If people had to show ID and go into a CVS to buy hard drugs, do you think more of them will do it than do it now, where you can get it on any street corner in certain cities? IME, getting marijuana is easier than getting alcohol for underage kids. This is what they tell me, anyway.
And don’t you think there are heavy social consequences to street gangs and drug cartels? So heavy that you’re considering some pretty crazy solutions to them, but won’t even countenance this one. Interesting. Seems like you’re more interested in the punishment aspect than actual, meaningful social change.
Then why haven’t they been taken away already? If they are already eligible for removal from the home by social services, then they would be, no?
See above. If these are children who are neglected and abused, why are they not already in the foster care system?
The drug trade provides them with even MORE money so they can facillitate those other businesses even better. Without the drug money a lot of cartels would go bankrupt and they wouldn’t have the same profit margin.
What I’m saying is people will take drugs at any rate in equal rates and certainly more.
What I said is those methods won’t get rid of gangs because they’ll have something else to do but I believe my methods will because they will destroy the gangs themselves.
I am saying the State should have more authority and be more efficient to track down child abuse.
Cite for “certainly more”? If they will take drugs at equal rates, then why not legalize, tax, and regulate it? I’d rather have revenues for drugs in the hands of the American taxpayer than drug cartels and gangs. If it were legal, people would be more likely to get treatment rather than jail time.
I think you’re wrong, because drugs are a multi-billion dollar industry and if you take it away from gangs, most of them would fold. I also don’t think you’ve put forth a single tenable idea that would destroy gangs themselves. My idea, however, very likely would.
Uh, sure. Because they’re so inefficient and slow, let’s give them more authority.
BTW, I agree with mswas: prostitution should be legal also, for similar reasons. It works in Nevada.
Go ahead and compare the rates of usage. Now take into account that marijuana isn’t addictive and tobacco is. I think you’ll find that being illegal isn’t a huge deterrent to people trying marijuana or smoking it at least semi-regularly. Why shouldn’t the American taxpayers benefit from this lucrative industry? We’d make money, a lot of otherwise law-abiding citizens would not be criminals, and drug dealers would LOSE.
Now, extrapolate that to other drugs and you’ll start to see my point. I guess I don’t think that so many more people will become drug addicts than there currently are. Those who did would be more likely to get help for their problems. And gangs would be effectively out of a job.
No one is going to allow the government to take children away from their parents, en masse, and give them to nice [del]white[/del] wholesome Midwestern families, even if such families existed and were willing to take in these kids. It’s a draconian and inhumane plan, which is also unworkable. The reasons why gang members being incarcerated in different states isn’t a good idea have been adequately addressed. You still haven’t addressed my points, wherein the cost of the drug war is greater than the “price” of legalizing drugs and then regulating and rehabilitating drug users.
Is there something I missed?
OK, will wait for your concrete policy suggestions on how that will be done in a timely and cost-effective way.
1- I know that anecdote is not eveidence, but of the two former gangbangers that are friends of mine, only one has what we would consider a “broken family”, and he joined up mostly due to self-identifying with that subculture due to music,clothing, and common interest. The other one has a very functional family who happened to be going through some bad financial times when the opportunity presented itself to make a lot of very fast money selling weed to the clueless white kids (he himself is Phillipino).
For the record, both got out ok, and in fact teh former light drug dealer (an honest to god gun carrying thug in high school) is now attending police academy, and is a valued member of his family and wholesome stand up citizen.
2- Curtis LeMay, you have a certain fatailism about you, and I’m willing to bet you don’t like kids much if you think that young girls default to “whore” and young men to “gang member” in the absence of a “nuclear family”.
You clearly do not have a firm grasp of the dynamics of gang life nor the socioeconomic factors that predispose certain elements of the population into seeking out the gang life.
The onus to support your claims is on you. It is not our job to disprove them, it is your job to prove them.
For the fiftieth time, gangs would not be out of the job! Did lifting the Prohibition end the Mafia? No! (NOTE: I don’t support the Prohibition) Loansharking, smuggling weapons, antiques! Criminals are willing to do anything to make money.
If families aren’t willing to raise them then kids will have to be raised in communes like the Boy’s Town. Also I’m talking about abusive parents, who would not want kids of abusive parents rescued? Also the financial cost of the War on Drugs is well worth it’s benefits, for instance tracking down Nazi war criminals costs a lot I support it as it bring war criminals to justice.
