Cocaine King - Mexico's most wanted man, Joaquín Guzmán Loera, is one of 38 new billionaires.

For eight years Joaquín Guzmán Loera reportedly managed his international drug smuggling operation from behind bars while enjoying a lavish prison life with access to booze, women and a home entertainment system. Then in January 2001, facing extradition to the U.S., Guzmán slipped into a laundry cart and escaped.

Since then "El Chapo," or Shorty, as he is called, has tightened his grip on Mexico's drug trade as head of the Sinaloa cartel, one of the biggest suppliers of cocaine to the U.S. It is a lucrative business to be in these days. Thirty-five million people in the U.S. use narcotics or abuse prescription drugs, spending more than $64 billion annually. The Drug Enforcement Agency and other industry experts believe Guzmán, 54, has controlled anywhere from a third to half of the wholesale Mexican drug market over the past eight years. In 2008 Mexican and Colombian traffickers laundered between $18 billion and $39 billion in proceeds from wholesale shipments to the U.S., according to the U.S. government. Guzmán and his operation likely grossed 20% of that--enough for him to have pocketed $1 billion over his career and earn a spot on the billionaires list for the first time.

While others with ten-figure fortunes have criminal records, Guzmán is probably the only one for whom the U.S. government is offering a $5 million reward for his capture. "He clearly is a sociopath and willing to engage in high levels of violence, but he is skillful in managing these turbulent waters," says Bruce Bagley, chairman of international studies at the University of Miami. While traditional drug cartels are built around a family hierarchy, Guzmán's operates more as a confederation of different groups. He hires gangs that have peeled off from competitors, offering attractive profit sharing. "The Sinaloa cartel is

This is why the war on drugs will never work (actually one of various reasons). The solution thus far has been to try and take the war to the drug peddlars (not even the top hierachy for the most part ....jails are filled with the corner hustlers and other two-dollar type folk, many times those who deal in marijuana ....in Minneapolis and St Paul there have been people killed because of KHAT ...goodness, khat!) Now, it seems that they are trying to put some pressure on the people upstairs, such as this individual.

Problem is, as long as there is demand for their product (and based on the US$ 64 billion per annum from the US alone, there IS demand) it really will not matter if tomorrow they managed to gun down this fella! It will not even skip a single beat! The distribution networks are in place, the managers are in place, the coyotes are in place, the people who pay off the Feds in Mexico AND the US are in place, the corrupt Feds in both countries are in place ....the only difference is that a person who may very well be a figurehead will be dead! As long as the demand exists, that vacuum will be filled, and may be filled by someone who is even more vicious (e.g. the Zetas, who have really been taking violence to the next level).

I recall an advert after 9/11 that had a message stating that taking heroin puts money in the hands of Al Queda. I thought the ad was a little silly (similar to the one that compares making a copy of a DVD or music CD with stealing ....silly in that I don't think a drug user or a CD copier will really care much for the ad), but as ineffective as it might have been it was at least trying to address the deman equation. Because, even if the entire Mexican, Central and South American drug operations were to be magically shut down today (say by Pixies, Goblins and UFOs attacking at the crack of dawn), all it would mean is that another locus would open up. For the chance to get some of that US$ 64b I might be tempted to turn some of the land I own in Africa to growing the poison (not that I would, but I know the thought would cross my mind. Now imagine the average person out there).

As long as demand exists, and the 'authorities' are mostly trying to throw the poor oafs at the street corner into jail (and every now and then managing to capture or kill a bigger fish), the war on drugs will NEVER succeed.

Unless, of course, OBama has access to goblins and fairies (and I don't mean the San Franscisco kind)

I don't know what the answer is ...what I do know is that the current approach is simply stupid. For one, it targets the wrong end of the spectrum (again, throwing the guy with pants hanging at his knees with a roll of cheap weed is, in my opinion, an inefficient use of tax payer money. At the very least throw a guy in jail who will NOT be replaced within a couple of hours, as a lot of these corner-rats get replaced). Second of all, even when it gets a bigger fish (almost never), the structures are all left in place, meaning that the person's second (or third) in command will simply get up, shuffle over, and occupy the top seat. The bl@@dy thing can run itself! Third, there are other players who are potentially far worse than the current players ...for instance the Zetas are really making a mess of things there. This is not to say that nothing is done, but that a lot more should be done to ensure that there is an actual strategy for when the current Alpha male is cut down! Having his death or imprisonment as the 'end' is just foolish, since all it means is that an empty position just got created.

If it were up to me, I'd instead target the key people in the middle. The guys at the bottom, who are the usual targets of law enforcement, are simply pawns who come a dime a dozen. Go to any poor neighborhood and you'll get black, white and latino kids to do anything from drug runs to lookouts to street peddling for the 'princely' sum of 600 Dollars a week, and a promise for more if he gets the game right, doesn't get robbed, and ensures no interruption from cops and the like. Easy! Concentrating on such small fry is just dumb ...I think the cops do it because it is easy, and it makes them show high numbers of drug-based incarceration, making it appear like they are really cleaning up the streets. What they are doing is simply sweeping the saw dust at a paper mill factory running on full blast ......the moment they sweep-sweep more sawdust comes a-flittering down, but DANG do they LOOK busy with their dusters and hoovers!

On the same vein, the guys at the very very top have too many people underneath them who are just as capable, and if taken out one of the people below will take over. It is like a well run organization ....if it is a great org, taking out the CEO simply means someone else (maybe the CFO, or even lower one of the senior VPs, or even one of the hot shot managers) will take over. Easily. As long as the systems are in place, and the vision is great, the company will survive.

