Author: Tom Wainwright
Tom Wainwright presents a thorough business analysis of the narcotics industry. He looks at the parallels that it has with current industry mores. There's a discussion on the economics of supply and demand, of competition vs collusion, corporate social responsibility of the drug lords, offshoring the production of drugs and even the most American of all business inventions - franchising.
After evaluating the drug industry from all these angles, he argues that just like the CEO of a multinational company, the drug baron is looking to diversify into new markets. The one where the infrastructure that he has built up gives him the most advantage is "people smuggling" and you will find plenty of the drug cartels now moving into this adjacency.
Tom makes a compelling case for why the heightened activity around limiting the supply of drugs has had very little effect on reducing consumption. Instead it has greatly increased the violence in places like Juarez, Mexico. Describing the high death toll in Juarez as a result of Felipe Calderons war on drugs, he says "more than 25000 people simply vanished during Calderons presidency, many of whom have ended up in the chilled cabinets of the newly enlarged Juarez morgue”. Furthermore it has raised the street prices of drugs resulting in a bigger $$ market.
Tom explores the drug industry from every possible business angle. He has many an anecdote on the Human Resources side and claims that the drug cartels use prisons as recruiting centers. As a counterpoint he argues that “better jails make for worse job centers".
Finally he concludes the book by exploring the recent moves by a few states to legalize marijuana in the US. Colorado is at the forefront of this experiment and initial prognosis is that is working by greatly reducing the market for illegal drugs. It is too early to declare victory but Tom is hopeful that this will become a global trend.
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