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The drug trade is violent because there are no courts of law, and no judge and jury for customer and dealer relations. The trade also attracts those that live outside the law, and don't care to understand the implications the trade has with violence. That is as simple as it gets.
You need an accepted form of conflict resolution, if not people take matters into their own hands and mindset. Some people do not study history nor care.
Me and my mother had an interesting discussion a few hours ago, and I thought it would be cool to bring it here...
I think there are several "simple explanations", but I want people to think outside the box. There are plenty of illegal lifestyles--identity theft, counterfeit money, etc--but no other illegal industry is rife with killing like drugs are. It's not like illegal narcotics are in short stock or even terribly hard to get; there's enough money to be had than for constant killings or attempted killings, right?
As a former drug dealer, I'll reserve my comments for later. Appreciate all opinions!
Cuz if you acquire money illictly, it's not really yours. So other illicit characters will come along and try to take it. So you haftoo fight to defend it with no legal recourse.
If you steal $1000 out of my wallet, I can get you put in jail for years. If I steal $1M of drug money from you, you can't call the cops.
Drugs themselves can get you killed - crazed junkie murders you for a rock. But mainly it's fighting about the illicit money.
Because of the persecution of people who sell pills or plants by the government a lot of shady characters get involved. Firstly a lot of the drugs are supplied from non white latinos in central and South America and these people are naturally more violent. They don't care about good business and providing a good service but power, greed and they use violence to accomplish these things unlike legitimate businesses that use competition and better products and prices to draw customers.
Because of the extremely high cost of drugs a lot of money is at stake and theft is always a big concern so that's why there is a lot of violence on the dealer level.
Decriminalizing all drugs and letting people be free and do what they want to their own bodies would automatically make things many times safer. Drugs could then be bought at drug stores. There would be high quality control and exact dosing. Most of the overdoses are because it's all just a guess and no one knows how much of what they are taking and the purity. So we wouldn't have nearly as much od's. Because of the openness and open competition, prices would drop.
It becomes a situation of would you rather buy Advil from a pharmacy or Walmart or from a guy on the street. Dealers would be out of business for the most part. Decriminalizing drugs would have the effect of decreasing usage. Drano is deadly but very few people drink it. It's completely avaliable in drug stores. Decriminalizing drugs takes away the exotic nature of taking them. No longer is it an underground thing. I'm sure during prohibition people drank just because they weren't allowed by the government to buy alcohol. It was a way to say fu to the government. Decriminalizing causes drugs to lose that effect. It gets rid of the violence and a lot of OD's. Criminalizing of drugs has not stopped their use and anyone who wants to do drugs will. They will always be supplied so it is better that high quality and open businesses with standard do it as opposed to violent underground characters.
Raising better kids is how you stop drugs (focus on health, morality and purity as opposed to placing emphasis on perfect test scores and grades and extracurriculars so that kids don't resort to drugs, drinking and sexual immorality to get a release from the pressure of pre k all the way to college and then work).
I agree w everything you say here except what is highlighted in red. "Nonwhite" people in South and Central America are absolutely not more violent than white people. They are typical sweet, genteel, modest. Quite the opposite of whites who who historically include vikings, vandals, nazis, fascists, troubadours, conquistadors, crusaders, inquisitioners, indian killers, mafiosos, the klan, the cia, the defense industry, not to mention the economic gangs of Washington and Wall St.
The violent "nonwhites" you are thinking of are the true crazies - the absolute minority and exception - amongst the hundreds of millions of lovely people living south of the border. Most countries in South America have not sent expeditionary forces across the globe to destabilize or colonize. The same cannot be said of the civilized society of Europe or the United States.
Whites have murdered hundreds of millions and enslaved or oppressed hundreds of millions more. We are historically the most barbaric race on the planet. Left brain geniuses right brain morons.
Last edited by Oldhag1; 04-02-2015 at 07:44 AM..
Reason: Removed colored font
The dealers can't rely on law enforcement to protect them
It all depends on who you know and where you are in the hierarchy.
Don't let the occasional big bust with pictures of neatly stacked bricks fool you. There are players inside and outside of the "system." Organized crime didn't go extinct.
Moderator cut: against Great Debates guidelines It's because of the tax free money, amounts of it and the caliber of people involved. That is why and only why they do it, if they just wanted to be a productive member of society and feel good about it, they'd get a job.
There are areas where the drug trade is actually not very violent at all. For example, Japan and South Korea both have surprisingly large illicit drug markets, but the distribution is very well organized between various criminal factions, and violence is minimal. The entire nation of Japan (which has about 40% of the population of the US) had a grand total of four fatal shootings in 2006, and generally has fewer than a dozen in any given year.
Criminal groups in the US are not as organized, and frankly not as intelligent as those operating in a country like Japan. They make dumb bets on short-term gains, and end up losing, while Yakuza groups generally try to plan their activities in terms of what will happen several years out. Much more like a professional corporation.
Drugs make people do things they wouldn't normally do
It's illegal. So they can't just call the cops when something goes wrong.
To the bolded, you beat me to the punch. Seriously, person A is seeking out person B to obtain a large amount of marijuana. When they meet, person A proceeds to pull out a gun, and steals the weed! What is person B going to do, call a cop? No, because of the fact that Person B can get in some serious trouble for having a large amount of it, with an intent to distribute is going to get in trouble as well!
Also, when you prohibit something via government legislation, it does nothing but create a black market around it! You only need to look at the history of prohibition of alcohol to see this!
This is an interesting question. Half the responses are making the obvious point that illegal businesses have natural side effects, the real question is why drugs are worse than other illegal businesses. I'll throw out three potential reasons.
. It's a commonplace crime, so that you hear more about it. Art thieves, counterfeiters, etc. are quite a bit more rare, and strong-arm robbery is violent by definition, so you have to leave that out.
. The criminals are younger and younger = more violent.
. (My favorite) The end users are sketchy individuals. One implication is that the retail sellers have to be sketchy in order to have business dealings with their customers. This works it's way up the line. It's unlikely that the guy buying a piece of stolen art is a member of the riff raff class.
I sell drugs to 100 people
You sell drugs to 100 people
I kill you
I now sell drugs to 200 people
Pretty simple.
Now I am that dead persons brother, and I slaughter you along with anyone with you because I am angry. And it goes on and on and on and on.................
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