You’re forgetting option two: treatment. In a system where government and society recognize addiction for being an illness and not a crime, treatment is much easier to find.
This is the kind of thinking that led to the restrictions on hate speech in Europe. It’s not something I’m comfortable with, but I understand there are a lot of people who will sacrifice some liberty for security.
It doesn’t matter if there are treatment centers on every street corner. Most addicts do not want treatment, and they cannot be forced into except by court mandate, which necessitates them having to commit and be caught for a drug-related crime (probably a series of them to show a pattern of behaviour that makes treatment necessary for the good of society) to have that happen. Otherwise, treatment is voluntary, and few addicts want it.
I am perfectly comfortable with that. I’ll take safety and security over neighbourhood drug pushing – or hate speech-spewing, for that matter – every single time.
I’ll admit that it’s less likely for the place to be some sort of distribution hub, and more likely smalltime, but by virtue of the sheer number of cars that come and go it becomes less small IMO. I have no idea what’s being sold (if anything to be fair) but it’s selling quite well.
I’m a very sociable person IRL. I’ve spoken with several of the people that have come and gone from there. Two of them introduced themselves to me, the one is there quite often (the one that made a joke about “getting his drink on early” at 8AM!) and the other guy identified himself as a tenant his car is almost always there. The first thing the tenant said was “Oh yeah, you’re the guy across the street who’s always grilling stuff.” Odd in one respect that I don’t often see people watching me grill, if that makes any sense. I would know where they would be seeing me from.
So, yeah, the guy sees me outside often. I grill fairly often, and have recently been smoking out there again (cigarettes, and yes I know I shouldn’t be). Any packages that might be visible to the layperson would most likely a) be taken care of on the rare occasions when the garage door is closed, or b) at least hidden from the view of the guy that is practically watching us all the time. I can only see two walls and their garage door for the most part.
I have to admit, having known a few pot dealers who sold to a few of their friends, that my main reasoning for wanting to make it known to law enforcement was not “get those scum out of my backyard” or “won’t somebody think of the children”, it was more that I felt I would be negligent if I witnessed such suspicious activity and did nothing.
It’s hard for me to crystallize exactly what makes the various car maneuvers seem so shady, anyone that could observe it as I can would most likely agree that it’s very circumspect though. Maybe it’s the seeming hierarchy of cars that either get to park behind the tenants car (blocking him in) versus the ones relegated to the visitor parking lot, especially because the guy that’s there all the time alternates between both. Sometimes when the tenant car is there, he’ll park in the guest spots, sometimes he’ll block the tenant car in, I once saw him park in the garage (door open of course) on an odd series of days where the tenant car was away for a few days.
Over analyzed? Definitely. But, I’m unemployed at the moment, have a “rear window” view of the scene, and a hearty interest in solving real life crime cases (through TV and true crime books).
Anyways, thanks for all the suggestions and thanks for listening. Also no hard feelings ForumBot.