NEWS: British Youth See No Choice but Sell Drugs

Originally posted by Dulcimer
Just for fun could someone find the statistics for Canada. I could only find basic unemployment stats and such. I would just like to compare.

Here's a long list from 1992 that compares the US, Canada, UK and quite a few other countries.

nces.ed.gov...

[edit on 17-10-2005 by AceOfBase]

The Canadian rates are STILL high and that info is quite old. I know my province was absolutely bragging over its five year streak of job creation and such. Now they are back in a bust.

And I have a theory. This province (Saskatchewan) brags about its employment levels, but in reality they are only that way because:

1-There are few jobs (there is only 1 million people here) and they are taken.

2-The people that don't have jobs have gone to another province (Alberta).

Of course our levels are low everyone has left ! Its a known fact that the province has not seen a increase in population in 100 years.

What good is an education in a land of no opportunity?

I wrote to our government asking what they are doing to keep youth in the province, and youth in agriculture. I received a crappy reply that was so off topic it was laughable and a brochure that mentioned more about opportunity in Alberta than Saskatchewan.

I would say in this province, honestly a quality education is not the answer. Why? Because its a place that depends on hard labour. Farmers, mechanics, Small towns !

Like another poster mentioned, what if everyone received a college education? What would happen to a place like Saskatchewan?

Would we all move?

Actually yes we probably would.

People are getting educations here and then leaving.

Then again what would happen if nobody received a good education here?

Life sucks.

Here is some meat to back up what I said:

Taken from the local news.
Source

Statistics Canada says Saskatchewan lost more than 15,000 young people to other provinces between 1996 and 2001.

15 thousand with a population around 1 million? And these figures are OLD. This was taken when things were not so bad in this province.

The oil BOOM has taken away people of all ages and skills.

At the University of Saskatchewan, more than 4,000 Grade 12 students are touring the school. Over the next two days university officials will try to woo them into choosing the U of S as their alma matter. But the more difficult task may be convincing them to stay in the province post graduation.

It seems the anecdotal assumption that young people are finding greener pastures in Alberta has much validity. The two cities that prospered most from the province's loss in population were Calgary and Edmonton.

After all, Saskatchewan's largest city is Calgary.........

So Brithish people are going to do what American people have to do.
Notice how I said Have to do, People in Poor america Communitys have to Hustle to Survive because their are No Jobs to go to.
Take my BirthPlace and Current Place of Residence Flint, Michigan.
This is a City that Built the General Moters Corp. and Installed Labor Unions among many other things.
This is a Great American City that helped Build America to the Place it is, yet GM has Been taking jobs away like Flapjacks at IHOP so the people here are stuck to Slang drugs and other illegal things to surive or be on welfare because their are no Fin Jobs around here.
every person cannot be have the American dream cause its just an Illusion.

I don't know what the big kick up and fuss is all about with drugs. So it's not o.k if young people sell drugs, but it's o.k for supermarkets and the government to tax and sell drugs (alcohol and tobacco) that are the biggest killers known to man. If you want an example of a 'hypocrit'...that's about the finest example you'll ever find.

Well, im British, Young and im at College..plus im not middle class.

This research is just stereotyping people (again), treating everyone with the same stick

To bad everone has forgoton how poor people adavanced to midclass then on up to rich.
I am poor as poor as they come .If it wasent for my skills in handling money me and my family would be on the streets . I have no colloge .
It may be two of my 6 boys will though .But it doesent matter if they go to colloge or not.
rember i am poor have less then 1000$ at this moment.
but i have been working on my long term plan for close to ten years now .
and in five years i will be able to start with a nice sume of around 70,000$
in ten years my oldest will own a home and land and car pluse not need power or water hook ups or much food from the out side .
in 20 years my grand children will all go to privet schools and by the time they grow up will run this state .
my grate grand children will run this country as seneters or congress men or even presadents .
There is no magic involved in doing this . Do you think the kennedys started off super rich? its a well known FACT ever generation of kenedys add to the familys money.
my plan is as old as our race GROUP EFFERT . one person can no longer do it alone the cost of goods is to high the chances of succes to low even with colloge and 65,000$ a year you just get deeper in deat as its taxed away .The rich are covered from this .
by my self I make 500$ a week wich is almost nothing .
it ALL goes to living .BUT my boys efferts as time goes on can be invested AT 100% so if each kid makes even 300$ a week thts 1800$a week that can be saved, 90000$a year .So the kids live with us untill the oldest is around 27 or 28 by that time we have close to a million CASH .
now that they own everthing you just keep using the same meathed in 20 more years the family is worth from 10 to 20 million.
How ? simply once you own everthing you invest in bussiness any good bunnisses can give you a 25% peryear and most that succed get 38% return easly . so you pay a million to start and make 300,000 a year in three you brake even . well you do the math. all I know its possible the trick is working toghter .

All this talk about jobs..why does it not occur to people to create their own jobs? Being unemployed can be a great opportunity to go for it when you have nothing to lose. People with jobs are rarely willing to give them up in order to create their own business and become financially independent.

Rather than pushing the governments to try to create jobs, push them to reduce market entry barriers so you can create your own job.

My experience is very dated. In the early 90s, during one of the phases which I went through, I worked as a volunteer legal advisor with one of the Citizen's Advice Bureau in inner London.

