Official Greater Philadelphia Area Crime Thread (Newtown, Dale: bankrupt, salary, manufacturing)

[kyb01]

Originally Posted by AJNEOA

Let's see if we can get any real contenders for City Counsel and Mayor that we can vote for. People come here from Oklahoma because we've created such a beautiful drug paradise. It's like a Disney vacation for them...

It's been a drug "haven" and pickup for prostitution for many years. Long before you moved here. The opioid crisis has made it worse.

I would rather blame Purdue Pharma, makers of Oxycontin, and its owners, the Sackler Family. A sickening bunch of "people" right up there with the Mercers and Koch brothers.

And there have been attempts to clean up the areas involved and bigger PPD presence.

No one really new wants to run for Counsel. And, one more time, Millennials don't give a effing damn about voting. So, right now I'm pretty down on Mills.

The answer is to legalize drugs and create a safer means of distribution and treatment for those who want it.

However conservatives keep getting in the way of any honest effort to actually address the problem.

[Pilot1]

That's why drugs should be legalized. The entire Black Market for drugs has created a criminal underworld, violence, and unnecessarily large prison population. Our judicial (money) system loves it. Ultimately, the drug companies, and physicians that prescribe the opioids share responsibility. However, the physicians as gate keepers are even more to blame. Drug companies can NOT prescribe drugs. It takes unethical doctors that allow themselves to be incentivized to over prescribe.

[kyb01]

Originally Posted by cpomp

1/3 of last years murders were drug related.
That disturbing story of 4 people shot execution style was an argument over $500 in drug money.... These people have zero remorse for their actions and cannot function in society and do not belong on the streets.

This argument could have happened on Walnut Street with hundreds of innocent shoppers and families around.

Lets hope 2019 is a good political year in Philadelphia.

And I was looking at the murder stat thread on the city board, Philadelphia had a higher per capita rate then Chicago. If it weren't for DC Philadelphia would be the largest city at the top of an embarrassing list. I know its not like murderers are roaming the streets of CC, but that is not a stat that people want to see their city leading, that is up there with poverty.

No one is going to challenge Kenney in the primary. The PA primary is in May.

Murderers are in a selected part of town as you know.

And you continually infer that people without a lot of monetary resources are part of the criminal element. Maybe you don't mean to do that but that's how it "feels" to me.

The 2018 murder number is just awful. Still not like 25 years ago.

[kyb01]

Originally Posted by Pilot1

That's why drugs should be legalized. The entire Black Market for drugs has created a criminal underworld, violence, and unnecessarily large prison population. Our judicial (money) system loves it. Ultimately, the drug companies, and physicians that prescribe the opioids share responsibility. However, the physicians as gate keepers are even more to blame. Drug companies can NOT prescribe drugs. It takes unethical doctors that allow themselves to be incentivized to over prescribe.

So can you try to convince some of your conservatives friends that it makes sense to legalize drugs? I've tried to do that but coming from someone like you it might get a better hearing.

[kyb01]

Originally Posted by MarketStEl

(emphasis added)

Yet I don't recall seeing stories about rampant violent crime in the District like those that have come out of Chicago over the course of the last year.

Come to think of it, I don't recall seeing many stories about rampant violent crime here either, despite our having posted the highest murder tally since 2007.

I haven't looked wrt the 2018 tally for other crimes.

[Pilot1]

Originally Posted by kyb01

So can you try to convince some of your conservatives friends that it makes sense to legalize drugs? I've tried to do that but coming from someone like you it might get a better hearing.

I am not a "pure" conservative, but have some Libertarian leanings, with a healthy distrust of government. I hope Wolf gets marijuana legalization through. That's a start. I neither use nor advocate drug use, but people are going to do it anyway, like drinking alcohol which is an even worse drug in some regards.

Some of my more "conservative" friends agree with legalization, or at least de-criminalization of non-violent drug offenses. Some don't, as they like many on the Left view it as one of "society's ills" and want to protect people from themselves which is kind of ridiculous IMHO. I view it as just more of the over controlling, over powerful Nanny State that feeds the size, and budget of the bureaucracy.

[AJNEOA]

Originally Posted by kyb01

It's been a drug "haven" and pickup for prostitution for many years. Long before you moved here. The opioid crisis has made it worse.

I would rather blame Purdue Pharma, makers of Oxycontin, and its owners, the Sackler Family. A sickening bunch of "people" right up there with the Mercers and Koch brothers.

And there have been attempts to clean up the areas involved and bigger PPD presence.

No one really new wants to run for Counsel. And, one more time, Millennials don't give a effing damn about voting. So, right now I'm pretty down on Mills.

The answer is to legalize drugs and create a safer means of distribution and treatment for those who want it.

However conservatives keep getting in the way of any honest effort to actually address the problem.

Our city is a gerontocracy for sure. I'm a GenXer but I'm not sure how others in my generation vote. I know I vote in every election.

And I know it's been a drug haven for many years (I've been here for a whopping 5 years). It just seems not much has been done.

[1ondoner]

Legalizing drug will just add fuel to the opioid epidemic. What is needed is the decriminalization of drugs. Narcotics are powerful mind altering agents and should not be freely available to the general public.

The best the US can do is offer heavily subsidized (or free) medical and social services to break the growth of the opioid epidemic which is now one of the largest cause of death.

Originally Posted by kyb01

So can you try to convince some of your conservatives friends that it makes sense to legalize drugs? I've tried to do that but coming from someone like you it might get a better hearing.

[MarketStEl]

Originally Posted by 1ondoner

Legalizing drug will just add fuel to the opioid epidemic. What is needed is the decriminalization of drugs. Narcotics are powerful mind altering agents and should not be freely available to the general public.

The best the US can do is offer heavily subsidized (or free) medical and social services to break the growth of the opioid epidemic which is now one of the largest cause of death.

A Temple criminologist who's an ex-cop once said that we needed to turn drugs "from a criminal-justice problem to a public-health one."

I agree with the guy. And that means not just decriminalizing most addictive drugs but legalizing them, taxing them up the wazoo, and spending the tax money on the treatment and rehabilitation programs we will then need (of course, the concomitant reduction in the prison population will also free up some money).

By the way, most of the abused opioids are already legal, though prescriptions are required to obtain them.

[kyb01]

Originally Posted by 1ondoner

Legalizing drug will just add fuel to the opioid epidemic. What is needed is the decriminalization of drugs. Narcotics are powerful mind altering agents and should not be freely available to the general public.

The best the US can do is offer heavily subsidized (or free) medical and social services to break the growth of the opioid epidemic which is now one of the largest cause of death.

This is a big deal because most of these addicts are white nation-wide. No one who looked like you cared very much about the crack epidemic in the 80s because it mostly involved urban blacks.

Alcohol abuse actually kills more people than drug abuse but it's legal. The period where alcohol was officially prohibited likely helped launched the huge wave of organized crime we still have but with different players. My grandfather made suits for such people in the1920s. He made a LOT of money, in cash of course, which interestingly enough, helped him weather the Great Depression and able to afford sending his oldest child(my father) to college in 1934.

Anyhow whether we move to decriminalization or legalization, leaving things the way they is national disaster.