I think it's a little dangerous to think of the world as "criminals" and "non-criminals". There are people who commit crime who wouldn't commit them in a different context, and to say that whatever we do "they" will just find a way to keep things exactly as bad.. It doesn't feel like it's a good model of reality to me. There would still be lots of crimes, but the mega-drug-cartels that we're seeing now couldn't exist with legal drugs, and they couldn't be replaced with something else of that size unless we prohibit something else that has the attributes of drugs, and I don't really see it right now.
>There are people who commit crime who wouldn't commit them in a different context, and to say that whatever we do "they" will just find a way to keep things exactly as bad.
It's not as if I'm talking about a father stealing a loaf of bread for his family. The people I'm speaking commit the most vile crimes possible. They are deserving of the tag 'criminal' regardless of what position in life they started.
That said, this isn't really about defeating the drug cartels. It's about the putting an end to the violence that is behind it and stopping it from spilling out into the lives of law-abiding citizens.
In South America, criminals have turned to kidnapping family members of wealthy individuals and even talented baseball players who have signed deals with professional teams. Most baseball teams have backed out of looking for prospects in Venezuela because of these worries. There was even a minor league prospect who was kidnapped last year and held for ransom.
