In the war on drugs… drugs won
Ed Vulemy’s “Is America ready to admit defeat in its 40-year war on drugs?” in last Sunday’s The Guardian (U.K.) asks:
Is the “war on drugs” ending? … Across Latin America and Mexico, there is a wave of drug law reform which constitutes a stark rebuff to the United States as it prepares to mark the 40th anniversary of a conflict officially declared by President Richard Nixon and fronted by his wife, Pat, in 1969.
That “war” has incarcerated an average of a million US citizens a year, as every stratum of American society demonstrates its insatiable need to get high. And it has also engulfed not only America, but the Americas.
…
Never have the war on drugs and its flipside, the drug wars, raged so furiously as on this anniversary. Yet Mexico’s is only the latest in a series of murderous conflicts that have scarred the pan-American war on drugs, starting with Operation Condor in the 1970s, whereby the US helped Mexico to obliterate poppy crops, only to give birth to the new cartels and institutionalised corruption.
Meanwhile, there have been catastrophic drug wars and narco-insurgency in Colombia, combining with political struggles to create the biggest internal displacement of people in the western hemisphere. Drug-related violence has blighted Brazil, Peru, Bolivia, Venezuela and anywhere the Mexican and Colombian cocaine cartels sought their product. Latin America has also become a factory for synthetic drugs, much of it now under Mexican control…
(read the entire article here).
Vulemy focuses on the movement across the Americas (not just Mexico and the United States) to decriminalize the use of narcotics, but — as with other “first world media” (even lefty organs like The Guardian) fiails to see that consumption is not particularly relevant to Latin American drug producers. The lack of employment and business opportunities in Latin America, especially in rural regions, makes the narcotics business viable.
One hates to admit it, but one suspects that if Latin American nations just treated the narcotic s trade like any other export, and ended the need to launder profits and use murder as a way of enforcing business contracts, they might be better off.
Of course, one would expect the United States and other consumer countries to retailiate, canceling “aid programs” and attempting to subvert governmetns (nothing new in that) and even forcing U.S. businesses to pull out of the region, maybe attempting to sabotage the tourist trade (something regularly done now, but the U.S. State Department though their “consular warnings”).
On the other hand, all that “evil drug money” that has to be laundered (though U.S. and European banks and investment houses) could be repatriated legitimately, which would create a huge investment pool for Latin American businesses. The rich countries are not going to give up their continued need for Latin American commodities (oil, gold, silver, copper, botanicals, etc.) — or narcotics — and will have to keep buying.
OR.. the narco-consumers can start figuring out how to steer investments and jobs this direction.
mexfiles.net 
Making the export legal would do nothing to change the status quo. Since the “product” would still be illegal in the receiving countries smuggling would remain necessary. Vincente Fox was correct in his observations about how to end the mayhem; end prohibition and treat the problem as a medical one.
The more likely result of such an improbable change would be increased violence against the governments and people in Latin America. These groups would not take any effort to reduce their market share lightly. There would also be a tendency to diversify further into other areas of crime, more likely to effect the local populations.
I don’t know about that. Alcohol production and sale was perfectly legal outside the United States during Prohibition, and despite some spill-over violence from the United States (mostly on the border, only involving those directly in the smuggling biz), it didn’t much affect Canadian or Mexican business, or for that matter, the rate of alcohol abuse.
And, who said Mexican had to be involved in transporting the stuff across the border? A legal business could sell to those foreigners who wanted to figure out how to export it, since presumably user countries aren’t going to hand out import licenses.
The violence caused by the illegality of the trade against farmers and farm workers isn’t reported NoB, and — given that these are not people who are just trying to make a living, not folks signing on to a criminal enterprise — may be worse than that against gangsters and cops.
The biggest difference is that money not needing to be laundered, can be invested in legitimate enterprises (including marijuana and poppy farming) which are long-term sustainable jobs, as opposed to the types of investments (cash and carry businesses like night-clubs) which don’t really strengthen the economy or the nation.
Not that any of this is gonna happen.
You are correct about the fact that during the 20’s Canadian and Mexican producers of alcohol (and sugar) did well selling to the gangsters. But the very large profits still went to the gangsters. It is the illegality of the stuff that makes it so profitable. Hell, even with a controlled producer market in tobacco (the US government limits who can grow and how much), the price of tobacco is relatively low here. The large profits would not be had by the small farmer, they would still go to the smugglers (and in your scenario these would be foreigners.) The fact that it is already controlled by gangsters is the reason that your proposal would probably have a different result than the Prohibition Era. Do you really think that the gangsters would go away quietly? As an aside, I am surprised at how little coverage the MSM has given to the dramatic change in possession laws in Mexico. Not as sexy as OXXO coolers containing heads, I guess.