What I would do is target those underneath the 'CEO.' Basically, say I wanted to wipe out a competing Fund Manager ....basically make an offer to the senior fund managers, and when they leave also make offers for their top analysts and assistant fund managers and traders. Expensive proposition, but what it will do is basically cripple the other company. It does happen in the real world (e.g. the team that managed Harvard university's endowment Fund got cleaned out in a similar manner), and they should do something similar for the 'war' on drugs. Instead of just soaking up the riff-raff by the street corner because they look the part and are easy to pick up, go for higher ups (the jails don't need any more weed peddlars ....at least hit the guys selling heroin and cocaine in Soho and Hollywood ...that would have more impact than some stupid-o with US$ 75 of weed in his socks, or maybe that is too bright for law enforcement, who would rather have a no-knock entry into some old lady's house, shoot her dead, and then plant ...ooops, say .....that they found a small bag of weed in her house. Sure is smart, huh!) However, instead of getting the top Capo, get the people beneath him ...the organizers, financiers, people who pay off the authorities, matter of fact change the authorities (do a switch between the people who check for drugs at the border with game wardens from yosemite national park, and keep doing random changes so that no one is static enough for corruption to seep through), get the top managers, attack the guys running the transportation channels from the farms to the factories, attack the transportation routes from the factories to the border, attack those with technical knowledge, etc.

Can it work?

Probably not ....BUT it will definitely have a much better chance of working than the cop-show tactics where we see cops chasing some guy with no shirt (always no shirt) and pants hanging down his knees down the street, slam him on a chain-link fence or a car hood (always, again, either a link fence or a car hood), and while panting victoriously show the couple backs of weed or crack that they got from the guy's socks (must be smelly weed).

Or going the very opposite end of the scale, where every 5-7 years they manage to get a truly large fish, maybe shooting him at his rooftop (like you know who), or maybe by luck having some other drug organization assasinating the main guy (like will probably happen to this dude). By week's end, someone else has risen to the top, and business goes on as usual (in most cases more efficiently).

Maybe it is time to try and take out the middle chunk!

Don't get me wrong. I hate drugs, but I think we are looking at a problem only the free market can solve. You need to stop the law enforcement activity and figure out why are people self-medicating?

You get the same things with alcoholics. These problems are psychological and moral in nature. I know many ex-addicts/criminals and eventually some event occurs in their lives that makes them reconsider their course. No amount of jail time did that, ever. It is anecdotal, but I think the recidivism rates bear it up. Most crime is drug/alcohol related, including murder.

My solutions:

1. Prison reform - prisoners must learn a trade or earn a degree; work to pay for 100% of the cost of their incarceration with the balance going to repay the damage they've done (these first two would preclude anyone who did not do them from earning good time off or getting a sentence reduction); community permission to release a criminal before they've finished their full sentence (don't just leave it up to parole boards) and allow parole boards to be sued for malpractice.

2.School vouchers. Give people a choice that includes ending the teaching certificate monopoly on education. Only an egomaniac or fool would get involved with drugs. Schools are boring places where little learning occurs. There are a ton of exciting methods that reduce school time down to a few hours a day and there is no one who cannot be taught something. Tracking is a crutch for lazy teachers.

3. Drug reform. End the FDAs monopoly on drugs or return it to drug safety as opposed to performance which was the original intent. Legalize illegal drugs at the Federal level and allow states to determine how they will be controlled. Better 50 states figuring it out than one over-sized, menace of a Federal government. Even prescription drugs get abused and pretending that control or more control or even more control is needed is counter to the original intent of our American Revolution. It should be patently obvious that the “drug war” is counterproductive both to individual liberty and common sense. 4. Work reform. The right to work is a basic human right and a natural right. Most local licensing requirements stop ex-cons from being hired. Let the 50 states decide it and get the Federal government out of the labor market completely. If a union is best, go union. If it is a drag, then don't. Let states set minimum wages if any.

Understand that ex-cons are moslty dumber than average, less educated, come from broken homes and single mothers who had kids in their teens. They're hard enough to hire without a felony record.

Some kind of targeted system could even work where you let them intern for a small stipend and not count it against an employer if they have to be fired within 90-120 days or something.

We've still not solved the problem of self-medicating or why people suffer such soulful agony, but we've just reduced both the rate of new criminality, crime, and recidivisim. Busy, occupied, smart people don't have time to wallow in drug/alcohol abuse.

That moves the ball a long way down court, no?

Most of the money these Mexican cartels make comes from marijuana sales to Americans. According to our government they bring in about 90% of the cocaine and better than 80% of the meth and heroin consumed here, but the market is limited for those drugs compared to the market for marijuana. Hundreds of tons of all those drug combined supplies demand here, compared to the many thousands of tons of of marijuana consumed here. All we need to do is legalize and regulate the production and sales of marijuana and take that business from them. That would deprive them of most of their income and make it harder for them to move their other drugs because those drugs piggy back on top of the marijuana and in many cases are sold by people at the bottom of the distribution chain who sell their marijuana. They always have plenty of marijuana sellers they can tap to move their other drugs who are already in the drug dealing business. This is a great resource for them that we could take away simply by regulating the production and sales of marijuana and having it be sold from licensed facilities that will be no more likely to sell cocaine or heroin or meth or any other illegal drugs than liquor stores are today.

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