The only affect prohibiting it has is to drive the price up, increase the costs and profits, and where there is illegal profit to be made criminals and terrorists thrive.

FORBES: The War on Drugs is a Failure so Give Drug Policy Back to the States

That's where members of Congress come together at regular meetings and complain about illegal immigration while counting the campaign contributions they collect from businesses back home, many of which undoubtedly profit from hiring illegal immigrants.

CNN: Navarrette: Immigration anxiety is cultural

In America, they tend to be illegal at for-profit companies, according to guidelines set out in 1947.

ECONOMIST: The annual race to the bottom of the corporate ladder begins

He is ignorant of the difference between margin and mark up, leading him to think that there are 3, 000% profit margins on illegal drugs: further, that such profits are captured by the street level drug sellers themselves, not the entire transport system from Columbian field to American nose.

FORBES: Hunting Hari: Judging Johann's Journalism

The SIIA white paper also shows how suspected pirates are using Internet auctions to turn better than a 90 percent profit from sales of illegal software products, and how they are reaching thousands of new customers with little effort or cost.

CNN: Technology - New online software piracy emerges

It has, by some estimates, the highest profit margin of all the major illegal drugs.

NEWYORKER: The Kingpins

For example, illegal conversions, apartments whose unscrupulous landlords have illegally subdivided to cram tenants in for greater profit, continue to be a problem.

WHITEHOUSE: Efficiency through Strategic Data Analysis

At issue is whether a non-profit research group founded by Barbour, The National Policy Forum, provided an illegal flow of overseas cash to the GOP in 1994.

CNN: Barbour May Face Indictment

Illegal growers, of course, have been producing and marketing large quantities of marijuana often at a sizable profit for decades.

WSJ: The Pot Business Suffers Growing Pains