This is part of a discussion on the WFP website I was commenting on the other day (full story here).
POSTED BY:Common Sense and Reality
APRIL 17, 2009 AT 8:59 PM
Chris Buors, the crime is bringing in this poison. It’s making available a substance that is causing violence and crime. Hard drugs, like "E" and cocaine are the reasons your home is broken into and your local 7-Eleven is robbed at knife point. It’s the reason someone unknown to you will threaten and harm you for your purse or wallet - so they can get their next rock of cocaine or what ever their poison of choice is. It causes addicted people to do things they wouldn't normally do. It is destroying our society - its is killing people, some of them innocent. If our government would take a stance and treat those who traffic it or possess it, like the States do, maybe we would have less shootings, robberies, thefts and break-ins in our City.
More drugs in the Peg = High Crime
Less drugs = Low Crime.
Let’s face it, when your home is broken into, no one is buying diapers and food with your flat screen TV.
POSTED BY:rck
APRIL 18, 2009 AT 12:36 PM
Common Sense you are right that many violent street level crimes and B & E's are related to the drug trade, but unfortunately your equation is still wrong, because drug enforcement creates more problems than it solves. Consider that if drugs were legalized tomorrow the price for them would tumble considerably, most of what someone pays for a rock of crack or whatever is the price of risk. That's not to say people who are hopped up on this insidious substance won't go and do stupid things, but there would be less pressure to rob people at axe point, a situation that only the most desperate person finds them self in.
Now consider what a taxed, monitored supply of drugs could provide for society:
-Taxation that could be used directly to rehabilitate people whose lives are ruined by these substances (face it people will ALWAYS use and abuse them legal or not)
-Millions returned to the budget of law enforcement because they won't be spending so much money to stem the tide of illicit substances that somehow still manage to make it onto our streets.
-The cash starvation and subsequent death of most of the country's most powerful street gangs, and a serious blow to the organized criminals above them.
Now let's reconsider your equation:
Taxation on drugs directed to rehabilitation + increased budgets for law enforcement - violent gun toting street gangs who live and breathe the drug trade= a safer, saner Winnipeg.
POSTED BY:Common Sense and Reality
APRIL 18, 2009 AT 1:34 PM
Just look at the problems society is faced with the legalized drugs of alcohol and tobacco: The social problems of alcoholism and the deaths related to drinking and driving, and the health problems of both drugs resulting in billions of dollars being spent by the government to care and treat these people from psychological problems to cancer. So now let’s add cocaine, meth, and heroine to the legal side and let’s make it readily available at any quantity for a moderately inexpensive price and see what happens. The amount of people that would become dependent on these powerful drugs would burden our society beyond belief.
The chemical makeup of certain drugs (hard) causes them to be highly addictive due to how they create the “high” experienced by the user (neurotransmitters and dopamine) as compared to other “softer” drugs like marihuana and alcohol. Be careful what you wish for if it is your wish to legalize drugs.
POSTED BY:rck
APRIL 19, 2009 AT 11:18 AM
CS, I refute your notion that legalization of drugs would create an epidemic of addiction. As with alcohol abuse the majority of abusers will be in the minority and the percentage of the population who would choose this life would remain low. Most of us would not consider a life of smoking meth or main-lining heroin to be a very good one, and would not take it up just because it's legal (or if we did would fight like hell to get free of the addiction). One would hope that legalization might serve to encourage the development of high-producing drugs that aren't as devastating as meth, heroin, etc. Furthermore, it would permit the introduction of more safe injection sites where chronic users could be monitored and offered social services (addictions counicilling, health care, housing, etc.) along with their daily fix.
Still, the main point: PEOPLE WILL ALWAYS DO DRUGS. The way to make the best of this situation is collect tax on it and create a mental health program that attempts to address the root cause of their substance abuse. The worst thing to do is let gangsters keep all that money while not having enough in the budget to look after the lives that are ruined by the fact that no one is capable of making these drugs (or more to the point, the desire for them) go away.
It's awful that people cause so much damage to themselves and others by smoking, drinking, doing drugs, whatever, but they do. There's no point in trying to change human nature at gunpoint, because it won't happen that way. The thing to do not to hurl resources at the supply side of the problem, but find ways to address the demand. The demand for smoking has gone down considerably since the government and other NGO's started campaigning against it, likewise the demand for drugs can be lessened by increased education much more effectively than through prosecution.
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