Several things: 1) Expanding child services, 2) Making child abuse a crime punishable by life in prison, 3) Actually taking the children away rather then wait and go through bureaucratic actions-Action first then talking
It is. It will spread public immorality, and STDs.
Porn employs only a few thousand people at best, prostitution could well employ millions.
True, but my plan won’t completely eradicate gangs-not even close but it will probably reduce it.
Actually I could be considered a “kid” by my age. Also I’m fine with non-nuclear families. Besides I’m also talking about abusive or neglectful nuclear families.
They’d smoke more pot and shoot people less. I think that’s a fair trade. Why don’t you?
Well it’s not so much that it wouldn’t weaken the gangs as it would put a burden on the prison system and weaken the constitution. But it’d have many of the same problems as the drug war. It’d incarcerate too many potential criminals who are also potential innocents.
Yeah because the only thing holding people back from becoming whores is the legality of it. :rolleyes: Even so, say 10% more girls become prostitutes, isn’t that better than not being able to call the police when you are raped and beaten?
Actually it kind of did. The Mafia’s power was reduced significantly after the lifting of Prohibition. They were already in all of those businesses during prohibition, they just lost a huge market. Criminals are will to do anything to make money and they DO do anything to make money. So removing drugs just removes one source of potential revenue, like it did with the Mafia. The Mafia today is a shadow of what it was 90 years ago. Though they have been propped up more recently by the drug trade.
Right, because Boy’s Town doesn’t produce delinquents. :rolleyes:
So you’re saying that incarcerating literally MILLIONS of people for petty crimes with disproportionate sentences is worth it to track down half a dozen German octagenarians? REALLY?
The system as it is exists is already overwhelmed. You’re not taking that into account.
Nonsense…err umm…cite? You do realize that if you regulate prostitution you can require prostitutes to take monthly STD batteries right? So it would actually REDUCE the spread of STDs from prostitution.
Wow, you have really NO CLUE what you’re talking about. MILLIONS of people are employed by the porn industry. Not thousands MILLIONS.
No, your plan would do nothing but make a huge proportion of the population into wards of the state. Meanwhile conservatives like yourself would bitch about tax increases.
Well if you are a kid by your age then your touching naivety actually has some explanation. We all hope you’ll grow out of it.
I said I’m open to legalizing and regulating pot (though with extreme reservation). Also depends on how many people die from taking too much of legalized drugs compared to current deaths. After all gang violence is going down due to law and order policies.
Look in California after the Law and Order policy institued especially the Three Strikes Law and more criminals in jail crime has gone down. LA’s crime rates have reached levels not seen since the Fifties.
Look a whole lot of girls, now realizing that they have an easy way to make money will prefer to be prostitutes then say work at a department store.
Partially it was due to the Prohibition of course but much of the decline of the Mafia can be because of the eradication of corruption in the police and government.
Less likely, nothing is 100% certain.
No, I was just comparing the War on Drugs to tracking down Nazis.
The whore institution is dying away-it’s golden age of 1900 is DEAD. Why encourage it? Even liberal San Francisco, the most radical city in the United States rejected legalizing prostitution.
Maybe I’m naive but sources please. Also do you mean the globe or just the USA?
What’s so wrong about being wards of the state if it works? Also you don’t seem to understand conservatives. Most conservatives (other then Libertarians) won’t give a damn about taxes if it’s for either 1) Military spending or 2) Law and Order. And my proposed plan is the latter.
You’d be hard pressed to find people dying from pot. I personally tend to doubt that drug legalization would result in a serious spike in it’s usage especially if treatment (which is effective) replaces incarceration (which is ineffective).
I was under the understanding that crime had gone down in California recently just as it had in the rest of the nation. Do you have some evidence to back this up? Do you think that it’s 3 strikes laws natonwide that have lead to this?
I am not sure this is true.
Yes, agreed, and when they don’t have the money from the black market trade to pay off cops it’s harder to keep cops on the payroll.
Cite please.
Yea, the comparison makes absolutely no sense to me.
Umm people in 1900 were straight destitute. Destitution leads to prostitution, not permissiveness.
Well I know personally that I have looked at more than thousands of unique people. I used to work in the porn industry, and just the one company had dozens of employees.
Having trouble finding employment statistics. I’ll get back to you on it.
There isn’t any evidence that being wards of the state works. Why does the state put so much effort into fosterage if orphanages are so much better?
