Quote Originally Posted by kevinssdad View Post
If these reports are at all accurate about amounts and street value for those losses to be absorbed it begs the question, "How much illegal drug makes it to market and then the proceeds get back to the shipper??

It must be more than a few hundred tons. If we are losing the drug war, it is probably because we have never adequately enforced the law. As we don't enforce immigration law either, and crossing the border illegally is common to both.
The illegal drug trade is over $300 billion a year in sales, at least, because as of a few years ago a report by a Congressional committee revealed that over $240 billion a year of illegal drug sold in the US comes across the Southern Border alone. The name of that report was The Southwest Border: A Line In the Sand. 70% of the items were marijuana and 30% cocaine with some small amount of heroine, because most heroine comes in through the ports or in other ways from other parts of the world. I don't think the report discussed meth at that time, but meth is now coming in as well I guess. At that time, I think most of the meth was produced here in the states.

The illegal drug trade is a huge enterprise, larger than $300 billion by now. That report was at least 7 years ago and drug sales grow every year with the population. The states that have legalized marijuana will be tapping into that to some degree for the medical marijuana and to a lesser degree the recreational marijuana because for now there are fewer states that have legalized recreational pot. As more states legalize, then more pot will be produced and sold here which will start to put a big dent in this illegal drug trade since 70% of it is marijuana, at least coming in over the Southern Border.