Yes
DeusEx there is a strong link between drugs and crime. Apparently anything between 33% and 82% of people arrested test positive for drugs
(depending on the area)
www.whitehousedrugpolicy.gov...
However the main reason why drugs cause crime is that because they are harmful they are illegal and because they are illegal they are expensive; which
makes absolutely no difference if you addicted. All it means is that you will shag more dirty old men at night if you’re a woman, or steal-rob more
things if you’re a guy.
My solution to this problem…
Is a pragmatic political contradiction; I believe that undercover police should sell drugs to the market; but at the same time drugs like heroin
should still be illegal. Think about that; the police would be to…
1. Arrest all the competition
2. Bring the price down (hence reducing crime)
3. Ultimately cull their own climates by sending them to rehab. To make this practical you have to make this slightly inefficient; instead of having
an undercover drug dealer get rid of his own clients directly (then they might want to kill him; and anyway his undercover status is sussed) you would
have a competing undercover drug dealer sanction it; only the undercover drug dealers themselves would never be arrested (just their clients).
4. Ideally you don’t want the undercover drug dealers busting their own clients at all; instead you want a law where anybody can report anybody as a
drug user; where that person can then forcefully tested and dealt with.
This is radical combination of ideas but if you think about it; it has all the advantages of total legalisation of all drugs (no matter how harmful)
without actually loosing the key benefits of keeping those same drugs illegal.
The key benefit of making drugs illegal is that you can arrest people who use those drugs; and hopefully treat them.
It is not that it does
anything much to effect basic availability. I myself spoke pot whenever I like (which isn’t often).
Even so I know several dealers, one of them I can even ring up and have him come and meet me in street (providing I don’t use any obvious words on
the phone). It really wouldn’t be difficult for me to order heroin if I wanted too. And frankly it’s because drugs are illegal that I’ve been
tempted by various people to explore different things. As it happens that the only two drugs I’ve ever done are pot and mushrooms; I’ve considered
ecstasy but thought “even though it’s very unlikely to kill me I don’t know what other effects it might have on my brain.” Apparently it can
do all sorts of things which permanently affect your intelligence-thinking; and more rarely even your personality.
So what I'm saying is that of course safe needles are a good idea. After all it might be perfectly “serves you right” for a heroin prostitute to
pick up aids; but what when she shags some middle aged man who then passes it to his unknowing wife?
Without clean needles this sort of thing happens all the time.
I'm also do you think we need a more radical approach with isn’t (the now) quite boring arguments of total legalisation verses total
criminalisation? Which might just reduce the cost of drugs; without actually loosing society the right to treat dangerous addicts?
[edit on 090705 by Liberal1984]