During my tenure there, I saw an overwhelming number of ethnic families, requesting financial assistance. However, upon closer interview, I discovered that most times, they were already staying in Council flats and having financial assistance. In some extreme cases, their idea of living in poverty arose because their video players (no dvds or vcds then) were taken back by the Hire Purchase company. They had an idea that coming to London/England would give them a better life and opportunity than their home countries.

In a sense, they were right. However, in a broader sense, they fuelled their own discontent when they compared themselves with others and their own dreams when making the decision to exercise their rights to enter and live in Britain under one of the many schemes available then.

I guess, what I am trying to say is that dealing in drugs for fast cash is a choice. It is not a necessary by-product of being poor. Poor is an excuse. For quite a few, poor is a state of mind. For some, obviously poor is very real, where they cannot even put food on a cardboard box which acts as a table. But even cold murder can be logically justified if you wish to. Blame it on society, blame it on the government, hell, blame it on the weather. Blame it on everything and everyone that kids choose to start being dope dealers.

Over the years, having spent time in Eastern Europe, Indo-China and China proper, it has invariably been the case that where a business is extremely lucrative but "shady", the involvment of the mafia is a given. The more lucrative it is, the more violent it becomes. Turf wars (physical battles), turf wars (marketing wars where drugs are brought to school for sale and creation of customer base), turf wars there margins become the name of the game and lives are irrelevant.

Sure, we can choose to legalise drugs. However, I know of no country which leglises dope for the minors. Hell, let's move on to prostitution. Taking the "legalisation" argument to it's logical conclusion, then why not legalise prostitution and child prostitution at that. It's easy money. We have no choice because our governments and society gives us no choice. It is a cop out position to take. There is no God given right to be rich and powerful. It really depends on what we wish to choose to do to try to get there.

Therein lies the education aspect. Education is not the ends. it is but a means to an end. We try to give our kids an education so that they can have the opportunity to choose the path they take. As parents, we need to steadfastly maintain patience and try our best to keep them on this track, until they are sufficiently well informed of all the pros and cons of their choices in life.

I have a cousin. He is a vegetable now. Ice fried his brains. He picked up the habit in high school in New Jersey. one day, while high and flying, he took out a gun and shot out some windows in the school. When asked why, he blamed his parents, the schools, his friends, his fate etc.. He never once accepted that it was the drugs. Well, he is a vegetable now, starting on ice since he was 13 yrs old. Although highly inconsistent with my day job, I certainly would like to literally fry the dealer and his bosses.

In my day job, I notice that the dealers and their bosses never let their own children get involved with the trade or even near the stuff. They know the consequences.

So please, let's not be blase about it and blame everyone and everything and push for legalisation. We are talking about kids.

Two years to figure that out?

A lot of kids smoke cannabis now a days, which I personally would put a lot of the blame of them selling drugs on. When you smoke cannabis everyday you soon realise that it's a costly habit, so people realise that if they bought a bigger amount of ganja and sold most of it off, whatever was left would be their 'personals', they're ten pounds worth which they have just made for free. After doing this for a few weeks they will then realise "Hey, what if I buy and sell twice the amount this week, I'll make my free ten pound smoke and ten pounds". Sooner or later they'll be making a lot of money from selling a lot of drugs.

So how do we stop this? We can't and we never will.

It's not hard to figure out. It is the way it is for a reason.

Okay everyone. It's time to take off your own shoe's and put on another's.

There is this 9 year old boy, we'll call him Joe, who's family is poor. They live in a poor neighborhood infested with drugs. Everyday, this 9 year old boy see's George, the honest, hardworking guy who works for the highway department. George is also poor. He has a really beat up car and dirty old clothes. George also has a wife and five kids. It is obvious to Joe that George is not particularly happy with his lot.

But George is not the only guy that Joe sees everyday. Bob, a local drug dealer, is always around. He doesn't seem to have a job, but he has a hot car, cool toys, and lots of pretty ladies. Bob is often laughing and is obviously a pretty happy guy.

Although not every 9 year old boy like Joe will make the same choice, more often than not, Joe and his friends will be intrigued by Bob's lifestyle and will follow his lead. By the time Bob is arrested and put behind bars, Joe and his friends are already living pretty large.

And the cycle continues.

Originally posted by phixion
So how do we stop this? We can't and we never will.

A better question is, why do we even want to stop it? It is simply assumed by the population at large that if drugs were legal society would collapse. That's pure propoganda. If drugs were legal, they would be sold by respectable merchants rather than criminals, just as they were before drug prohibition.

Western society suffers from a serious case of group cognitive dissonance, where on the one hand drugs are widely distributed and consumed and civilzation thrives, while on the other hand it is believed that widespread distribution and consumption would destroy civilization.

the more people go to college, the less chance some one that doesnt go has a chance of getting a decent job.

just like when colleges interview you, they look for grades and activities you did, not what you may actually be able to do.

they dont 'test' you out if you give them your word that you are good. same in the real world of jobs. you may be able to do it better, but if you never went to college and this guy has a masters degree, your not getting the job. plain and simple.

and im speaking for every family, who gets broken or has a child who cant go to college because of their financial status. no it isnt easy to get an educations when teachers dont care about if you learn it or not. or the fact that they will give you an A on your report card when you got 30-60's on tests.(and i know it because my entire math class got straight A's last year when half of them didnt know the difference between an obtuse or right triangle was) i know juniors that can hardly read 7th grade reading material. i know some that can hardly read at all.

you wanna tell us its our fault for not working hard enough? no it the systems fault for pushing us through the education system when we dont understand because they just dont care.