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Originally Posted by Via Chicago
A) heroin is merely one drug. True, I dont know many casual users although I suppose some might exist. There are plenty of casual users of other drugs though. Pot, LSD, MDMA, and all sorts of others are used regularly by people from all walks of life.
B) I agree. Hence why I said those responsible for enacting policies that led to a "war on drugs" are complicit in today's current situation.
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I am pro-legalization not just to stop the violence, but to stop the destruction of lives. A very large portion of the harms of drug abuse comes from the legal consequences and not the medical consequences. If, instead of spending on law enforcement, we spend on social and medical mitigation like treatment or detox, we would save money, we would have fewer negatives for users, and the criminal allure of drugs as (il)legal rebellion would be greatly reduced.
Quote:
Originally Posted by LouisVanDerWright
Blaming these problems on demand is the silliest thing I've ever heard:
A. It's not as if most people going to pick up some smack are just casual users out to grab some drugs before a long night of partying on their investment banker yacht. Once you are using Heroin you are hooked, period. The first bag is free, the second is $10, and the more you buy, the higher the unit price goes. Drug dealer economics 101. Step 1: push drugs with a loss leader Step 2: ??? Step 3: Jack the prices up once your customer is hooked. Step 4: Profit. Most of the people being blamed by Via for this are not casual consumers from the suburbs, they are hooked and blowing thousands of dollars irrationally because the reward center of their brain is royally fucked with chemicals.
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1) Somewhere around 10-15% of of people who try heroin get hooked. If *everyone* tried heroin, the number would probably be lower than 5% - I think it's in the 10-15% range only because the stigma around heroin means those who try it are much more predicated toward addiction and/or lack the self-discipline necessary to prevent physical dependency from occurring (and recurring). I know people who have used heroin recreationally and never suffered from addiction. They're even known among addicts as "weekend warriors" because they only use on the weekends so that they don't build up a tolerance and don't string together enough days to become physically dependent and suffer withdrawal pains.
2) While some dealers will start someone out with a free trial bag, the price of heroin is competively set like in any other marketplace. If a dealer started overcharging an addict, the addict would find another source - they tend to be quite price-sensitive out of necessity. In Chicago, the minimum size in most areas is a dime-bag, $10. I think it's currently more common to see "dubs" (as in double), which are $20. For $100 you can get a "jab," which is between 10-13 dime-bags worth. Some dealers will sell "halves," which are advertised as half-grams of heroin, which, when available, usually have the equivalent of 6 dimebags or 3 dubs and run $50, but that's less common. If someone buys a "gram," it'll be between $120 and $200 depending on the dealer. Part of the variation there is because a "gram" will either be an uncut or nearly uncut chunk of heroin off a full brick which might weight close to a gram, or it will be about 1.4 grams of the same powder that comes in dime-bags. Buying more than a gram at a time is not usually a large part of a dealer's business unless they're up the chain and selling to lower dealers. This system and prices are pretty consistent across Chicago. There is some variation in how cut (or "stepped-on") stuff is depending on the dealer, and variation is greater in the suburbs, too, but those are the prices and they mostly only vary in special circumstances.
Quote:
Originally Posted by LouisVanDerWright
B. Demand will never go away. Look at Prohibition, look at the War on Drugs. The drug markets in these areas aren't there because evil whiteys from the suburbs want black people to do their dirty work for them so they can have their party drugs. They are there because demand for these substances exists whether the government likes it or not. Banning the substances (rather than decriminalizing and treating) simply drives the prices up and the activity underground. That turns the marketplace into a perfect breeding ground of organized crime and it at the very core of what has destroyed Black America since the 1960's and 70's when Nixon had a hard on for "law and order".
Point being, blaming demand is never a solution and any attempt to curtail demand usually just results in even more negative consequences. The best things we could do as a nation to resolve this problem permanently would be widespread criminal reform in regards to drug crimes combined with actual Federal laws protecting the rights of poor individuals to use their housing vouchers in any community they desire. If we could simultaneously undermine the business model of street gangs and spread out the impoverished to communities that can better serve their needs, then we would start making real progress towards finally integrating African Americans into American society after 100+ years of claiming that's what we want to do while passing legions of laws that suggest otherwise.
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Demand will never completely go away. There are still drug black markets in totalitarian governments. That should tell us something about whether the "war on drugs" is even worth fighting, let alone winnable.
Quote:
Originally Posted by the urban politician
^ No, my problem is with your (and others who make this argument) continued insistence on blaming white people for the actions of thugs.
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I am not to blame for their existence, although I understand that they are employed within the illegal drug trade. A hell of a lot of people don't do drugs either. Stop trying to make everybody feel guilty.
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I think you're the one making it racial. I don't read the other comments as "blaming white people," I read them as acknowledging two things:
1) People who use drugs and who live outside of the geography of active drug markets continuing to buy in them and essentially putting financial incentive on the conditions there to be what they are.
2) People who don't use drugs and live outside of the geography of active drug markets failing to understand that the "war on drugs" basically guarantees the results we've seen and so continuing the laws that have created violent drug black markets.
Quote:
Originally Posted by the urban politician
^ No, your worldview is one where you create a victim complex. The world has been rigged since humans settled into cities.
But let's not be enablers of people who murder. You want me to feel sorry for them. I just plain don't.
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No one is asking you to feel sorry for them, but it would be helpful in stopping the violence to actively acknowledge that the current system greatly contributes to not only enabling but actually encouraging the situations that lead to the violence.
If you hate the violence and actually want it to stop instead of simply bitching about murderers, then you and people like you need to start *actively* petitioning government to change its strategy. Yes, the murders do ultimately happen due to personal moral failings by the murderers. But the current system motivates them to be more evil than they might otherwise be.
Your choice is to acknowledge that the current system greatly contributes to the violence and act based on that to help stop the violence, or to simply moralize and pretend there's nothing that can be done and continue to live watching those murders.
Your choice, U.P.
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