Mineral Wells-A huge drug town? (middle-class, insurance, crime)

[S727]

I spent 3 months living with a friend in this town. My friends whole family has lived there their whole lives.
When I was there the people across the street had cars coming and going all hours of the night, each staying about 5 minutes, guy would come out of the house, rest his hands on the open car window, go in the house, come back out rest his hand on the open window, then the car would leave. Different car every time.

Then I got a job there, talked to people, met a person who has access to peoples criminal history, this person showed me how the same people get busted for meth, and spend a few days in jail, over and over same people.
Now there are people with no criminal background get caught shop lifting something from walmart and get close to a year in jail.
This person was 65+ years old, involved in the community, and has a suspicion that most of the police in this town are in on a lot of these drug busts, but not working to bring the drug dealers or meth labs down. The police do busts, and a few weeks later the meth labs and dealers are up and running again by the same people in the same locations.
This town needs to wake up.
Opinions?

[tstone]

The justice part of that doesn't sound too far off.

Someone gets busted for a bag with 3 hits and goes to jail for a couple of days and is back out on probation w/rehab. What did harm did he do to others by possessing? Probably nothing, and if he did, he'd have multiple charges and more jailtime. A lot of big cities book & release people for simple possession. A lot of states simply write tickets, equivalent in severity to speeding.

(Dealing is an entirely different ballgame, which we both know.)

On the other hand, getting a year for shoplifting means it must have been a pretty big steal. Shoplifting is a crime that affects everybody. When you steal something from a store, you steal from all the employees, which means the business has to charge more to the community.

Sounds fair to me. The people who are addicted and do nothing else wrong need help, not jail. Contrary to popular belief, the judges realize this. So I'm not really seeing what you're getting at..... I will say that yes, the dealers need to be brought down.

You can also thank prohibition for this, too...

[texdav]

when money can be made and there is a market then greed takes over. Dealers only exist where there is a market.Many that use meth and such are the same ones committing crimes to support their habit.

[S727]

Originally Posted by tstone

The justice part of that doesn't sound too far off.

Someone gets busted for a bag with 3 hits and goes to jail for a couple of days and is back out on probation w/rehab. What did harm did he do to others by possessing? Probably nothing, and if he did, he'd have multiple charges and more jailtime. A lot of big cities book & release people for simple possession. A lot of states simply write tickets, equivalent in severity to speeding.

(Dealing is an entirely different ballgame, which we both know.)

On the other hand, getting a year for shoplifting means it must have been a pretty big steal. Shoplifting is a crime that affects everybody. When you steal something from a store, you steal from all the employees, which means the business has to charge more to the community.

Sounds fair to me. The people who are addicted and do nothing else wrong need help, not jail. Contrary to popular belief, the judges realize this. So I'm not really seeing what you're getting at..... I will say that yes, the dealers need to be brought down.

You can also thank prohibition for this, too...

Heres the problem. You need to take a drug test to get a job most of the time right?
OK where do these poor little drug users get the money? Petty theft? I think so. They can't get jobs. The people I was working with said wait til they pop in with a random drug test, as they do, half the employees disappear.
But petty theft to support a drug habit...what do you think hurts worse a shoplifter at walmart or a drug addict going down your street combing unlocked cars and houses for money and items they can pawn?
You can't possibly believe walmart losing a $200 item is going to effect ANYTHING.

[tstone]

Originally Posted by S727

Heres the problem. You need to take a drug test to get a job most of the time right?
OK where do these poor little drug users get the money? Petty theft? I think so. They can't get jobs. The people I was working with said wait til they pop in with a random drug test, as they do, half the employees disappear.
But petty theft to support a drug habit...what do you think hurts worse a shoplifter at walmart or a drug addict going down your street combing unlocked cars and houses for money and items they can pawn?
You can't possibly believe walmart losing a $200 item is going to effect ANYTHING.

A lot of unskilled, minimum wage type jobs don't require them. Not all decent jobs require them, either. I've worked a professional office job that didn't require one (and one that did). My sister got into big box retail management last year and didn't have to take one. Not all companies are doing this, believe it or not. Whether companies do it or not has mostly to do with insurance reasons, not witch-hunts.

I understand your point completely, don't get me wrong. But in America we are innocent until proven guilty. Right?

[CHRISTIAN_COWBOY24]

About 10 years back some dopers set up a meth shop up here a few miles from our family ranch, then one night right out of the blue it just caught on fire and was all gone..


I just hate it when that happens don't you?

[S727]

Originally Posted by CHRISTIAN_COWBOY24

About 10 years back some dopers set up a meth shop up here a few miles from our family ranch, then one night right out of the blue it just caught on fire and was all gone..


I just hate it when that happens don't you?

hehe, yep

[tstone]

Oh darn. But 1 down, how many more to go? BTW, do you know for sure it was meth or was it someone's moonshine still that blew up?

This garbage chemical is everywhere, even in the upper-middle-class suburbs. Come to the suburbs and see it for yourself. It's not just the junkie people picture. Example:

Between Life and Death: Suburban Mom on Meth

[CHRISTIAN_COWBOY24]

Originally Posted by tstone

Oh darn. But 1 down, how many more to go? BTW, do you know for sure it was meth or was it someone's moonshine still that blew up?

Naw it was for sure a meth lab, everyone around here knew what they was doing over there, for a long time though everone was scared to do anything about it because the people were a bunch of bikers that had lots of guns, but that didn't bother us much, cause we got guns to, and we don't mind using them we we got no other choice.. it didn't blow up neither, it was an "accidental" house fire...... "sort of".. But the point is their gone, and that's all we wanted..

WELCOME TO TEXAS!

[S727]

Originally Posted by tstone

Oh darn. But 1 down, how many more to go?

Who cares, where I'm at now I can't tell you were they are. But it took me a few days to find the guy across the street selling it. Talk to a few people, everyone knows where the labs and dealers are in that town.
I guess I just find it odd that one town has such a high concentration of this problem and their are no talks about doing anything about it. Silly me for caring right.