Why Legalizing drugs won't stop cartels

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But would legalization really work? With each day that passes, it looks like it wouldn’t be enough, for one overarching reason: The cartels are becoming less like traffickers and more like mafias. Their currency is no longer just cocaine, methamphetamines, or heroin, though they earn revenue from each of these products. As they have grown in size and ambition, like so many big multinational corporations, they have diversified. The cartels are now active in all types of illicit markets, not just drugs.

"Mexico is experiencing a change with the emergence of criminal organizations that, rather than being product-oriented — drug trafficking — are territorial based," says Antonio Mazzitelli, head of the UNODC office in Mexico City. They now specialize in running protection rackets of all kinds, he says, which might explain why the violence has gotten so bad: Mafias enforce their territorial control by force, killing anyone who resists or gets in the way.

"Before, we had organized crime, but operating strictly in narcotrafficking," adds Eduardo Guerrero Gutiérrez, a consultant and former advisor to the Mexican presidency. "Now we have a type of mafia violence … and they are extorting from the people at levels that are incredibly high — from the rich, from businesses." For this reason, Mazzitelli says, legalization would have "little effect."

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