World-class question
Seattle's got a major property crimes sweep under way right now, with more than 100 arrests already and more to come. It's all about meth addiction, police there say.
Any chance of getting something like that going down here? You know, in between streetcar meetings?
| Posted at 11:08 PM | Permalink |
|
Comments (7)
And whatever we do, we should definitely not connect the dots here. At all costs we have to ignore that the entire War on Drugs has done nothing but raise the purity, lethality, and intoxicating power of the drugs used, while lowering the costs, corrupting the police, and paving the way for the abolition of the Fourth Amendment. Do NOT think about it. No matter how many "property crime sweeps" are needed, no matter how often, DO NOT question whether this model is working. DO NOT. If we don't fight them there, we'll have to fight them here -- wups, same policy, wrong war. Remember, drugs bad, prisons good.
Posted by George Seldes | August 21, 2007 11:14 PM
Do you draw a distinction between drugs like pot, which makes it's users kind of dumb, happy and lazy, and meth, which seemingly transmogrifies people who touch it into vicious subhuman thieving machines almost overnight ?
Posted by Cabbie | August 22, 2007 12:11 AM
George is right.
Let's legalize all drugs and put the Feds in charge of quality control and retail distribution. Imagine coke machines dispensing a real after lunch pick-me-up, heroin vouchers stacked cheerfully next to the rubber gloves at Costco, and Ecstasy inside the condom machines at bars/clubs.
If that doesn't fix the problem, nothing will. The solution to a drug addicted society is more drug addicts. Uh-huh.
Posted by Mister Tee | August 22, 2007 7:05 AM
Outside of meth and angle dust (PCP)
which actually make people using physically dangerous to others, what direct harm to other people does drug useage cause?
IMHO, very little. Its the artificial financial price of the illicit drugs, inflated by the enforcement activity, and the crime that users turn to to pay that artifically inflated price, that is the real impact on society.
Theres good sense behind the legalization arguments for most drugs IMHO.
Those arguments are, however, again IMHO, not valid with respect to meth use.
And PDX (and Oregon as a whole) has a huge meth problem.
Posted by Nonny Mouse | August 22, 2007 7:45 AM
Where are these Meth Super Lab's. How and who brings it here?
Posted by todd | August 22, 2007 9:17 AM
If you read WSJ reporter Dan Baum's excellent book "Smoke and Mirrors: The War on Drugs and the Politics of Failure" you will see how we created the meth problem: just like the crackdown on pot fueled the shift to harder, more potent, more concentrated drugs.
Legalize pot and coke and watch most demand for harder drugs evaporate.
We've legalized gambling, which is for many people just as destructive as drugs and every bit as addictive, and society hasn't collapsed. I'm against all of it, personally, but it's worth noting that we've basically wrecked the numbers rackets, taking the profits out of them for organized crime.
What I'd like to see is a total ban on promotion of all gambling -- no lottery ads, no billboards; that is, it's legal, but not encouraged. Same with drugs.
Posted by George Seldes | August 22, 2007 10:54 AM
Mister Tee, if you want more drug addicts, the War on Drugs is definitely the way to go --- keeping drug abusers from getting help is very effective.
Good WA Post article on the whole charade today:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/17/AR2007081701716.html?wpisrc=newsletter&wpisrc=newsletter
Posted by George Seldes | August 22, 2007 11:34 AM