Just finished the book. Very easy read and really enjoyed it. Each chapter highlights a different area of the drug trade. It is really interesting read.

Here is an NPR interview with the author LINK

quote:

When Tom Wainwright became the Mexico correspondent for The Economist in 2010, he found himself covering the country's biggest businesses, including the tequila trade, the oil industry and the commerce of illegal drugs.

"I found that one week I'd be writing about the car business, and the next week I'd be writing about the drugs business," Wainwright tells Fresh Air's Terry Gross. "I gradually came to see that the two actually were perhaps more similar than people normally recognize."

During the three years he spent in Mexico and Central and South America, Wainwright discovered that the cartels that control the region's drug trade use business models that are surprisingly similar to those of big-box stores and franchises. For instance, they have exclusive relationships with their "suppliers" (the farmers who grow the coca plants) that allow the cartels to keep the price of cocaine stable even when crop production is disrupted.

"The theory is that the cartels in the area have what economists call a 'monopsony,' [which is] like a monopoly on buying in the area," Wainwright says. "This rang a bell with me because it's something that people very often say about Wal-Mart."

Wainwright describes his new book, Narconomics, as a business manual for drug lords — and also a blueprint for how to defeat them. When it comes to battling the cartels, Wainwright says governments might do better to focus on controlled legalization rather than complete eradication of the product.

"The choice that I think we face isn't really a choice between a world without drugs and a world with drugs," he says. "I think the choice we face really is between a world where drugs are controlled by governments and prescribed by pharmacists and doctors, and a world where they're dealt by the mafia, and given that choice, I think the former sounds more appealing."

This post was edited on 6/12/17 at 11:50 am

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Posted by Willie Stroker

Member since Sep 2008

16208 posts

Posted on 6/12/17 at 12:55 pm to Dire Wolf

Did the author get into the economics of street corner drug dealing?

Freakonomics made the case that street corner drug dealing actually rarely paid more than minimum wage.

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Posted by Dire Wolf

bawcomville

Member since Sep 2008

40105 posts

Posted on 6/12/17 at 1:08 pm to Willie Stroker

quote:
Did the author get into the economics of street corner drug dealing?

not really, it is more about drugs before entering the American market.

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Posted by AUCE05

Member since Dec 2009

45239 posts

Posted on 6/12/17 at 4:45 pm to Dire Wolf

Interesting. I'll put it on my list.

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Posted by Fatal Conceit

Ramblin down that dusty ole road

Member since Jun 2017

594 posts

Posted on 6/16/17 at 11:33 pm to Dire Wolf

Government already runs, endorses, and covers for Drug Cartels. Drug Cartels were the first non state actors and model for islamic actors.

No chance for legalizing any illegal drug. Government actors fund and profit under color of authority.

Not a recent issue, it is old as the world, but fell in our lap after the siege of Dien Bien Phu ca 1954...

LINK

This post was edited on 6/16/17 at 11:37 pm

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