Narconomics: How to Run a Drug Cartel

by Tom Wainwright

I dealt with a trader of crystal-meth pipes who was as attentive as any Amazon representative. (Actually, I take it back. He was far more helpful.)

For this reason, no analyst of the beef industry would calculate the price of a live steer mooching around on the Argentine pampa using restaurant data from New York City.

Many hotels in La Paz serve coca tea to guests on arrival—in fact, even the American embassy used to, not so long ago.

Peru’s crackdown triggered a coca-growing boom in Colombia. When Colombia redoubled its efforts and drove the farmers out, the coca terraces reappeared in Peru. Western observers call this the “balloon effect”: if you squeeze in one place, it bulges up somewhere else.

Cartels play a role more like that of large supermarkets, buying produce from farmers, processing and packaging it, and then selling it on to consumers.