[William Tell]

PowderMonkey said: "With legalization, they will make even more money, establishing storefronts and retail chains. As legit businessmen now, the cartels will move from trafficking drugs, to more profitable enterprises like extortion and political corruption. "

Political corruption can't exist in an environment of freedom and limited government. If, for example, anybody can run their own casino, then there is no benefit to bribing a zoning official or a legislator.

Who would the cartels extort and why would anybody pay? If kidnapping for ransom was profitable, they would be doing it and are doing it in some locales.

Would you really want to be a criminal enterprise competing directly with Walmart?

I don't know the details of the situation in Colorado, but I do know that pot literally grows on trees. If the law allows people to grow their own without withering taxes, the price will plummet as soon as the first crop is in.

[PowderMonkey]

"If the law allows people to grow their own without withering taxes, the price will plummet as soon as the first crop is in."

The first crop is in. Demand is skyrocketing. At $400 per ounce. That a far cry from the days when illegal "Colombian Gold" sold at a whopping $35 per ounce, brought into the U.S. one laborious plane load at a time. Bottom line, I can refute your position with one family name: Kennedy. Old Joe didn't make his money running rum during prohibition. He made his money and accumulated political influence because he was in place and ready to profit handsomely from established networks when prohibition was repealed. Political corruption can't exist in an environment of freedom and limited government? Really?