Quote from: Limetless on August 13, 2012, 08:11 amMassive LOL that DEA agents need to be told metric amounts. Backward-ass mother fuckers.While the book is well written and informative, it is clear that even high level DEA agents believe we are really quite stupid, actually almost a sub-species from my experience in conversing with them. While annoying, this is also interesting because it strongly implies the DEA are compartmentalizing a great deal, which is always indicative of close minded thinking or higher degrees of religiosity than normal, where something is being accepted on the grounds of belief rather than from the empirical evidence. This is not an aberration in religious circles since the entire point of faith is that it is not evidence based, but it is positively ridiculous for a government agency to adopt beliefs.There is extreme levels of cognitive dissonance here.For example, observational evidence suggests the price of most drugs has declined with respect to inflation since the Drug War was declared by Nixon. It is indisputable that young people in particular have little or no difficulty in gaining access to illicit product, in fact it is often when young people move away to work or higher education that they lose access. Also demographics suggest older people become less likely to take illicit products over time in any case, so any so called 'evidence' that drug use declines with age due to DEA influences ought to be examined cynically (something I've been hearing from interviews in the past). The fact of the matter is that the DEA almost never uses rigorous benchmarks, they usually adopt "petitio principii" arguments, basically assuming their premise is true and proceeding from there, which can sound convincing if you're not able to spot it, but any logician or student of philosophy would catch it instantly, it's effectively a circular argument that only entrenches different sides in their original positions. They are not the only side of the 'drug legalization' debate to do so, but I expect better from high ranking government agency officials.Anyway, cheaper drugs and more widely available drugs could have a lot of reasons offered in explanation, but it definitely doesn't gel with the idea of 'stoopid drug dealers'. It does chime with the claims of criminologists in more recent journals that essentially the DEA is being 'fed' an endless supply of individuals that fit 1 personality profile i.e. cannon fodder by more experienced/intelligent criminals.The funny thing is that they already must know this, really, but it doesn't matter because this process has simultaneously educated them to be razor sharp, even hyperactive on spotting stereotypical 'black/latin gangatas' vs any other profile and more importantly the DEA is financed by public fears and moral panics so they become biased to producing results by volume of arrests, number of minor busts etc. This is complemented at the atomic level by self interested individuals who know they're more likely to be promoted on volume (so called 'results'). Actually this is classic problem for any government agency as libertarians will already be aware. It must be very frustrating for DEA agents at mid level who've worked out the first problem, but don't quite grasp the second one.This means the truth is perversely that the DEA has absolutely no underlying economic incentive, no matter how vitriolic/passionate its supporters become, to actually stop the supply of illicit product. There is a reason why organized crime cartels indirectly sponsor 'just say no' campaigns in schools, it creates the right mix of conditions to keep prices up (via demand by indirect advertising) and allows more supply to be absorbed (widening of consumer base) to produce uber-profits. I would go further and predict that within months of the DEA being wound up, that overall drug *demand* would plateau among the youth population due to psychological factors.The other almost cinematic illusion they and the media suffer from is that there is a criminal super genius somewhere who monitors and controls the 'drones', and that if we could only nab that fellow, it'll all be over. Well, that's been tried too, and it hasn't worked. The strength of the black market lies in the network, not in particular individuals. As for the approach of conspiracy laws (get 'em all), I think their very premise is completely unjust. They literally come from the Dark Ages, as you'll see later in more updates. More importantly they don't work either, because the market's network is bigger than the DEA's network. A critical network component could easily be a law abiding citizen as an actual criminal with a plan. In any case the network with the biggest GDP wins, that's the lesson of every real prolonged war in history, that rule hasn't suddenly changed.tldr; There is a symbiotic relationship between the DEA and organized crime on a multitude of levels. DEA = Didn't do Economics Agency.