True or False: Legalizing marijuana in the U.S.A. would drastically cut gang violence domestically?
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False. You still have methamphetamine, heroin, and cocaine to deal with.
Does the United States have Gang violence abroad? Gotta watch out for those American slums in the suburbs of Paris, I hear they are La Rough.
True. While @harangutan is correct that you still have these other drugs to deal with, a very substantial cut of their profits come from marijuana sales.
Since Colorado has already done just that, let’s just wait and see.
False. Gangs are into more than just drugs.
Not going to drastically change much. Gangs thrive by selling addictive drugs to their own people. Pot isn’t addicting. People don’t have to use it. There is still going to enough drug turf to fight over despite pot being sold legally. The beauty of the thriving black market is its ability to adapt. Pretty much same thing goes for any enterprise.
I wasn’t aware Colorado was rotten with gangs. Big cities where there is high diversity populations is where we see that. Denver?
Is most gang violence connected to people who want to use marijuana? I would think not.
Personally, I’m for decriminilising drug use across the board. That might take the wind out of the sails of those who peddle drugs illegally.
@Bellatrix It’s not so much that it’s directly connected to it but more so that the money made from sales from it allow purchase of other things such as guns etc. Ever work in retail? Think of marijuana as your bread and butter product. It’s the thing that you can always sell no matter what to keep the business making money and moving forward. I agree though, out right decriminalization would be a massive step forward.
False. Now they can buy it easily, if they have money.
False. You think the people who sell marijuana would start paying taxes and shit? They’d just turn to another illegal (and therefore lucrative) activity.
That’s not to say that marijuana should or shouldn’t be legalized, though.
We have marijuana users here (about 35% of people said they’d used cannabis and about 8% said they’d used it in the last year). It’s not legal to sell or use marijuana. We don’t seem to have gang violence or not to any great extent. We also can’t easily access guns.
@Bellatrix But then you have koalas, which are cute as fuck, making people all happy and shit. I think I’d be less violent if I had a koala.
@Bellatrix You guys don’t need gang violence or guns there, every animal is out to kill ya as it is :P
:-) So true @bob_. I think we are at the top or very high up on the ‘happiness’ scale. It’s the koalas for sure.
Yeah @uberbatman, but that gives you something to be thankful for hey? I made it through another day without being bitten by a snake, spider, shark or standing on a stone fish, touching a blue ringed octypus or having one of those box jellyfish get its tentacles on me. Then there’s the crocs…
Better have a joint to calm down now!
As a former weed dealer I will say that I was never in a gang. It would just shift the gang stuff to other things.
But it would clear up a lot of prison cells for people that commit actual crimes. Fun fact: A pretty popular member here got busted with some weed in his shoe. He spent 6 months in a Tennessee jail. He is on probation for a few years and can’t leave the state. THIS IS FUCKING INSANITY!!
And your taxes pay for it. But carry on bitching about food stamps.
True, when other drugs for addicts can be prescribed by doctors. Otherwise the Marijuana gangs would just search for new drugs to sell.
I think the legalization of drugs in general would cut down violence. There’s so many drug-related conflicts and violence because of drugs in the world and I think it’s crazy.
@tups People sure are pretty serious about their drugs LOL
Legal drugs is one thing. They are still going to cost way more money than an out of work junkie will have. And that’s figuring for free market competition. So where do they get their money to resupply? Same place they are now. Sell their ass behind a dumpster for a bump, or they simply get it out of your house. Sure you wouldn’t mind huh?
@woodcutter You realize you are asking me if I wouldn’t mind if junkies still occasionally turned to crime, but I didn’t have to cough up the tax dollars to incarcerate a larger percentage of the population than North Korea or China locks up. Well guess what, I wouldn’t mind.
@ETpro Well it seems like you are fine with the dopers stealing to support their dependency even if the occasional victim of theirs gets hurt or killed for a few trinkets. Just as long as the poor things aren’t taking up space in prison it’s worth it? If you ever are mugged by one of these losers I have a hunch your opinion of them will change some. That’s usually what it takes. Hey , fuck it I’m with you on this, but with the following caveat—Don’t go running to their defense if the rest of us do what ever it takes to stop them from making us their victims for a buzz. Even.. if…they…happen…to…be…black. They are no different from the rest when they are involved in that mess. And you know it.
I, for one, realize there is no need to stick my dick in a mouse trap to see if it hurts. Letting people have free reign with any drug they want to become tangled up in is going to come with consequeses that will effect every single tax payer. Pay to keep them off the streets= expensive, or..pay to dry them all out in rehab over and over and over.= just as expensive. Which method is money better spent?
@woodcutter That is also why the money saved on incarcerating these people is put toward actual rehabilitation programs so that addicts can get the help they desperately need.
I suggest you look into Portugal’s approach to drugs. They’ve decriminalized everything and yet somehow don’t have drug addicts running rampant through the streets. They have far lower addiction rates than in the US.
