How does the Cartel make so much money when the percentage of people using drugs is so low?

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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.

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Anonymous 0 Comments

Ex drug policy here. Drugs don’t cost much to produce, are cheap to distribute, involve little capital investment, sell for high prices and – crucially – it’s pretty much all cash and nowhere for it to go. The cartel is a few dozen people, rolling in cash and unable to invest it. So they bribe, party and blow it on whatever takes their fancy including, of course, assassinating rivals and threats..

A lot is lost or wasted (one mid-level US distributor estimated that only a quarter of the money made it back to Colombia). 1500 tons of cocaine – even at wholesale prices – is a lot of cash.

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