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[Virex]

Wait, where do the coffee shop get their weed from? Or rather, where are there supposed to get it from?

Don't ask, don't tell. People over here, including the police, still think of weed growers as the hippy rebels that just want to feel good and make others feel good; the nice guy who just happens to have a spare attic and a distrust of authority. Unfortunately, that's a far cry from how the drug scene really looks.


And while some problems may be due to drug tourists, most is indigenous gang violence and liquidations of Dutch civilians, so I can't readily say how much the ban on drugs in the surrounding countries affects things. Especially not since the policewomen themselves seem to be too scared to actually take a look at what's going on (which incidentally also explains the low official numbers on drug related crime. After all, how could drugs cause crime in our liberal country where we handle drugs maturely?  )

[GlyphGryph]

Well, if you haven't made it legal /enough/ to actually allow for legal+public production and distribution, of course you're still going to have cartels. Who else is supposed to get people their drugs? If anything, it probably makes the cartels worse by increasing demand. It's incredibly stupid.

If you want to kill the cartels, you create a legal alternative, perhaps even government controlled (government is, for example, the only legal source of most booze here), and price it under whatever level the cartels need to turn a profit.

Of course, like the mob, this is most effective at stopping them from starting, not destroying them - that will take years, as they've undoubtedly diversified their business, and of course they can still make money shipping to other countries where things are questionably legal. So its no silver bullet, but it hurts them.

Making possession legal just fixes the half of the equation where you ruin families and lives to toss people in jail, it doesn't hurt the crimelords.

Once again, legalization of narcotic substances might not even make a dent in the profits of any drug cartel. Really, it might even increase their profits many-fold, depending on how savvy the guys in charge of them are.

And the safe bet is, they're very savvy.

Do you have any evidence of this? (And obviously, I'm talking in regards to legal competition i.e. legalized production, not just consumption)

Also, JoshuaFH, I just got to say - your arguments kind of infuriate me. It's pretty much the only reason I'm against nationalized healthcare - I'm terrified of giving it any more ammunition. And frankly I'd rather die in agony than live in the sort of dystopia your arguments conjure up, where individuals exist for the good of the state instead of vice versa.

[Sheb]

And actually, if a drug cartel turn into a normal, regular company, it's perfect.

[Virex]

See also: Monsanto, Trafigura, Shell.


(... Goddammit! Why do I have to studying for the most evil 'legal' sector on the planet? I just hope I can get into another field with my degree...)

[JoshuaFH]

Once again, legalization of narcotic substances might not even make a dent in the profits of any drug cartel. Really, it might even increase their profits many-fold, depending on how savvy the guys in charge of them are.

And the safe bet is, they're very savvy.

Do you have any evidence of this? (And obviously, I'm talking in regards to legal competition i.e. legalized production, not just consumption)

Also, JoshuaFH, I just got to say - your arguments kind of infuriate me. It's pretty much the only reason I'm against nationalized healthcare - I'm terrified of giving it any more ammunition. And frankly I'd rather die in agony than live in the sort of dystopia your arguments conjure up, where individuals exist for the good of the state instead of vice versa.

First and foremost, I'm sorry if anything I say 'infuriates' you. It's certainly not my intention. I have no specialized knowledge in any field, and I'm mainly extrapolating off a lifetime of sitting back and watching documentaries, listening to actual professionals, knowing quite a lot of people that have firsthand experience in organized crime, and years of musing on the troubles of the world.

Really, Drug Cartels are already operated like corporations in many ways, with a strictly enforced hierarchy, many small people on the bottom that do all the work, people that manage those people, and a hand-full of people controlling everything from that top and soak up a large majority of the profits. It's not a stretch if narcotics were legalized, that suddenly some perfectly legal 'companies' spontaneously spring into existence, that already have tons and tons of stock ready to ship to every nook and corner of country.

And I'm not sure where you got that I was painting a dystopian (Firefox recommended spellcheck for dystopian = utopian; heh) world where people just live for the state. I 'was' saying that the state has good reason to prevent people from engaging in self-destructive habits. I defer to G-flex's post on that particular point.

But really, if I was trying to be completely cynical, I'd just say that if cocaine were legalized, Coca Cola would revert back to it's namesake.

[Sheb]

And why would it be bad for drug cartel to suddenly become respectable companies?

[Virex]

That they become companies doesn't mean they become respectable

[Sheb]

No, but it force them to become public, which means it's much harder for them to hide their illegal activities.

[Criptfeind]

Huh? How does it force that?

[Virex]

No, but it force them to become public, which means it's much harder for them to hide their illegal activities.

That never stopped Monsanto or Trafigura. Hell they still don't obey what one would consider 'basic ethical business considerations'.

[GlyphGryph]

One could argue it would be a lot worse if they were working a black market, though.

[Sheb]

What illegal things did Monsanto do? I'm speaking about illegal, not immoral.

[scriver]

It's pretty much the only reason I'm against nationalized healthcare - I'm terrified of giving it any more ammunition. And frankly I'd rather die in agony than live in the sort of dystopia your arguments conjure up, where individuals exist for the good of the state instead of vice versa.

Then you really should be pro nationalized healthcare, because it means no such thing happens

[shadenight123]

i always think that everyone that is against free health care sooner or later will end up without the means to buy his medical insurance and end up suffering like hell on the streets.
or their childrens.
or their grandchildrens.
so maybe one day, they will learn.
or they will suffer and die.
one can still hope for justice in the world, can he?

[G-Flex]

Also, JoshuaFH, I just got to say - your arguments kind of infuriate me. It's pretty much the only reason I'm against nationalized healthcare - I'm terrified of giving it any more ammunition. And frankly I'd rather die in agony than live in the sort of dystopia your arguments conjure up, where individuals exist for the good of the state instead of vice versa.

Quite frankly, I'd rather live for the good of the state than for the good of the corporate sector, and the latter seems much more likely than the former. And I honestly don't think nationalized healthcare would cause that problem at all, regardless.