I think Shoeman’s point is that the more drugs are available (via monitoring/less stigma/cheaper) the more likely you are to have drug related offenses. Drug enduced stupors absolutely play a role in many of today’s crimes and I use Shoeman’s stats to back it up. You can’t say that petty crime will go down and also say that drug induced crimes will go down as well. “It’s fuzzy math.” The more available drugs are, the more drug influenced crimes you are gonna have.
Like alcohol. You have so many drunken idiots driving around killing people because booz is so available. Would drunk driving occur if alcohol was illigal? Yes. But not at the rate it is currently at. So why can’t we apply this logic to drugs as well?
Are you kidding? That’s like saying if someone was drinking and driving and killed some one that it has nothing to do with the fact that they were drinking.
Are you saying that people in a drug-induced state who commit a crime were going to commit that crime anyways?
Follow me for a minute here. If alcohol were illegal, then alcoholics would be criminals. Since they are now criminals they would tend to get caught up in gangs or become friends with other criminals, and now they have a better chance to commit a crime.
Drug users hang around other drug users, just like alcoholics hang around alcoholics. The crimes that are committed when someone is high has a lot to do with the fact that the person is high.
It would be great if we could get high and not have it affect our judgment or actions, but I think that would defeat the point.
I didn’t. I said your stats were fine. I just said that your argument does not follow from them. You seem to say that if drugs are readily available abuse and addiction will go up, hence drug related crime will, which is non sequitor. There is no evidence of this as shown in the experiences made in Europe, see my cites in post on this page. Further there is research regarding the addiction rates and abuse levels that point towards a status quo even at open availability, see Sua’s posts on previous page.
Are you kidding? That’s like saying if someone was drinking and driving and killed some one that it has nothing to do with the fact that they were drinking.
Are you saying that people in a drug-induced state who commit a crime were going to commit that crime anyways? Wishfull thinking, but you cant tell me that when you’ve been drunk or high in the past you’ve never done anything that you wouldn’t have done before.
Follow me for a minute here. If alcohol were illegal, then alcoholics would be criminals. Since they are now criminals they would tend to get caught up in gangs or become friends with other criminals, and now they have a better chance to commit a crime.
Drug users hang around other drug users, just like alcoholics hang around alcoholics. The crimes that are committed when someone is high has a lot to do with the fact that the person is high.
It would be great if we could get high and not have it affect our judgment or actions, but I think that would defeat the point.
Do you really need a cite for this? I mean, are we gonna cite everything that everybody says? It seems like a pretty reasonable statement to me. Common sense. How would someone come across drugs unless they were hanging out with other drug users? Are we to assume that everybody has their own crops?
First of all, I am sure many of the accidents that are chalked up to DUI would have occurred anyway even if the driver was sober. Some things are just unavoidable. That is not to say that being drunk is not the cause of many accidents, but it is not the only cause for an accident if someone is drunk.
Secondly, to answer your question, yes…sometimes. Maybe it is hard for you to believe, but not all drug users go on crazy crime sprees just because they are F’d up.
I guess if you walk down to any corner and go to the local bar you will find people consuming alcohol together. And if you have ever bought drugs I am going to asume that you bought drugs from someone who also does drugs. And unless you are some one who does drugs in the privacy of you own home with no one else then you problebly do drugs with someone else who does drugs. I guess its just common sense
I guess if you walk down to any corner and go to the local bar you will find people consuming alcohol together. And if you have ever bought drugs I am going to asume that you bought drugs from someone who also does drugs. And unless you are some one who does drugs in the privacy of you own home with no one else then you problebly do drugs with someone else who does drugs. I guess its just common sense.
Yes it will. I’ve already addressed this.
As noted above, legalization of drugs will cause a dramatic drop in the cost of drugs - 1/20 of current retail price is the economists’ estimate I provide earlier. if you 1/20 of the amount of money to buy your drugs, you will need to commit 1/20 of the crime to get that money, indeed if need to commit crime at all. A junkie with a $500/week habit needs to commit crime to get the money. A junkie buying the same drugs for $25/week can very likely scrape up that amount from legitimate sources.
I’m trying to parse out those numbers to distinguish drunk violent criminals from drugged violent criminals from mixed violent criminals, and having little success. (BTW, the link doesn’t work.)
So I can’t give you a full response. Some thoughts, though:
Seems like alcohol is the big offender here.
Does the link assert a causal connection between alcohol/drugs and the violent crime? That is, had the criminal not been drunk/high, they wouldn’t have committed the act of violence?
To the extent that drugs cause violence, then yes, violent crimes committed by drug users will go up, because drug use will go up.
