wooba, I’m certainly no expert in Canadian law, but I am fairly certain your analysis is flawed.
Consider a store that has a dish of candy out with a sign that says: “Free - take as many as you like.” Not seeing the sign, I decide to steal the candy. I stealthily slip some into my pocket and hurry out of the store.
By your logic, I have committed a crime – I had the mens rea. Yes?
Wooba, I don’t know which message you’re responding to, but you misunderstood (or it was incorrectly explained). Mens rea lies in possessing the necessary mental state for that particular crime. Like most non-violent crimes, selling drugs is a specific intent crime: you must have the intent to do the specific illegal thing described. The example given was a case in which a suspect knowingly sold flour instead of cocaine; so there was no mens rea.
Let’s say, though, for the sake of argument, that the perp somehow didn’t know; the cocaine bin was next to the flour bin in his kitchen and he goofed. OK, mens rea is present, but there’s still no crime. Why? Selling flour isn’t illegal. Leaving aside those states that condemn this behavior by statute, selling flour as cocaine constitutes a legal impossibility; unlike factual impossibility (receiving stolen property that isn’t really stolen, picking an empty pocket), legal impossiblity is a defense. Even with guilty intent, you can’t be guilty if what you did isn’t a crime.
Wooba, I don’t know which message you’re responding to, but you misunderstood (or it was incorrectly explained). Mens rea lies in possessing the necessary mental state for that particular crime. Like most non-violent crimes, selling drugs is a specific intent crime: you must have the intent to do the specific illegal thing described. The example given was a case in which a suspect knowingly sold flour instead of cocaine; so there was no mens rea.
Let’s say, though, for the sake of argument, that the perp somehow didn’t know; the cocaine bin was next to the flour bin in his kitchen and he goofed. OK, mens rea is present, but there’s still no crime. Why? Selling flour isn’t illegal. Leaving aside those states that condemn this behavior by statute, selling flour as cocaine constitutes a legal impossibility; unlike factual impossibility (receiving stolen property that isn’t really stolen, picking an empty pocket), legal impossiblity is a defense. Even with guilty intent, you can’t be guilty if what you did isn’t a crime.
Wouldn’t a sale be considered a contract? The government does not enforce illegal contracts. What’s someone gonna do, call the cops and say “I wanted to buy some coke and this dude sold me sugar instead!”
A little off topic…but wouldn’t the best way to combat these “ills” be to decriminalize drugs alltogether?
Yes, alcohol and tobacco have long been decriminalized, and statistics show these drugs have never caused any social or medical problems to anyone at all. Let’s legalize everything!
I Know Lots…
I didn’t say drugs were good, or didn’t cause problems but I would trade the current social problems faced by all of society by the illegal drug trade for social and medical problems limited to the individuals who choice to partake.
porshe,
Your question is more in the nature of a debate, and in fact has been addressed many times in GD threads.
There is no factual answer to the question you pose.
Well, before we get on to a whole different topic, Porsche, let me just say that the problems of legalized drugs are by no means limited to “the individuals who choose to partake.” Think of alcohol-related violence, both domestic and in the streets. Everyday, tobacco-smuggling costs the NHS £9,000,000 in lost revenue. Drunk-driving. Cancer caused by passive smoking. Families destroyed. Kittens burnt alive by madmen. Drugs- legal, illegal and semi-legal- are bad, mm’kay?