@uberbatman Portugal is Portugal. its not a good cross comparison to the US. The US is unique. Different ball of wax. So what you suggest is to legalize the hard drugs…understanding more people than ever will experiment without the legal thing hanging over their heads. Then, knowing most if not all can be expected to become addicted. And then we can save them and make them whole again using the money we saved from not incarcerating them? How many runs each…through the rehab system will all this saved fortune cover? Because the rate of recidivism is predictably high with addicts. I can’t imagine rehab done right is cheap at all. I really fail to see a net positive here. We are going to still be spending possible billions repairing people over and over again. Not to mention do we appease the hopeless users by having govt drug dispensaries to keep these people calm so they don’t commit yet more crime acquiring cash to buy drugs on a regular schedule? Failing that, they will commit burglaries- robberies, muggings, what ever you want to call this and after they do that do we then incarcerate them for those crimes ? It looks like they will at some point do something to land themselves right back in the prison system on charges not related to drug offenses. Unless you would like to see prisons abolished also?
@woodcutter I never said anything of the sort. If you insist in so often putting your straw-man construct into my mouth so you can the slay your straw man, I’d just as soon have no contact with you as such exercises have noting to doe with legitimate exchanges of ideas. They are just They are just ideologues finding some logical fallacy or set of fallacies to make themselves right.
@ETpro If junkies still occasionally return to crime? You must have e mailed Bill Clinton and found out the meaning of “if” There ain’t no “if” about it here. So stop with that, ok? I’m putting words in your mouth now? Ahhh I see. When you do it, it’s because you are right, and justified. But when someone else dares to do you the same way it’s just an outrage.
There’s a perfect name for that most college educated people use in this situation but damn if I can come up with it right now, ‘cause as you know I couldn’t go to college to learn it. I learned it by observing people out in the real world. Shit man its right on the edge of recall but its just out of reach right now. What is that word? Starts with an “H” is all I can come up with this second. I keep getting “hippopotamus” but that is not it not even close.
@woodcutter You are trying to apply the very broken system of the US, and insist that all other systems will have the same outcome. The fact is they do not. Not even close. There is a reason the US incarcerates a far greater percentage of its population than any other nation on Earth, and that reason is not likely to be that our system far outshines the rest.
Ok don’t put people in prison for the hard drugs. Let them screw the pooch and they will in non drug related crimes and then back in the box they go. Same result different reason. People who can’t keep a job will eventually take to get by. Its a loosing proposition either way you look at it. I don’t think even Obama will be able to do E.O. to force businesses to put druggies to work.
@woodcutter You keep sticking your own words in my mouth, having me erect your straw man so you can slay him. I never said that all drugs should be legal, only that the US way of dealing with drug crimes is the most expensive in cost and human capital in the world, and one of the least effective. Is that what you want?
I don’t like people who do drugs. So I have a tough time caring about them. They drain us all. As long as they stay out of my way they will be fine. Pot- I don’t care about that’s not even a drug. But nice back peddle. The US puts people in prison because they are fuck ups. And the US has some of the biggest fuck ups in the world. Wherever you have freedoms it leaves the door wide open to people abusing them. Thats the contract: have lots of freedoms not seen anywhere else but…you abuse them and you go away. People make choices, not the other way around. The whole drug thing is a straw man. Pot aside you can be sure that they who imbibe in the hard stuff are in there for stuff worse than the dope. Or soon will be. Whats the difference?
Oh, so we lock up more people than any other country on Earth because we have freedom and they don’t. What, exactly, do they do to their non-free people who do act out? Give them a medal?
We lock up more people because we have lots of laws to take heed of. Lots of laws happens to be a by- product of a free people. In those other countries you speak of? Who knows what they do? They cut off body parts or make the criminal disappear somehow. Or they let them roam the streets and their existence is funded by the rest of the productive people. But as we have seen in places like that, is how socialism is the best idea until they run out of other people’s money. And then the obligatory economic collapse and austerity measures. Nothing is free, my man. Someone is paying.
@woodcutter When you start modifying facts to suit your ideological desires, I’m done talking to you. Later.
@ETpro You sir, are in a piss poor position to be insinuating such nonsense here. Really? I find it tough to believe that in that fancy school you went to, they forgot to mention that those with differing ideas might just mirror your tactics. If they did omit that, then you may not have gotten your money’s worth. You don’t get to grumble about it when you are doing the same. Be reasonable.
@woodcutter It’s funny seeing you say “be reasonable” when you have so many clearly blown out of proportion statements above…
“We lock up more people because we have lots of laws to take heed of. Lots of laws happens to be a by- product of a free people. In those other countries you speak of? Who knows what they do? They cut off body parts or make the criminal disappear somehow. Or they let them roam the streets and their existence is funded by the rest of the productive people. But as we have seen in places like that, is how socialism is the best idea until they run out of other people’s money. And then the obligatory economic collapse and austerity measures. Nothing is free, my man. Someone is paying.”
That ^
I get a striking suspicious you have never actually left this country.
I also liked the economic collapse bit, we definitely avoided that happening here in this great free country.
@uberbatman So am I to take it you disagree with that statement? If you disagree its perfectly fine…we expect nothing less from you, but, that does not in any way make what I state to be false….see the difference?
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