However, to the extent that violent crimes were committed by drug users in order to get money with which to buy drugs - armed robbery, muggings, etc., - the number of violent crimes will go down.
These stats provide no information about the percentage of drug users in the non-arrested population. If it turns out that 44% of the general population used drugs in the past month, for example, it means that criminals use drugs at the same rate as everyone else. OTOH, if only 1% of the general population used illegal drugs, the 44% stat would be significant.
I just did a Google search, and could only find stats for teens. The survey ranges were 22%-33% for teens. Not much help, I know.
First and foremost, eliminating arrests and convictions for drugs is, in and of itself, a good thing. Rescuing 1.5 million people a year from a higher education in criminal behavior (known as jail) and from the employment- and opportunity-destroying stigma of a criminal record would be a godsend.
Second, you ignore the vital effect of cost of drugs on crime. Lower that cost, and (i) the incentive of drug dealers disappears, and (ii) the incentive for addicts to commit crimes to support their habit plummets or disappears.
And here we have a great argument for legalization of drugs. Just as alcoholics aren’t criminals because alcohol is legal, and therefore don’t tend to get caught up in gangs or become friends with other criminals, so drug users would not tend to get caught up in gangs or become friends with other criminals if drugs were legal.
I’ll assume for the moment this is true. How much more crime do you think would occur if cigarettes cost $100/pack rather than $5/pack? That’s the situation with drugs.
In any event, a survey in England found that
[QUOTE]
Given the expense of a heavy habit, petty crime is an obvious income source. However, Michael Hough, director of the Criminal Policy Research Unit at the University of the South Bank in London, believes that the link is not simple. Rather, the sort of person who becomes a “chaotic” drug user is also disproportionately likely already to be an “acquisitive offender”: a thief, shoplifter (the addict’s crime of choice) or burglar. “The preconditions for starting on heroin are to be a risk-taker, and to have quite a bit of money,” he says. He points to a study of people arrested in Britain, by Trevor Bennett of Cambridge University, which calculated that the cost of consuming heroin and crack accounted for 32% of criminal activity.
::Blink:: In England, a study conducted by Trevor Bennett of Cambridge University calculated that earning money to buy heroin and crack accounted for 32% of criminal activity in that country.
In Holland, the government estimates that a population of 5,000 addicts are responsible for half of the petty crime in that country.
I don’t know what the dosages for cocaine and heroin are, but when you consider a kilo of heroin costs $290,000, a kilo of crack $50,000, and a kilo of powder cocaine $11,000 retail in the United States, they are bloody expensive. Ounce for ounce, probably only plutonium is more valuable than heroin.
Quite simply untrue. There is a limit as to how much of anything you can put into your body. A junkie will not start doing 20 times as much as they are doing now. I doubt they could tolerate doing twice as much as they are now. Even if they double their consumption, they will still be only spending 1/10th of what they currently are spending to support their habit.
“First of all, I am sure many of the accidents that are chalked up to DUI would have occurred anyway even if the driver was sober. Some things are just unavoidable…”
I would LOVE to hear you tell that to the Judge!! LOL
Those of you who condone this nonsense can hide behind your cites and stats all you want. The bottom line is, cutting the dopers a break so it is easier and cheaper for them to buy drugs is pointless. If someones life is ruined because of a drug-related death, injury, or incarceration it is because of the drugs–not the penal system. An arrest is the result, not the cause of their problem.
And please, let’s not ignore the basic fact the USING DRUGS IS STUPID!!! It does not and should not be tolerated–from our kids or anyone. Talk about the dumbing down of America to the lowest common denominator!!!
Sorry I’m so un-cool to say it . Call me all the names you want, poke fun at me for being ‘conservative’. I don’ t care.
I agree with the statement SHOEMAN makes about when you are ADDICTED (addicted the key word) the need for a fix will exceed your bankroll. To the ADDICT lower costs per unit means, “Thanks for the discount, I’ll take more” To think otherwise is incredibly and potentially tragically naive. And don’t ask me for a cite. I’ve seen it, in real life, not in a book or journal.
Sounds like you guys have good intentions, but you are living in a fantasy.
Let’s say we go and “try” this out, as the original question proposed.
Let’s say for whatever reason it doesn’t work. Then what do you do with all your addicts?
** ummm… yeahh…** yeas…I think we do as a matter of fact. I could have asked for cites for most every line of your friends statements, but I chose this one because out of all the absurdities stated so far, this should be the easiest to prove. Hence I am giving you a fair chance…Now…in three posts Mr/s. Shoeman83 has supplied non substantiated, non sequitor arguments for an increase in drug use at legalization . Could you at least prove with some kind of cite the fact that a nature of addiction is that drug addicts stick together socially and that alcoholics do as well?
