I just had a conversation with my Mexican's wife's brother-in-law last week. About 7 years ago I had asked him about whether he thought legalization of pot would help or hurt Mexico. He felt "bad guys" would just change their business model to harder drugs and other nefarious industries such as kidnapping, prostitution, racketeering, etc. So I was curious if he had changed his opinion.

He mentioned Tijuana for instance is already carved up amongst the various crime organizations. In his opinion it will not help Mexico though it perhaps will not hurt it either.

Personally I think the corruption goes from the top to the bottom and don't really see a quick fix. There would have to be real consequences to taking and giving bribes and other steps like that to re-enact the rule of law. I must say if I was a Mexican cop and told "take our silver or our lead", I'd probably take the bribe too so not really passing judgement. :-/

Sure, no quick fix and political reforms will be needed as well (see my other response in this thread). But changing the demand for weed and for other drugs, and having competition from legal businesses in that regard, will definitely diminish the strength of the cartels. That will make the problem of strengthening the state more tractable, although it won't solve it outright (the state as the collection of instutions, laws and practices, as opposed to our collection of corrupt high ranking politicians)

Yes, I read your comment after the fact.

I have been downvoted all to hell whenever I suggest buying drugs is supporting these murderers.

Has the (thoroughly corrupt) PRI being back in power made the violence better or worse if you know?

Unclear. For the first few years of this administration you heard less about it under Peña Nieto, but the estimated numbers keep climbing up, so it is most likely that was media spin for the most part. Also, there is the Ayotzinapa mass kidnapping/murdering of 43 students [1] which happened during his administration and where many people believe the federal government is at least complicit in hindering the Inter-American Human Rights Commission's investigation on the issue [2]. Of course, that is just one anecdotal datapoint (although a particularly shocking one). In general, the feeling is that we got the worst of both worlds: a PRI that is as authoritarian and as hostile to the press as that of the 80's and 90's and yet when it comes to controlling the cartels and local governments, it has as weak of a grip as the Calderon administration did.

Somewhat unrelated, but reinforcing your point about it being corrupt, we keep finding that president Peña Nieto owns quite a few houses he shouldn't be able to afford: [3], [4]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Iguala_mass_kidnapping

[2] http://www.oas.org/en/iachr/media_center/PReleases/2016/023....

[3] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jul/18/mexico-preside...

[4] http://fusion.net/story/337255/jorge-ramos-another-scandal-p...

Corruption is a super tough problem to deal with. Hopefully cutting into enough revenue streams will give enough of a foothold to begin to combat the gangs.

I can't upvote this enough. Ending the War is not just about "let's all get high", it's about ending the bloodshed and corruption it fosters.

I'm hopeful but a bit pessimistic that legalizing marijuana will have much of an impact on the cartel violence in Mexico. There's so much money at stake and it's easy enough for them to switch to trafficking cocaine / heroin / meth. Any reason to think it won't just continue on pace?

Sure, and even legalizing all drugs in the U.S. and the Americas won't fix the problem, since cartels have other sources of income we will likely never legalize: human trafficking, extortion, etc. The full solution will involve painful long term reforms to the political and economical institutions of the countries involved (at least I know it will for Mexico), solving centuries long issues with structural income inequality[1], access to opportunities, race and class divisions, etc, etc.

But we are talking about closing a big revenue stream for the cartels, almost certainly one of the two or three biggest they have, maybe even the largest, just by lifting the prohibition on marijuana. That's not only a step in the right direction, it is a rather big one. In the long term, treating drug addiction as a medical / consumer protection issue in the US rather than primarily a law enforcement one, will be a huge boon towards the future of both nations (and, again, other nations in the Americas that I am not excluding but for which I feel less qualified to speak about).

In short: it won't magically fix the problem, but I do believe it will likely reduce the number of deaths and put us in a path towards a solution.

[1] For the HN libertarian crowd, I don't mean solving income inequality in the sense that everybody should make the same regardless of economic output (although I do believe on a safety net), I mean changing a centuries long setup in which class mobility is near zero and strongly correlated with race, and where most large scale "entrepreneurship" in the country is based of political connections (see telecommunications and media industries in Mexico for example).

Because it is a step. Just a small step but there is some hope that it could lead to decriminalization of all drug use.

Demand. There's nowhere near the demand.