Quote Originally Posted by Husar View Post
Well, that sort of smuggling also happens with money. People get money in a high tax country and try to smuggle it to a low tax country to avoid paying the higher taxes.

There's still this angle though, the price. Think of sugar. How often is there stretched or cut sugar sold at a cheaper price on the black market?
Are people even looking for that or is sugar so cheap and abundant that it's not worth the effort? Similar for salt.
Now drugs have a much higher price, but why is their price so high? Is it perhaps only so high because the drugs are illegal, which makes the plants harder to grow, the import mechanics more complicated and dangerous and it "forces" the producers to pay higher wages and buy weapons and transport vehicles like airplanes and submarines etc.?

So perhaps if these drugs were legal, their price would drop significantly due to higher supply, and at least for some of them, the incentive to smuggle them would drop. I guess it is possible that some would still have a higher price since the plants need special attention or the chemical process of making them is inherently expensive, but cannabis for example seems easy to grow and I would assume some others would also have price drops.

And we could have the actual COCA Cola back!
There's also the regulated market argument. If a produce is legal if it follows regulations, it can be sold legally on the market, and recognised brands will spring up that reflect the regulation. In a market where adulteration is dangerous, people will gravitate towards the recognised brands. Food, drink and medicines used to be adulterated back in the 19th century, before regulations cleaned these products up and companies following regulations cleaned up in the market.