back
24 comments
> In Detroit, officials say that their busts have helped raise the street price of a kilogram of cocaine to roughly $43,000 from about $30,000. “When you spike the price by one-third, I think you’ve hit the right vein of where it’s coming from,” Graveline said.

I wonder how much extra (probably petty) crime that price spike caused?

Besides increased theft, it also means the cocaine that is available will have more adulterants, people who can't get it will turn to other drug such as methamphetamines or dangerous pills, dealers who do have supply will temporarily become wealthier creating new conflicts or power plays, the cartel will have to recruit more vulnerable people to become mules, etc etc.

But most likely, within a month or two prices will probably stabilize again.

And the state is left with an expensive prosecution, judges, lawyers, public defenders, paid police witnesses, forensic experts. Not including the whole cost of catch the guy in the first place.

And the drug war theater continues on and the law enforcement and legal industries continue to line their pockets.

"Prosecutors are less interested in what caused Sharp to go into business with the cartel." Guess that's business as usual.

Also reminds me of a scene in Little Miss Sunshine. Son catches his ~80 yr old dad snorting cocaine. Dad's response basically is "what are they going to do to me at this age?"

The pointlessness of all this effort is just gobsmacking. What was made better? At what cost?
"In Detroit, officials say that their busts have helped raise the street price of a kilogram of cocaine to roughly $43,000 from about $30,000."

As another user pointed out, what's the end goal here? Why is that a good thing? I don't know. I definitely think hurting the pockets of the poor-er drug addicts is a bit... pointless as you said.

Imagine how much money was spent on this entire operation... it must be a bloody lot, and from what we can see, not a lot of gain either. As a guess, maybe they got some better intelligence, new informants.. which they can use to further their "war on drugs".

In reality, "took down * drug runners who spent * years evading us and supplying * with amount of drugs over * years" looks really good on someone's CV than "Did an undercover bust and put a drug dealer in jail". All comes down to politics in the end doesn't it?

> In reality, "took down * drug runners who spent * years evading us and supplying * with amount of drugs over * years" looks really good on someone's CV

What I found most interesting was the disconnect between the reality of the drug operations, and the information the DEA had. The DEA thought a $2M transaction was huge and rare. The drug dealers were doing that amount regularly.

In the end, the only way the DEA got inside the organization was that someone talked. If everyone had kept quiet, the DEA would still have no idea about the scale of the operation.

> what's the end goal here? Why is that a good thing?

Less supply means less consumption, period. Increased price is just a mechanism that determines who still gets to consume how much.

Of course, it also incentivizes getting the supply back up.

> Of course, it also incentivizes getting the supply back up.

I think you answered yourself, didn't you?

One thing I've observed about (legal or otherwise) markets with inelastic demand is that temporary supply shortages tend to translate into permanent price increases.

So, what DoJ has accomplished is a pretext for dealers to hike their margins, and an incentive for desperate addicts to rely on more violent means to support their usage.

Basically, Merry Christmas and a Fucked-up New Year...

If you're addicted price won't matter. You will find a way to get that money and that probably means theft/mugging etc. The only people hurt by this are ordinary citizens.
Let's say less supply interdiction in this case, at least locally, and for a certain period, actually reduces consumption of cocaine.

What's the benefit? What's the cost?

"In Detroit, officials say that their busts have helped raise the street price of a kilogram of cocaine to roughly $43,000 from about $30,000."

Doesn't that just make the risk / reward proposition even more appealing to new recruits?

What I took from this was someone else has probably taken over and raised the prices for no real reason other than "they can". (if people complain, they can point to the DEA -- making addicts hate them further! /s)

Mind you, it's an interesting thing about the old man. Logic says he probably was very much in control, had no dementia etc when he started out. Probably thought "I'm old now, what do I have to lose?" and turned out to be excellent at what he did. It makes me wonder though... why did they keep him running, when they knew something was wrong with him, and that they knew his memory was deteriorating?

From everything I have read about the Sinaloa Cartel, they're not that silly... but I guess they were this time. (they strike me as the sort of people who are not sentimental and would "get rid" of someone who was putting their local operation at risk...

>they strike me as the sort of people who are not sentimental and would "get rid" of someone who was putting their local operation at risk...

"the cartels hired unskilled laborers to dig the tunnels, executing them afterward to preserve secrecy."

http://www.gq.com/news-politics/newsmakers/201401/marijuana-...

No matter what you do, if there is a market, all the supply chain is going to evolve.
Shootings always increase with the price too, as robbery becomes appealing to smaller gangs who will risk attacking established gangs for a huge reward. Here it was $70k per kilo during the summer and gunmen were everywhere shooting up restaurants and parking lots.
I don't like the idea of animals being able to determine whether a person gets their 4th amendment right or not. Also getting "caught" with $350,000 is irksome but theres probably been enough comments on here about civil forfeiture lately.

EDIT: reason for my opinion: http://youtu.be/w-WMn_zHCVo?t=3m49s

Couldn't even finish reading the blurb before i got an uncloseable popup with "Thank you for visiting NYTimes.com If you are already a subscriber log in here. To see subscription options click here."

Lame.

The guy reminds of a certain character from Breaking Bad.
The DEA website lists "not less than 5 years" for first time offenders. This guy got three. If you're black they choke you out for selling cigarettes improperly.
It's not really possible to engage with a comment like this - I feel like it's trolling for a response in order to jump on the replier and attack him/her as a racist. I also don't think it's in good taste to argue the finer points of the circumstances of Garner's death. But I would like to point out that the DEA wasn't responsible for what happened to him.
Yeah. That guy was being rather offensive in the way he tried to communicate his thoughts but there definitely is some racial and gender discrimination that comes into play. I was not expecting this very old, ill-health man to get much prison time as that would be rather inhumane, given his dementia.

I was preparing myself for no prison sentence. In New Zealand, he'd probably go to prison for a month or so and then be let out on close supervision, or a house on prison grounds). At that age, and with those medical problems, I do not think he will be living for much longer -- which is sad. I'm not empathising with what he did, but rather, as a human being.

Prison is to... stop criminals being criminals, right? I know here, Prison is about rehabilitation however, I think we can all safely know that if this old man went home on home detention, he'd pose no risk to society. It's not like he'd be able to get back into his old "job". (but this poses an interesting question: would he be harmed by someone in the cartel if they could reach him at home? -- but I'm sure they can reach him in prison too).

Americans are mean, vicious bastards, and American prisons have nothing to with rehabilitation. Most Americans would think it's swell for first-time offenders to never see the light of day again.
>or a house on prison grounds

How would that work?

Like a half-way house, but on the prison grounds, so ... literally a half-way mark between prison and the outside world.

I know in NZ it has been used for sex offenders and such. People that have done their sentence, but the Parole board/public outcry hasn't deemed them rehabilitated enough for society.