurs, but it's not exactly Breaking Bad:

Meth users are also a lot less choosy than the elite market for purity implied by the show......
posted by thelonius at 8:33 AM on May 7, 2017


I think the takeaway for me is: when we help a cartel to scale up its operations, technologically, logistically, etc, to multibillion dollar levels, we essentially fertilize the development of a hidden, adversarial nation-state. I'm a psychologist by background: like children, we're helping the cartels grow to new levels of potential by giving them a hand up to their zone of proximal development.

(When I wrote the post, my own attention was more on the human-smuggling side of the coin, so it's been interesting to read a lot of comments about the drugs side.)
posted by spbmp at 11:14 AM on May 7, 2017 [2 favorites]


From the article :

"Strengthening defenses does not stop smuggling. It only makes it more expensive, which inadvertently gives more money to criminal networks."

It is not correct that this is inadvertent. It is unavoidable and known. The anti-drug industry created the illegal drug industry. A dealer does not make their money because dividing a pound into 16 baggies is a skilled trade. They make their money because they are risking arrest. If we stopped arresting people, the economic basis for the illegal drug industry would collapse. The industry would still exist but without the very great profits and violence.

In the last few decades, the distribution of drugs has increased, the variety of drugs has increased, and the quality of drugs has increased. Every dealer that is arrested is replaced. Law enforcement interdicts a small percentage of the supply. This distribution loss is tolerable to the industry. The anti-drug industry has not diminished the illegal drug industry in any way because it can not. The industry is a product of the anti drug industry.

Once an individual or society has a habit, even if it is harmful, it is very difficult to stop.
posted by llc at 5:25 PM on May 7, 2017 [1 favorite]


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