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
Do you spend $50k a year on food per person in your family? That’s what a crack head might spend.
High value customers.
The entire GDP of the world is 100 Trillion Dollars. If half of a percent of that is involved in organized crime that’s a 500 billion dollar per year industry.
And they don’t like to market share, so that money gets heavily concentrated.
Missing information:
* In the 80’s-90’s when cartels became famous, a lot of people were using a lot of cocaine. From high schools to hollywood and everywhere in between.
* The modern cartels are doing a lot more than just drugs… Anything from human trafficking to kidnapping/ransom to [avocados](https://www.npr.org/2022/02/19/1081948884/mexican-drug-cartels-are-getting-into-the-avocado-and-lime-business).
* Profits get invested/laundered into very profitable enterprises. For example, most people believe that cartels have ownership in resorts in places like the Mayan Riviera.
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.
If you think very few people use drugs, you don’t actually live in America or are completely socially blind.
People don’t admit to doing drugs, especially not in surveys. Lots and lots of people do drugs and almost everyone is addicted to something, whether illicit drugs or something else.
Two words: “Whale hunting”. It’s the same business model used by casinos and free to play games. You find a small set of consumers who spend an egregious amount of money on your product because they are addicted.
Cartels sell and do more than drugs. they human traffic, they sell weapons, they extort the police, the politicians, even regular people. Cartels do one thing well, diversifying
You underestimate the markup.
Something that would sell for $10 in Peru, sells for $100 in Columbia, and sells for $1000 in Florida.
This is a case where your statistics are not anywhere close to being right and are estimations at best. That’s just people who admitted to the study they use drugs. It doesn’t account for all the people who dont admit to it. Not to mention where you draw your line.on “illcit”. For example cannabis is legal to use and posses in my state but illegal in the state over. So one state is using illcit drugs the other isn’t even though theyre using the same exact drug lol.
By definition cartels are monopolies. By eliminating competition through violence and intimidation, ironically the price and profit margins of drugs goes up.
The great irony is that having super cartels is both good for business and increases the cost of being a drug addict.
When Escobar had a monopoly on cocaine, it was seen as glamorous and we had things like Studio 54 where wealthy folks like Donald Trump, Liza Minnelli, and Cher would hang out.
I’m not sure if it’s related, but breaking up the Sinaloa cartel increased competition greatly and now we have fentanyl in every suburb and trailer park in the country
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