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Comment by rodolphoarruda | Hacker News Reader

If you eliminate the cartels, would people continue to use/like drugs? Would they look for other forms of addiction?

The US has spent hundreds of billions of dollars domestically and in Latin America over four decades trying to eliminate or restrain dozens of major cartels. It can't be done. It's obvious why it can't be done.

In that span of time, there has been no other nation on the planet with greater technological, military, financial resources to throw at something like prosecuting the so called war on drugs. If the US couldn't kill the cartels & illegal supply with that approach, it can't be done that way. The fact that it would fail was always an obvious logical conclusion ahead of time (we even had prohibition to reference as a blatant demonstration), but we have the benefit of vast actual results of perpetual failure and destruction to throw on top of just reasoning it through.

Fortunately the majority of Americans have come around to understanding the war on drugs has completely failed and for that reason the WoD is over (specifically it's on its last legs).

People like drugs because they like getting high, not because they like cartels or doing illegal business or being rebellious.

People like drugs because they allow an escape from their normal lives, which they don't like. Boredom, depression, etc. Read about the rat park experiment, rats like being high too if their lives suck.

The principal author of the Rat Park paper, Bruce Alexander, has a web site on addiction: http://www.brucekalexander.com

People like drugs for the same reason that consumer culture has become an uncontrollable beast - you can use the dollars you earned to bring you joy. Some people prefer it to alter their state of consciousness. Society should step in to stop people who are doing it recklessly, just as they should when people are hoarders, people are obese - it's all the same thing, somebody has only found one Skinner button that works for them in a world of Skinner buttons you're meant to press

If you eliminate one two more pop up in its place. The demand it there. If you cut off supply it will go somewhere else. If you treat it as a disease then you look at why the demand. Reduce the demand (or give a legal supply) and drug cartels can't operate.

>If you eliminate the cartels

Can't be done. It's useless to waste a single further breath entertaining that idea.

New ones would appear more or less overnight. The economic incentive is simply too large and there are always people who already are criminals who see an angle and will move into the space. Cartels are a result, not a root cause so removing them will have zero effect.

Yes, desire for altered conscious is human nature. It's why kids spin around to get dizzy.

http://www.therooster.com/blog/kids-love-getting-dizzy-and-l...

Of course they would.

Would an individual considering whether to buy/use a drug actually evaluate the involvement of a cartel in their decision? I doubt it.

I suspect demand for drugs is largely independent of their legal status. Legalization would not open the floodgates to reservoirs of potential users previously held back by law.

Yes

Further, even if you did "eliminate" the cartels, more would pop up.

If there is a demand, someone will find a way to make money off of it.

Cartels or not, you can't have success by attacking primarily the supply side of this trade.

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