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Illegality Inflates Price And Profits
- Making drugs illegal raises production and protection costs, which pushes prices far above legal-market levels.
- Because demand for addictive drugs is inelastic, higher prices mainly feed dealers' profits and related criminal activity.
High Prices Fund Crime Networks
- High drug prices increase violence because dealers use armed enforcement and pay for protection to secure revenue.
- That criminal spending expands into local economies via bribes, guns, and protection payments.
Ricky Ross’s Profit Numbers
- Freeway Ricky Ross reports making $200k profit per $1M wholesale and buying kilos for about $10k.
- He says illegal status multiplies price by maybe a thousand-fold compared with source-country costs.