> If cocaine is more expensive, and the intensity of a drug war follows the amount of money involved,
It doesn't; the intensity of the drug war produces the amount of money involved and the street price, as it creates a barrier to entry (reducing competition) and produces supplier costs; it thus increases the minimum sustainable cost and the ability of suppliers to charge above that cost.
Okay... It seems more chicken or egg, as the market would not have been lucrative and therefore attractive to participants without high potential earnings <i>independent</i> of the costs.
But even if we assume causation runs the way you state, the point is that a drug war's intensity and the amount of money wrapped up in it are inextricably linked. If you're buying expensive drugs, then it's highly likely that high-cost operations are involved. In a lawless industry, that means more lawlessness.
OK I get your point. I was saying a neighborhood full of poor crack addicts will be a dangerous place, so requires "aggressive policing", more than a neighborhood full of coke snorting yuppies.
However both are supplied by the same violent supply chain that the "war" is supposed to stop.
Just to expand and conclude: if aggressive policing works to stem the drug flow by choking the demand, then such tactics should be used for "coke snorting yuppies" as well as "poor crack addicts." That it isn't suggests that there's another impetus (or, an impetus for not using them on the former). The tactics used in enforcing drug laws are often harsh, if not cruel. In the past, the line between American institutions meting out harsh or soft punishments for transgressions has been the same as the one between white and black. So I'm perfectly comfortable saying that race makes all the difference in this context.
It doesn't; the intensity of the drug war produces the amount of money involved and the street price, as it creates a barrier to entry (reducing competition) and produces supplier costs; it thus increases the minimum sustainable cost and the ability of suppliers to charge above that cost.