Mexican Drug Cartels Switch to Selling Humans

Here's a math problem you won't remember from school: Which is higher, the black market value of a pound of cocaine or the black market value of a 13-year-old girl?  If you guessed the girl, you get 100% on this math test.

When a drug cartel trafficks a pound of cocaine into the U.S., they can only sell it once.  When they traffic a young woman into the U.S., they can sell her again and again.  This is a simple economic fact that I (and others in this field) have been aware of for years.  However, it seems some Mexican drug cartels have recently discovered this additional potential for profit, and they are now switching from trafficking heroine to trafficking human beings.

The idea that drug traffickers will suddenly switch to humans is even more disturbing in the light of an increased national discussion around legalizing some drugs, like marijuana.  What would the pot traffickers do then?  Would they get respectable jobs in the brand new legal marijuana industry?  Or would they use their criminal contacts to traffic harder drugs, guns, and people? I'm of the inclination that while some criminals might go clean in a new legal drug industry, the rest will see how much more cash they can make through the illegal sale of human beings. 

What do you think?

CNN recently did a story on this disturbing new trend, which feature anonymous interviews with women being trafficked into the U.S. by some of the Mexican cartels.