Drug prices and fllucuating currency

[migrotak]

Hey there,,

Just curious if anyone knows about this. Here in Canada, the value of our dollar has fallen dramatically lately..
Does this not make it less attractive of a place to bring drugs to, because obviously they are making less money now with the falling dollar?
Or does this work because there still seems to be a lot of cocaine in Canada.

 

[Atmozfears]

Well the drugs aren't exactly "fresh" lmao.

 

[Felonious Monk]

Very interesting question.

I would say it might in the long term, especially if the CDN$ is on a long-term downward trend.

For the short term you can think of drug trafficking as any typical international commerce--the wholesaler/distributor has existing accounts in Canada that need to be filled, even if they're taking a 10-20% loss because of currency fluctuation. The issue being, if they don't deliver to Canada, they 1: don't have anywhere to deliver those shipments to NOW to get cash for payroll, etc., and 2: when the CDN$ rebounds, they would have abandoned their Canadian accounts to some competitor willing to take the 20% cut for long-term growth.

So I'd say you can expect to see availability remain fairly consistent, though if the distributors are smart they'll cut the product a little more to make up for the difference in currency value.

 

[switchtop]

Drugs are something that can usually be pretty resistant to currency fluctuations. Think about any drug really. For example, a 30 mg oxycodone will always be $20, or some other even number.
Dealers aren't going to say "Hey man, I was reading the Wall Street Journal the other day and I'm letting you know I'm going to up the price to $21.54"