131–140 of 162 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Just look at the photo at the top of the article of policemen with automatic rifle wearing masks to protect their identities . That is some terrifying stuff.
> Just look at the photo at the top of the article of policemen with automatic rifle wearing masks to protect their identities. FWIW, US swat police seem to do the same thing.
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"Legalizing something harmful because there are other harmful things that are ALSO legal isn't sensible. It just means more things should be illegal." So. Would you choose to restart Prohibition if it were up to you?
No, there are degrees to which something is harmful, and mechanics to how they're deadly. Alcohol usually kills in car accidents. Heroin does not require a car to kill, and there is no such thing as moderation with drugs like heroin and cocaine. People don't exactly stumble about after drinking fine wine usually. (Edit) To clarify, alcohol does not need vehicular accidents to kill, it does cause damage to the liver,…
According to CDC data from 2001-2005, an avg of 20 thousand people died from directly alcohol related diseases (with an additional 16 thousand of conditions linked to excessive drinking), compared to 14 thousand who died in motor-vehicle accidents.
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Well, on the other hand what are the costs of doing nothing in Mexico? What price do the Mexican people pay? This situation is a little different than the twin towers.
Wouldn't it be safer & a hell of a lot cheaper if drugs were regulated according to their harm? Grass is no worse than alcohol or tobacco, while cocaine doesn't cause any more social issues than those. The cartels only exist because the illegality of those drugs creates massive profit margins. Remove that and many of the problems are solved.
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For values of 'worked for alcohol' that include 'moved world's largest criminal organisation into non-alcohol-related activity without impacting its organisational capacity one jot'.
People drink and take drugs because they enjoy it. What illegal activity are you proposing people will seek if drugs are medicinalized/legalized? Saying "oh they'll just move on" is a bit hand-wavey.
Cigarettes are legal to buy for anyone over the age of 18 (was 16 until feb 2011). Average price per pack of 20 is between £5.50 and £7; most of that is (Over 80%) tax.
High local prices, easy access to cheap foreign cigs (France is a couple of hours away and hypermarkets exist to sell alcohol and cigs to English day-trippers) mean that very many (1 in 5) cigarettes (and half of all hand rolling tobacco) smoked in the UK are smuggled or counterfeit.
Worse, there's money to be made for criminal gangs smuggling counterfeit cigs.
Cannabis is easy to grow. I support legalisation. But I am worried by the fact that criminal gangs already grow and distribute cannabis in the UK (sometimes using forced trafficked labour); by the possible harm to mental health; and by the weird culture of binge drinking and underage drinking in UK and how that would transfer to drug use.
UK annual tax income: (http://www.the-tma.org.uk/tma-publications-research/facts-fi...)
Over 80% VAT and duties: (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/budget/8401996/Budget-201...)
Video report about blatant selling of smuggled cigs: (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-13101212)
Organised crime in Scotland and their involvement in smuggled tobacco (with 1 in 5 and half of all hand rolling tobacco claim: (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-12219726)
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Wouldn't it be safer & a hell of a lot cheaper if drugs were regulated according to their harm? Grass is no worse than alcohol or tobacco, while cocaine doesn't cause any more social issues than those. The cartels only exist because the illegality of those drugs creates massive profit margins. Remove that and many of the problems are solved.
I agree and think it's a good first step. However I don't think it will necessarily get rid of the cartels. Prohibition gave rise to organized crime in the US, but once it was repealed they already were established and just focused on other illegal activities.
It's difficult to wage an information war with gangsters. The ones who get to the top by killing and torturing are not likely to be threatened by having a few emails released. All the shit runs downhill to the relatively innocent civilians being extorted by the gangsters. If knowledge of who the crime bosses are was enough to take them down, they would not exist in the first place. Organized crime does not require se…
The only way to fight criminals at a scale where they threaten the state is through intelligence and military techniques, not law enforcement. Find them, build up decent evidence, kill them; don't try to prosecute. The risk is turning into a star chamber or right wing paramilitary, but I would trust the professionalism and morality of an organization like the us military to resist that. Plan Colombia worked out ok, c…
People at the top most of the time have the resources to hide and still run the company. But when there is nobody left that would like to work for them the will fall.
Simply releasing the data would make killing them pointless, but being pointless never stopped the Zetas before.
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Well, on the other hand what are the costs of doing nothing in Mexico? What price do the Mexican people pay? This situation is a little different than the twin towers.
Wouldn't it be safer & a hell of a lot cheaper if drugs were regulated according to their harm? Grass is no worse than alcohol or tobacco, while cocaine doesn't cause any more social issues than those. The cartels only exist because the illegality of those drugs creates massive profit margins. Remove that and many of the problems are solved.
It's crazy that we fight a war in Afghanistan where the enemy is largely financed by two of our addictions (oil via Saudi contributions to AQ, and opiates via the Taliban), and our own logistical footprint (10% of the logistics budget of the US presence goes indirectly to the Taliban!).
The war on drugs, in addition to being ineffective, is racist and immoral.
However, even though drugs is how they started, there are criminal/terrorist organizations, like MS13 and Los Zetas, which are a threat to the stability of some fairly weak states, a source of violence in US and foreign communities, etc., which need to be destroyed even after drug funding is cut off.
The relevancy of all of this to Hacker News is becoming really strained, though.
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Are you suggesting that the lower profits mean a crime ring can't be organized around them? Because history would disagree with you.
Of course not. Just that a less profitable but still high-risk business is less attractive and likely to be pursued less vigorously and by fewer people. Which is the outcome we want. Zero tolerance is not eliminating crime, and it is extremely expensive.