| Kasz216 said: B) As for how cocaine gets cheaper as it goes? Well lets ask an expert looking at another source. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/drugs/special/math.html "The average drug trafficking organization, meaning from Medellin to the streets of New York, could afford to lose 90% of its profit and still be profitable," says Robert Stutman, a former DEA Agent. "Now think of the analogy. GM builds a million Chevrolets a year. Doesn't sell 900,000 of them and still comes out profitable. That is a hell of a business, man. That is the dope business."
The numbers here... $2000 a Kilo, the producer can sell it for $200 and stil make a profit. So, 1000 grams in a kilo. Producers can sell it for... = $0.20 a gram. $6,600 for a Kilo retail divided by $1000? = $6.60 a Gram. Uncut. Still profitable in the black market. |
B) Your new source isn't saying the average producer can take 90% off of profits and still be profitable. He says the average drug trafficing organization can (which is completely absurd and i'll explain). So you taking 90% off of the $2000 the producer sells it at inland is preposterous. How is a producer in Columbia going to buy a kilo of leaves for $800 and sell the kilo of purest powder for $200!? Now let me explain the absurdity of the agents argument. He's saying, "Producing drugs is a very cheap process. Like any commodities business the closer you are to the source the cheaper the product. Processed cocaine is available in Colombia for $1500 dollars per kilo and sold on the streets of America for as much as $66,000 a kilo (retail)".
1) he's claiming the trafficing organization can take 90% off of nearly $66,000 and still be profitable. Thus (like you went on to say) a kilo would cost $6,600 at retail. Well yeah the one who buys from a producer can sell it that cheap, infact they do in the ports of Columbia. But another guy has to buy from that guy, and another guy buys from him. Then another guy buys it, and another, until final consumption. Each dealer makes a profit on the one beneath him/her. So by the time its in our children's bloodstream it become pretty pricey. If there was only one middle man between producer and consumer, then it could be $6.6 per gram. But if some guy is buying a hundred killos he'd rather sell his buy the kilo/ounce and let the little man worry about the grams. So no.
2) I do see this 'single middleman' scenario happening in a legal market. Under this scenario:
a)the black market (as i explained) cannot compete (one middleman vs several).
b)legislation would fix prices to compete with gangsters.
c)taxes would suck up a nice portion of the excess proffits
