The principal revenue source of all the major cartels is the drug trade, by far. They are diversifying but their real power to suborn the apparatus of the state and its officials in Mexico is backed by the revenues from narcotics. These organizations simply wouldn't be this pervasive or powerful if they lost that. Avacados don't buy all those officials and even if they did, it would be on a much more local, less dangerous scale.
So in brief, your argument about the drug trade and the continuing illegality of drugs not being directly relevant to the cartels and their activity is wrong.
I've been living down here for nearly two decades by the way and watching these things, so just a bit of contextual knowledge of how the situation works.
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The principal revenue source of all the major cartels is the drug trade, by far. They are diversifying but their real power to suborn the apparatus of the state and its officials in Mexico is backed by the revenues from narcotics. These organizations simply wouldn't be this pervasive or powerful if they lost that. Avacados don't buy all those officials and even if they did, it would be on a much more local, less dangerous scale.
So in brief, your argument about the drug trade and the continuing illegality of drugs not being directly relevant to the cartels and their activity is wrong.
I've been living down here for nearly two decades by the way and watching these things, so just a bit of contextual knowledge of how the situation works.