This whole post is referring to this statistic: [https://www.statista.com/statistics/443460/percentage-of-population-that-has-used-illicit-drugs-by-drug/](https://www.statista.com/statistics/443460/percentage-of-population-that-has-used-illicit-drugs-by-drug/)
The cartel is so rich and has so much power which makes me wonder how the hell are they making so much money if there’s quite a low of percentage of people using drugs.
In: 2701
I can’t read the charts without an account, so I’m going to arbitrarily assume it’s saying that illicit drug use is at .5% of the population. Unless the actual number they’re giving is closer to .005% or something equally ridiculous my conclusion will still follow.
The USA has a population of approximately 332 million people. .5% of 332 million is 1.66 million. That’s a *huge* market. That’s larger than most cities.
Drugs are also cheap to make – especially when you’re a cartel and get the “work for cheap or I’ll kill you” discount – and sold at an incredible markup. That markup, by the way, will never go away so long as the drugs are illegal, so the “War on Drugs” is really the “War to Keep Cartels Rich”, but I digress.
Finally, drugs aren’t televisions. You don’t just buy them once a decade or two. These are addictive substances. Those 1.66 million people? They’re *subscribers*. They’re paying the ridiculous markup every time they need a hit, and they need a hit very frequently. With heroin, for example, you need to shoot up *multiple times a day* to avoid a crash.
So really, it’s basic economics. The supplier has low overhead costs and a constant high demand for their product, so they make money hand over fist.
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