How Cartels Build Billion Dollar Empires | News on Drugs

The world’s illicit drug trade is worth around 500 billion dollars a year – and to understand how drug cartels work, you need to follow the money. Author Tom Wainwright breaks down the economics of a drug cartel to explain how they function like businesses, and why cocaine costs $120,000 per kilo. Humans love drugs. Every culture in human history has looked for ways to alter its consciousness. So where does this desire come from? And why are some drugs legal and others illegal? What is it about some drugs that make governments declare war on them? In News on Drugs, writer JS Rafaeli chats to fellow drug nerds about their studies to tackle some of the biggest questions in the crazy world of mind-altering substances. Watch more like this: How Psychoactive Plants Changed the World https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ttg8WiGY0tw The Rise of Psychedelic Therapies https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nah1u6EjNY0 Subscribe to VICE News here: http://bit.ly/Subscribe-to-VICE-News Check out VICE News for more: https://bit.ly/2HR9kGq Follow VICE News here: Facebook: https://bit.ly/36oafb0 Twitter: https://twitter.com/vicenews Tumblr: https://bit.ly/33xksQy Instagram: https://bit.ly/2VvVaxT More videos from the VICE network: https://bit.ly/3fWNVrZ #VICENews #News