Drug War Futility

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Chris discusses the futility of the war on drugs, spotlighting a Wall Street Journal piece by Juan Forero on Colombia’s record-high cocaine production of 3,000 tons—eight times 2012 levels. He highlights sophisticated narco-subs shipping cocaine to Asia, Africa, and Australia, where a kilo fetches $200,000 in Saudi Arabia, and notes U.S. demand remains high despite fentanyl’s dominance. Markowski questions past U.S. involvement, like CIA ties to South Central LA and guarding Afghan poppy fields, and doubts solutions like legalization or forced recovery, emphasizing that demand drives supply. He recommends Forero’s article for its insight into this persistent, complex issue. www.watchdogonwallstreet.com

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Watchdog on Wall Street podcast, explaining the news coming
out of the complex worlds of finance, economics, and politics
and the impact that we'll have on everyday Americans. Author,
investment banker, consumer advocate, analyst, and trader Chris Markowski.

Speaker 2 (00:16):
The drug wars and the futility of the entire thing.
This is topic. I haven't really talked about this for
some time. On the program I have in the past,
we talk about all of the all of our country's wars.
You know, I'm not talking, not just talking, you know,

(00:36):
Afghanistan and all of our military adventures that we love
to get ourselves into. War on poverty fail, War on
drugs fail. We love basically, I guess, packaging various different
issues and we'd like to call them wars, war on

(00:57):
drugs and listen, I'm gonna be on. I don't have
the answer for any of this. I really don't. I
have to give kudos today again. What got me talking
about this topic was an absolutely unbelievable piece, I mean,
a great piece of journalism Juan Ferrero Wall Street Journal

(01:20):
on cocaine. Who knew? I had no I thought cocaine
was kind of I have no idea. Listen, you know,
I lived in New York City, worked on Wall Street
nineteen I know it wasn't the nineteen eighties, but you know,

(01:40):
started early nineteen nineties and cocaine everywhere, Okays, bicycle messengers
delivering it to trading room floors. I didn't, you know,
I didn't really think that it was still around anymore.
We always talk about fentanyl and what that's done here
in the United States. Colombia's cocaine production is at historic highs.

(02:08):
They've gone all in as far as their cultivation techniques.
They've got increased yields. The United States we are still
the world's largest consumer. But this cocaine trade is expanding
to Asia, Africa, Australia. You should see these bloody submarines

(02:32):
that they come up with. And again these are submarines
that go from Colombia to Australia and shipping drugs and
some of these some of these markets. Again, it gets
it gets They're they're making a fortune on Saudi Arabia.
Saudi Arabia two hundred thousand dollars a kilo columb be

(03:00):
His annual cocaine yield is at three thousand tons. That's
eight times what it was in twenty twelve, three thousand tons.
And they interview the pictures going inside the various different

(03:20):
factors and the farmers and get a lot of these
farmers how they live. They grow subsistence crops for food
and the rest is cocaine. You know, Columbia is trying
to convince them to get involved with other crops. But no.
And you know again people WI read this and you

(03:40):
can read some of the comments section there. Ah, we
got to use age and origin. We got to do this,
We got to do that. Our involvement in much of
this over the years is is you know, interesting to
say the least, you know, you could talk about it,
the situation and celt Central La Rick Ross back in

(04:04):
the day and the CIA. There's a lot of stories
just recently in Afghanistan there where uh you know, Horaldo Rivera,
go on YouTube watch the video is they're working for
Fox News speaking with the Marines that were gartering guarding
heroin fields poppy fields in Afghanistan. This is back at
the infancy of our adventures in Afghanistan guarding them because

(04:31):
we were you know, we didn't want the Taliban uh
to hurt the guys that were fighting with us, so
we were protecting their their heroin crop people. I don't.
I don't have the answer, Sha, did we? Sha? Did
you know some of the people in this country have
pushed for again, you know, you think about it sometimes

(04:54):
in regards to you know, legalization. Has it worked out well?
Has it worked out well in some of these cities
that have decided to go in that direction. I don't.
I don't know what the right answer is. All I
know that this is a loss. And all I know

(05:15):
is that, you know, whenever there's a demand for a
certain product, somebody is going to provide it. Somebody is
going to provide it at some some way, shape, matter
or form, and maybe getting involved with you know, forced
recovery methods. But I don't who knows. I don't even
think that works. I don't. I don't even think that works.

(05:37):
I think you're gonna have to want to get off
the drugs if it's going to be successful in any way, shape,
matter or form. Yeah, I said. Sometimes, you know, there's
so many things going on you forget to pay attention. Again,
we fentanyls always in the news, and obviously you see
the the you know, the horrible situations with these trank

(05:58):
and other drugs that people are taking. Just look at
the streets of Philadelphia. Clean it up. I don't know
what to tell you. Create a separate area that was
a part of the season or the wire there where
they called it, you know, Amsterdam and Baltimore, it's part
of the television show. They just moved all of the

(06:20):
drug users and all the drug dealing there. They talk
about it in this column. I said, they're not street
dealers for cocaine. There's no I mean it's again people
they're saying they're doing as people just text their dealer
and they come to the house. They come to the house.

(06:42):
And we live in a world where things are being
delivered all the time. I'm sure you can pick yourself
up in Amazon, you know, vest fairly easily, and you
could deliver drugs. Who's going to catch you? Yeah, it's
you know, you talk about mission impossible. Don't have the answers.
But again, wanted to highlight this again. I recommend the

(07:05):
columns one fer Ara Wall Street Journal, the potent powder
and narco subs driving cocaine's global surge. It's it's sad, uh,
it really is. Yeah. Again, we've always had drug issues
here and something I was fentanyl is a whole different

(07:25):
ball of wax. Opiods. You know, you take a look
at the history of opiates here in the United States,
where it's gone from opium to hair, opium to excuse me, yeah,
opium to morphine to heroin, and then you had all
of you know, we drugged up the entire country with painkillers,

(07:47):
Sacler family there, Purdue Pharmayeh, I'm getting everybody hooked on these, uh,
these drugs, and then up you know that that crushed
that and then all of a sudden, Oh, we got
a cheap way of producing this final stiff and we
get all the chemicals from China and then we do
it that way. How you solve this problem? People? Your
guests as good as mine. Watchdog on Wall Street dot

(08:10):
Com