These guys literally have gold-plated machine guns. Even Al Capone didn't have gold-plated machine guns! Taking 2%-4% of this guy's income is still a lot of money!
The RAND study on Prop 19′s affect on Mexican drug trafficking organizations (DTOs*) is being spun hard by the traditional media (read: newspapers and TV) and the traditional opposition (read: law enforcement and government) as a significant blow to the campaign to legalize marijuana in California.
In fact, the RAND study proves what we’ve been saying all along: legalization hurts criminals.
The media want you to be sucked into the “how much” game. They frame it as the supporters of marijuana reform breathlessly touting that 60% of Mexican DTO revenue comes from pot and Prop 19 would bankrupt these ruthless killers, only to find the estimates of 60% are wildly overblown. Legalizing pot would hurt these DTOs very little, they conclude, therefore, everything else proponents say about Prop 19 must be suspect.
(Los Angeles Times) The Rand analysis dismissed a frequently cited U.S. government estimate that marijuana sales make up about 60% of cartel export revenues. Marijuana revenues fall between 15% and 26%, according to the report. The researchers could find no documentation to support the higher estimate.
“This 60% figure is a truly mythical number, one that appeared out of nowhere and that has acquired great authority,” they wrote. “This figure should not be taken seriously.”
Did you catch that? A frequently cited U.S. government estimate. This isn’t the Prop 19 supporters making up stats, they just made the mistake of trusting the ONDCP (Drug Czar), Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard. Prop 19 supporters thought when government authorities were testifying before Congress under oath that perhaps somebody might have fact-checked a number like 60%.
The report released Tuesday by Rand Corp., the nonpartisan research institute in Santa Monica, estimates that legalized marijuana could displace the Mexican marijuana sold in California, but concludes that would erase no more than 2% to 4% of the revenues the gangs receive from drug exports.
…and that’s why we should keep locking up adults who grow a pot plant in their closet.
Remember, that is the answer to any complaint about Prop 19. Don’t get sucked into the “is it 60%, is it 2%” game, because it really doesn’t matter. This report makes the case that legalization of marijuana affects the bottom line of DTOs. Ask them “is this really an argument over how much we need to cost the criminals before we stop locking people up over marijuana gardens?”
It’s not an economic argument; it’s a moral argument – is it right to lock people up for growing pot? (Note the emphasis on “growing”, it keeps them from taking you down the “an ounce of pot is decriminalized” path.)
Think about some of the other things implied in that report.
The researchers said the only way California’s legal pot could cut significantly into cartel revenues is if it were sold across the country. They were skeptical that would happen. “It’s very hard to imagine that the feds would sit idly by and just let California marijuana dominate the country,” Kilmer said.
Of course they wouldn’t, but here, again, RAND makes the case that if they did, it would significantly hurt the criminals. Now you have to ask, “why should the feds stop that from happening?”
Comparing the Mexican drug gangs to the American Mafia, the researchers said that they would find other businesses to replace pot, just as the Mafia replaced bootlegging when alcohol prohibition ended.”
Isn’t that like saying, “We have to keep pot illegal or else drug gangs will sell more dangerous drugs. We have to subsidize a large portion of their income with pot so they don’t fuel their growth on real crimes.”
In the short term, they concluded, violence might even increase as gangs fight over smaller revenues.
Isn’t that like saying, “We have to provide a large enough market in illegal marijuana to provide enough jobs and profits to keep criminals from turning violent against each other.”
President Obama’s drug czar, Gil Kerlikowske, embraced the report’s conclusion that Proposition 19 would not put the cartels out of business. “When you’re a thug and a criminal and a killer, you’re not going to get your MBA and work for a company in Mexico,” he said.
Isn’t that like saying, “Since there are thugs and criminals and killers out there, we’ve got to keep them occupied with as much marijuana sales as possible.”
Actually, there are many Mexicans employed by the DTOs who aren’t thugs and killers, they are the low level growers, mules, and dealers moving the product for the thugs and killers. There are some who are indeed violent as they fight to survive in a prohibition-fueled violence.
Nobody thinks the evil killers are going to become Boy Scouts, post legalization. What they will be are evil killers with less of a budget and fewer human resources. And we’ll have more budget and human resources in law enforcement directed at these truly bad guys instead of the otherwise law-abiding cannabis consumers.
Because there is one law that no congress, court, president, or policeman can repeal or enforce – the law of supply and demand. Americans demand marijuana. Where Americans cannot satisfy that demand, Mexicans will. We cannot keep marijuana out of “supermax” federal prisons; there is no way we can keep it out of a 1,969 mile land border.
Corona Beer flows across the border into America every day. It creates jobs for hard-working Mexicans and Americans alike. It provides tax revenue for governments at every level on both sides of the border. It’s even an addictive toxic mind-altering drug, yet we learned through trial and error that banning it was worse than any of its side effects.
* DTOs, not “cartels”, as the traditional media reports it. Cartels are multiple businesses, like the oil producing states of OPEC or the automatic qualifying conferences of the BCS, that collude to keep profits high and cooperate to stifle competition. If these DTOs were colluding and cooperative, we wouldn’t see them slaughtering each other in Juárez.
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[...] Corporation was studying how much Prop 19 would hurt the Mexican drug traffickers and said, ”This 60% figure is a truly mythical number, one that appeared out of nowhere and that has acquired g…” The Drug Czar also scoffed at the notion that legalization would hurt eat into Mexican drug [...]
[...] Corporation was studying how much Prop 19 would hurt the Mexican drug traffickers and said, ”This 60% figure is a truly mythical number, one that appeared out of nowhere and that has acquired g…” The Drug Czar also scoffed at the notion that legalization would hurt eat into Mexican [...]
[...] Corporation was studying how much Prop 19 would hurt the Mexican drug traffickers and said, ”This 60% figure is a truly mythical number, one that appeared out of nowhere and that has acquired g…” The Drug Czar also scoffed at the notion that legalization would hurt eat into Mexican [...]
[...] P.S. Law enforcement seemed to think RAND Corp’s studies were reliable when they were saying Prop 19 legalization wouldn’t dramatically impact the profitability of M…. [...]
The anti cannabis falks will say any thing to hide the facts thatthey are wrong and we are right.
Well, I’d always assumed the 60% was for the entire US, so of course legalization in California isn’t going to negate the whole 60%, but it will be a start. As the other states follow suit, more of the cartel profits will be eaten into, and that is a good thing.