Quote:
Originally Posted by Chisouthside
I wonder if the spike in murders in austin are mostly drug related? With all the money that's in austin now i can see how it could be a lucrative market for drug dealers.
|
I don't think so. You do hear about drug deals gone bad occasionally, but Austin doesn't have turf wars going on between rival street gangs on a big scale at least.
I don't quite understand how it all works, but a former coworker explained to me that in most of the state of Texas a specific prison gang who is affiliated with a cartel owns a territory, and someone has to pay a tax to sell drugs there if the gang/cartel did not supply them.
I never understood why, but apparently Austin does not operate in this manner. Anyone can sell anything from anywhere without being taxed. This has lead to a relatively peaceful situation here.
A lot of the drug violence in other cities stem from some group attempting to sell drugs they bought from a different gang/cartel without paying the tax.
I have no idea how accurate this is, but that's how it was explained to me by someone who claimed to know.