A) I "double endemptified" as I liked to call it.  Meaning I doubled my investment everyweek.  I bought a pound of the best green weed for $1,600 and sold eighths at school for $25 each making $3,200.  Took me around 3 weeks to run out.  Yes father was a west point grad, both parents well educated.

B) I did read the source, I thought you didn't?  I'll look again.

D) They might get hired.   They have a better chance at working in a cocaine distribution house than bank of america.

Probably the same thing that happened when Portugal legalized drugs, IE improvement.

A) So yeah.... you weren't a real drug dealer more or less.  At least not in the way most people are... this might help.

http://www.usnews.com/news/national/articles/2008/01/08/qa-sudhir-venkatesh

D)  Where they could steal the cocaine and use it or sell it on the street?   To work in  cocaine distribution house, chances are they'll want someone who doesn't even know what it looks like before they hire them.

One must distinguish decriminalization and legalization, by the way. They're not the same thing.

My, my, you are an idealist, aren't you.

I know it's impossible to ban alcohol completely. And I also admit I use it regularly. It's good stuff. However, stop and think for a moment. How exactly alcohol benefits society as a whole, as opposed to it basically not existing? How many women were beaten due to alcohol? How many transit accidents happened due to alcohol? How many dollars were spent on healthcare and social programs due to alcohol? Am I entitled to a pleasure whose mere existence already decreases social indicators by a huge deal?

Oftentimes the only argument left is that you would end with illegal drug traffic (assuming we are already over that stuff someone would get to prision for merely being a consumer). And even that one is flawed, because it is based on the assumption legal drug sale somehow wouldn't involve addicts going to the lengths of robbing and theft to acquire money, and that the existing smugglers are going to magically straighten up and leave criminal live behind them if find out they can't absolutely compete. 

The argument for absolute legalization is a nirvana fallacy, really.

However... I guess a point could be made for the legalization of really weak stuff like Khat for recreational use. Banning it and making a contravention to use it could potentially lead up to false, adulterated samples, more dangerous than the thing itself.

A) You mean i wasn't a little thug working in a ghetto, being told what to do. Correct. I get your point though, little gang bangers don't make the same amount as a suburb dealer. Point taken. But it is a source of income to the gang operation as a whole. Isn't it obvious we should go after their profits? D) If employees are paid well they don't steal. Pot heads work for pot growers and dispensaries.. I see it as an issue but one that could be overcome.

@kaz



i demonstrated that cocaine passes through many hands before it reaches the street. The columbian producer sells the kilo at $2000 (in land) to $7000 (port) according to your source. In the USA, this cocaine gets bought and sold atleast 3 more times before it's finally purchased by the end user. To prove that (under legalization) a buyer would be able to get coke for $4-$5 a gram (as you claim) you are going to need to show how that works.

A) Those are the people you are worried about afterall.   It is worth noting too.... gangs existed long before they sold drugs.  If you read the previous link, you'd note that a lot of gang violence is actually curbed by older members because it disrupts the drug scene.

People feel less safe making deals when their is constant drug sales.   By taking away their revenue, you take a way a lot of the older peoples reasons for being in the gang.  While the younger people are more about just committing violence becauset they're made at society and coming up in the quick"dirty" ways like stealing.

D) That's not really true.  Union wharehouses for supermarkets for example see TONS of theft.  When I worked at GM people were stealing shit from their left and right... and being a car manufacturing plant, there wasn't even that much stuff worth stealing.  You pretty much can't stop theft, but you can lower it, and the methods for lowering it generally involve heavy background checks.

E) 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

I would smoke a bowl.