Drugs Not A Victimless, Non-Violent Crime
One of the things I learned in my 7 1/2 years in prison was that every prisoner I ever knew assumed all drug users are thieves. Period. I never ran across one prisoner who did not absolutely believe that. They would have laughed at anyone who thought otherwise. Personally, I never talked to a drug user in prison, including those arrested only for drug possession, who did not admit to stealing to feed their habit - usually from their parents first, as they were less likely to call the police. Then from old people, then from hospital patients using painkillers.
One of the first things we can assume about any drug user jailed for possession is that they are also almost certainly a thief, even if they were not caught stealing. Stealing to feed their habit, they steal constantly. As most prisoners also admitted freely to me and to each other, they were caught only about 10% of the time. The other 90% of their thefts went unsolved and unpunished.
What is the point here? Simply that drug use is never a victimless crime. Theft is an integral part of almost all drug use. If it were possession, not theft, for which they were caught, they are still habitual thieves with many, many victims. Drug use is not a victimless crime.
Second, drug use and the accompanying habitual stealing can lead a user to unplanned violence, usually to escape being caught. But even more, and worse, violence comes from those who supply drugs to that user, including a huge part of all murders and assaults. Even if all an offender does is use drugs, that very use supports and generates all that violence. Drugs are not a non-violent crime..
The drug trade is extremely profitable. Guaranteed, life-long customers, easily hooked when young and dumb. A crop that can help poor peasants make a better living. A product that is sold for huge profits. A trade that can be monopolized and controlled by those violent enough to get rid of the competition. Such vast amounts of money that governments, armies and agencies can be corrupted and bought. Such power that even whole countries can be taken over - Colombia and Mexico, very close. Russia, if not for Putin's ruthless counter measures. And easy financing from the drug trade for terrorists the world over. The jungle guerrillas of South and Central America. Jihadists of South Asia and the Middle East, including Viet Nam, Thailand, Iran, Afghanistan and many others.
Drugs are criminal on an international scale. They bring large-scale slaughter to many innocent people. They bring destabilizing large-scale corruption to many countries. They help terrorists keep their murderous organizations going. Just the losses from the theft committed by users alone amounts to hundreds of billions of dollars a year.
Drug users have many victims and cause much violent crime. They do it by being the foundation of the great market that drives the drug trade. If we want to stop the evils of the drug trade, we have to stop the market.
Some will answer that we are dealing with something that has existed throughout history, something genetic perhaps. But that view comes from the stubborn resistance of the Boomer generation to seeing any history that happened before they were old enough to remember events.
In the 1800s in America, there were some opiates like Laudenum used for popular medicines, before their addictive nature was commonly known. That stopped. Then came the popular use of cocaine in Coca-Cola. That stopped too. Then came most of the 20th century, in which recreational drug use was nearly unknown, except, it was believed, for musicians who played in bars and nightclubs.
The date the large-scale drug culture began in the U.S. was 1964, when Harvard professor Timothy Leary urged students to "Tune in, turn on and drop out." Drug use soared among the young then, and became a new but persistent part of the Cultural Revolution and today's youth culture.
It is a relatively new thing, here and in Europe, feeding on the huge U.S. and EU drug markets. It is cultural, not genetic. That means that it is not impossible to change it. That is the important thing to remember in making drug policy. We cannot afford to give up on this one. It simply has too many victims and too much violence.
One of the first things we can assume about any drug user jailed for possession is that they are also almost certainly a thief, even if they were not caught stealing. Stealing to feed their habit, they steal constantly. As most prisoners also admitted freely to me and to each other, they were caught only about 10% of the time. The other 90% of their thefts went unsolved and unpunished.
What is the point here? Simply that drug use is never a victimless crime. Theft is an integral part of almost all drug use. If it were possession, not theft, for which they were caught, they are still habitual thieves with many, many victims. Drug use is not a victimless crime.
Second, drug use and the accompanying habitual stealing can lead a user to unplanned violence, usually to escape being caught. But even more, and worse, violence comes from those who supply drugs to that user, including a huge part of all murders and assaults. Even if all an offender does is use drugs, that very use supports and generates all that violence. Drugs are not a non-violent crime..
The drug trade is extremely profitable. Guaranteed, life-long customers, easily hooked when young and dumb. A crop that can help poor peasants make a better living. A product that is sold for huge profits. A trade that can be monopolized and controlled by those violent enough to get rid of the competition. Such vast amounts of money that governments, armies and agencies can be corrupted and bought. Such power that even whole countries can be taken over - Colombia and Mexico, very close. Russia, if not for Putin's ruthless counter measures. And easy financing from the drug trade for terrorists the world over. The jungle guerrillas of South and Central America. Jihadists of South Asia and the Middle East, including Viet Nam, Thailand, Iran, Afghanistan and many others.
Drugs are criminal on an international scale. They bring large-scale slaughter to many innocent people. They bring destabilizing large-scale corruption to many countries. They help terrorists keep their murderous organizations going. Just the losses from the theft committed by users alone amounts to hundreds of billions of dollars a year.
Drug users have many victims and cause much violent crime. They do it by being the foundation of the great market that drives the drug trade. If we want to stop the evils of the drug trade, we have to stop the market.
Some will answer that we are dealing with something that has existed throughout history, something genetic perhaps. But that view comes from the stubborn resistance of the Boomer generation to seeing any history that happened before they were old enough to remember events.
In the 1800s in America, there were some opiates like Laudenum used for popular medicines, before their addictive nature was commonly known. That stopped. Then came the popular use of cocaine in Coca-Cola. That stopped too. Then came most of the 20th century, in which recreational drug use was nearly unknown, except, it was believed, for musicians who played in bars and nightclubs.
The date the large-scale drug culture began in the U.S. was 1964, when Harvard professor Timothy Leary urged students to "Tune in, turn on and drop out." Drug use soared among the young then, and became a new but persistent part of the Cultural Revolution and today's youth culture.
It is a relatively new thing, here and in Europe, feeding on the huge U.S. and EU drug markets. It is cultural, not genetic. That means that it is not impossible to change it. That is the important thing to remember in making drug policy. We cannot afford to give up on this one. It simply has too many victims and too much violence.
posted by Old Neocon at 1:58 PM
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