Author manages to present inner mechanism of drug-production-and-smuggling criminal underworld using economic terms in a way that surprised me very much - very clean, concise and understandable manner. What surprises me is that official policy of the governments worldwide in general does not try to devise tactics of fighting the crime through economic means but decide to fight it through brute force. I guess that for a person wielding the hammer every problem looks like a nail.

Nothing mentioned in the book is new if one has read any other book on organized crime but it is a rare book that describes the situation in a higly readable and understandable way. Problem is that current (brute force) approach seems to be very profitable for other participants (weapon manufacturers and more than prospering security industry to name the few) and usable as leverage in inter-state relations. There is no profit, immediate victories or glamour in social projects and developments that are the only true instruments to achieve victory in controlling the illegal drug market. While direct action has its place and role, be it military or police,these are supportive activities. State policy (and in general state policies) must not be based solely on these - they are to be used as means to achieve the goal, ways to dismantle crime in areas that are highly contestable and where state has lost influence. But social policy and plans are the true means to root out the crime and cannot be substituted by anything else.

Unfortunately until governments decide they should change their approach and plan to achieve long-term goals (instead of concentrating on short-term, administration single cycle time-span, goals) it is not possible to fight the crime effectively.

Higly recommended. ( )

Меняйся, или проиграешь. Лучшие бизнес-практики не знают границ и охотно подхватываются менеджерами из других областей, необязательно смежных. Том Уэйнрайт, редактор британского The Economist, решил окунуться в параллельный мир наркокартелей и узнать, как он реагирует на новые вызовы, стандартные для любой фирмы: управление персоналом, новые законодательные инициативы правительства, поиск надежных поставщиков и борьба с конкурентами.

Успехи у дельцов действительно нешуточные: эффективность выработки кокаина из сырья возросла на 60% по сравнению с тем, что вообще считалось реальным недавно. Еще бы — в поисках новых решений и пестицидов cocoleros, как добропорядочные техасские фермеры, посещают сельскохозяйственные выставки и выписывают специализированные журналы. Интернет позволяет, с одной стороны, вести бизнес в Британии с оборотом $100 млн силами всего трех человек, а с другой — увеличивать продажи за счет обратной связи удовлетворенных покупателей, оставляющих отзывы на сайтах (которые, впрочем, быстро сносятся полицией).

А как убрать конкурента, не особо вспотев? В Мексике лучше не выходить из дома в 17:45. Почему? Потому что, устроив перестрелку на чужой территории в это время (и оставив пару тел), мафиози привлекают туда массу СМИ аккурат к шестичасовому выпуску новостей и пометке «Срочно» на экране. Общественность негодует, полиция по звонку из мэрии мчится в квадрат как ошпаренная и кладет всех местных. PR-зубры, учитесь!

Специфический франчайзинг и офшоринг, убытки от легализации наркотиков в США и стратегии их преодоления (например, диверсификация), а также что наркобароны почерпнули у Walmart — в общем, прелюбопытное чтение. Суть книги, однако, не в том, чтобы воспеть предприимчивость и проактивность криминала, а в том, чтобы указать, как наносить удары по его бизнес-модели, которая сегодня правоохранительными органами понимается не вполне адекватно. Ведь стоимость выращивания кустов коки по сравнению с розничной ценой готового продукта сравнима со стоимостью холста и красок в модном произведении искусства, поэтому атаки на крестьян в Андах большого результата не приносят, а вот продуманная работа со спросом — да.

Here's a spoiler: the takeaway from Wainwright is that prohibition doesn't work. But unlike the resident pothead, his thesis is based on analysis that exposes drug war policy as often wasteful or even counterproductive.

Drug lords adapt is probably a better subtitle. There's nothing particularly novel revealed by Wainright's research if you have a passing understanding of the politics of drug enforcement. But what he does well is tie the operating norms of violent cartels with the incentives created by the very institutions that seek to control them. Violence is the the criminal enterprise's recourse in the absence of enforceable contracts. When you combine that operating reality with a demand curve that's only growing and a hydra-like supply line, is it any wonder why cartels thrive against policies that only escalate the drug war? ( )

I enjoyed the focus of the book on thinking about this phenomenon from an economic perspective. The chapters follow a kind of template: pick some facet of the drug trade and compare it to the corresponding situation in a licit business, introduce some related economic concept, and brain-storm possible courses of action based on that reasoning. I especially appreciate this last part on proposing alternatives, who knows if they are good, but they definitely were thought-provoking. Perhaps some counter-arguments coming from the same type of economic reasoning would have made the book more enriching,

I also like the global view it provides, both of the North-South drug trade in the Americas and also of emergent trends such as synthetic drugs in New Zealand, internet markets, legalization, rising middle classes in traditionally lower-income countries, etc, and what this may mean in the future for existing organizations and governments.

One really big takeaway is that the truisms of nipping things in the bud or addressing problems at the 'source' seem to fail miserably here. The final chapter provides some basic economic arguments why the dominant supply-side approaches are misguided even just financially (you could also make other arguments, but that's not what this book is about). Some of the alternatives proposed involve overcoming deeply entrenched taboos and reactions. ( )

Lance bought this for me for Christmas 2021 and I read it that spring. Enjoyed learning about the similarities of how a drug cartel does business compared to a normal industry. Author's basic thesis is that by learning how to run a drug cartel, we can learn how to stop these dangerous criminal organizations. Also learned how much the politics of restricting certain drugs in various countries actually enhances the drug cartel's business. Author clearly argues that if certain drugs were legal and controlled by the government the criminal aspect of this industry would be severely impacted and potentially these dangerous organizations would no longer exist. Read this prior to watching the show Narcos and going to Yuma, AZ for WTI 2-22 to help give context to the show and the geography of the area.