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Discussion => Silk Road discussion => Topic started by: kingpinirl on July 06, 2012, 03:46 pm

Title: So, I read an interesting article this morning... Non SR related
Post by: kingpinirl on July 06, 2012, 03:46 pm

Where are these guys getting their info?  They say the average price for 1g of coke is 177 bucks.  It's not even that expensive here, and any area I've ever lived it's never ran over 50 bucks - even for decent stuff.  Just wanted your take.

CLEARNET - http://reason.com/blog/2012/07/05/new-york-times-what-do-you-get-from-a-dr



New York Times: What Do You Get From A Drug War Costing $25 Billion Annually? Cocaine 74 Percent Cheaper Than It Was 30 Years Ago

Ronald Bailey | July 5, 2012

Here's hoping for some real change New York Times reporter Eduardo Porter has a terrific column, Numbers Tell of Failure in Drug War, excoriating the stupidity and tragedy of the War on Drugs in the July 4 issue. Here are just a few tidbits:

    When policy makers in Washington worry about Mexico these days, they think in terms of a handful of numbers: Mexico’s 19,500 hectares devoted to poppy cultivation for heroin; its 17,500 hectares growing cannabis; the 95 percent of American cocaine imports brought by Mexican cartels through Mexico and Central America.

    They are thinking about the wrong numbers. If there is one number that embodies the seemingly intractable challenge imposed by the illegal drug trade on the relationship between the United States and Mexico, it is $177.26. That is the retail price, according to Drug Enforcement Administration data, of one gram of pure cocaine from your typical local pusher. That is 74 percent cheaper than it was 30 years ago.

    This number contains pretty much all you need to evaluate the Mexican and American governments’ “war” to eradicate illegal drugs from the streets of the United States. They would do well to heed its message. What it says is that the struggle on which they have spent billions of dollars and lost tens of thousands of lives over the last four decades has failed. ...

    ...conceived to eradicate the illegal drug market, the war on drugs cannot be won. Once they understand this, the Mexican and American governments may consider refocusing their strategies to take aim at what really matters: the health and security of their citizens, communities and nations.

    Prices match supply with demand. If the supply of an illicit drug were to fall, say because the Drug Enforcement Administration stopped it from reaching the nation’s shores, we should expect its price to go up.

    That is not what happened with cocaine. Despite billions spent on measures from spraying coca fields high in the Andes to jailing local dealers in Miami or Washington, a gram of cocaine cost about 16 percent less last year than it did in 2001. The drop is similar for heroin and methamphetamine. The only drug that has not experienced a significant fall in price is marijuana.

    And it’s not as if we’ve lost our taste for the stuff, either. About 40 percent of high school seniors admit to having taken some illegal drug in the last year — up from 30 percent two decades ago, according to the Monitoring the Future survey, financed by the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

    The use of hard drugs, meanwhile, has remained roughly stable over the last two decades, rising by a few percentage points in the 1990s and declining by a few percentage points over the last decade, with consumption patterns moving from one drug to another according to fashion and ease of purchase.....

    Jeffrey Miron, an economist at Harvard who studies drug policy closely, has suggested that legalizing all illicit drugs would produce net benefits to the United States of some $65 billion a year, mostly by cutting public spending on enforcement as well as through reduced crime and corruption.

Go read the whole article. Of course, Reason has been against the War on Drugs for, oh say, ever since it began publicaton nearly 50 years ago. Go here for Reason's extensive archive on the asininity of the War on Drugs.
Title: Re: So, I read an interesting article this morning... Non SR related
Post by: UKMJ on July 06, 2012, 04:01 pm
In the UK they have claimed in the past that the War on Drugs resulted in a drop in cocaine purity rather than a price rise, however this change in purity occurred in the last 24-36 months and rhe drug war has been running for 30 years.

If you want to find successes of the War on Drugs look no further than (in the UK) the Sunday Times Rich List which featured Curtis 'Cocky' Warren in 1998 with an estimated worth of £40 million (although he was arrested in 1996 with drugs and cash worth £125 million) or the Forbes rich list which featured Joaquin Guzman a mexican drug baron with a worth in excess of $1billion. Guzman even thanked the US government for helping him amass his fortune.
Title: Re: So, I read an interesting article this morning... Non SR related
Post by: kingpinirl on July 06, 2012, 04:40 pm
UKMJ - I agree with your statement.  Purity levels have dropped significantly.  The blow in the states is a joke.  To be honest, the only good blow I've seen in Years came from here, and from MIN.  I've tried a few other suppliers, but nothing was at that level, even GOA's washed didn't pack the punch (but was 2nd best).

All that I can see the "War on Drugs" has accomplished is that imported drug quality has dropped, cartels and gangs have grown much stronger than ever before, and filled US prisons with people that wouldn't have been there in the 40's - early 80's.  Most of the people in prison for drug offenses are there because selling drugs was the only opportunity afforded to them (stereotyping, there are MANY exceptions to this) due to the lack of blue collar jobs in the US.

Growing up, most of my friends sold drugs in one form or another.  The majority of them have moved onto careers.  The ones that still sell do so locally, small scale, and do so because its the only job they can get.  Another side effect of the "War on Drugs" is it does allow for money to flow to people that wouldn't be able to obtain it otherwise.  The new "blue collar" worker. 
Title: Re: So, I read an interesting article this morning... Non SR related
Post by: opi on July 08, 2012, 02:14 am
eh dude they say 1 gr of PURE cocaine.. so that means, say you pay 50$/g and its only 27% pure. if you wanted a gram of PURE UNCUT cocaine you'd need 3.5 grams of the street blow that would cost you 177 or so dollars.
Title: Re: So, I read an interesting article this morning... Non SR related
Post by: Vladimir on July 08, 2012, 05:46 pm
Here is another good read - http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/17/magazine/how-a-mexican-drug-cartel-makes-its-billions.html?_r=2&pagewanted=all