Now shoemaker83… I think that Sua (especially) and I (generally) debunked you so hard in the last couple of posts that my previous demand for better argument has been circumstantiated in no little way. Therefore I request once again; for the sake of a good debate, please substantiate your previous statements! And please… not by repeating ‘because I said so’.
Last but not least…nevermind to ask me to not bother to ask for a cite is like asking the devil to not curse in chruch…hence, for your most recent statements I would like… a cite please!
Okay, I have to chime in here. I remember hearing some time ago that England made heroin available by perscription to help curb deaths due to impure drugs. So I hit google looking for statistics from their country that may apply to this debate. I couldn’t find anything that specifically stated that heroin is available there by prescription, so that may be false. I did, however, find some good info that I’d like to share.
This cite is a report from Australia that showed that due to a decrease in availability and an increase in price, crime skyrocketed. A definate correlation to the argument that crime will be reduced if prices come down.
This cite speaks about a Dutch initiative to start handing out heroin to addicts and talk about a 3 year study that was conducted that shows that “they found that patients on a combination of methadone and heroin were less likely to die, committed less crime, used less cocaine and were in better physical, social and mental shape than those given methadone alone.”
Myself, I’m for treatment of drug addictions. I don’t see the point of locking someone up possibly destroying families, giving them a criminal record which makes it harder for them to get work, and attaching a label to them will make the situation better.
Here is a concern that I do have about legalizing drugs that hasn’t been brought up so far.
I’m worried that without some kind of restrictions, it will be easier for someone to fall down the path to addiction without being noticed and giving little or no time to intervene before the situation becomes uncontrolable or even dangerous. Laws help to highlight a problem. When someone gets caught doing drugs, a lot of the time it serves as a wakeup call to both the person and the person’s family that a problem may be developing. An early warning system if I may. Sometimes drug use is obvious, other times its not and I would rather like to know if one of my children were experimenting with heroin. Thoughts?
Why do you people insist on believing that all drug users are addicts? Do you believe that all beer-drinkers are alcoholics? That everyone who plays the Lotto is a compulsive gambler?
The simple fact is that the overwhelming majority of people who use illegal drugs are not addicts (I’ve already provided the dependency stats in this thread). They are people like Mayor Bloomberg, Bill Clinton, and Newt Gingrich.
So, for Joe Average drug user, the most likely way drugs are going to ruin their lives is if they are busted for possession. And their lives wouldn’t be ruined if drugs were legal. So the arrest is the cause of their problems, not the result.
Great argument. You’ve earned yourself a Budweiser.
I hope you get the point.
Don’t try to go trading real-life experiences with me. Dealing with the real-life consequences of addiction was my profession for four years. And those consequences are horrifying. Oddly, however, I didn’t notice any difference between the tragic effects of alcohol addiction and cocaine addiction.
But, in any event, your understanding of the physiology of addiction is poor. And we don’t need to hypothesize, either - let’s look at addiction to legal substances.
Is an alcoholic’s consumption of alcohol limited only by the amount of money the alcoholic can spend on booze? Of course not. The law firm partner who is an alcoholic doesn’t spend $750,000 a year on booze. Ben Affleck hasn’t blown all his money on scotch.
Looking at addiction to painkillers, Ozzy Osbourne still has that nice house despite his addiction. Brett Farve didn’t spend (probably) more than .0000002% of his income on painkillers, either.
If you believe that a cocaine addict would want to, or be able to, consume 20 times the amount of cocaine they are consuming now (or even double), you know jack about physiology.
What do you mean by “doesn’t work”? My definition of legalization “working” or not, is whether the economic, personal, and societal cost of a legalization regime is higher than those we incur under our current criminialization regime.
Under a criminalization regime, the costs are:
[ul]
[li]A massive increase in the prison population, with economic costs for building, staffing and maintaining all those prisons.[/li][li]The productivity costs of all those drugs prisoners, who lose out on education and employment opportunities due to their criminal record, and who are much more likely to live a criminal life afterwards.[/li][li]The massive amount of drugs money leading to corruption of police, judges, and politicians.[/li][li]Gang wars and turf battles for places to sell drugs, and the inevitable “collateral damage.”[/li][li]The costs of addiction.[/li][li]The damage and destruction of civil society in producing countries such as Columbia, Peru, and Burma[/li][/ul]
Under a legalization regime, the costs are:
[ul] [li]More costs of addiction.[/li][li]Hi, Opal![/li][/ul]
Guess which one I think costs more?
While I am a hard-core civil libertarian, that is not the reason I support legalization. Instead, drugs need to be legalized because the costs of criminalization to our society far outweigh the (very real) benefits criminalization provides.
