Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!cca!ima!inmet!nrh From: nrh@inmet.UUCP Newsgroups: net.flame Subject: Re: Re: Re: drugs and criminals (unc.588 - (nf) Message-ID: <339@inmet.UUCP> Date: Thu, 22-Sep-83 05:39:59 EDT Article-I.D.: inmet.339 Posted: Thu Sep 22 05:39:59 1983 Date-Received: Sun, 25-Sep-83 12:10:21 EDT Lines: 111 #R:unc:-588500:inmet:3900057:000:5543 inmet!nrh Sep 21 21:24:00 1983 ***** inmet:net.flame / unc!bts / 8:44 am Sep 19, 1983 Tim, you're offending a lot of people on the net when you refer to drug dealers as "criminals"! I'm not a libertarian myself, but according to the principles those members of our community believe-- and love to preach to the rest of us-- drug dealers are just honest businessmen, unfairly res- trained by government from making a profit. If elementary school children have money, why shouldn't drug dealers be able to make a living selling them heroin? I can't do justice to the arguments, I'm afraid. Will one of our libertarians speak up and set unc!tim straight? ---------- Glad to set the record straight. I just attended the Libertarian Party presidential nominating convention. Among the many speakers was a doctor who specializes in heroin addiction, who claims to have interviewed over 3000 addicts, and who gave a talk titled "The Health Hazards of Heroin Laws". A statistic which surprised me was that there are 1500 known heroin addicts in ALL OF ENGLAND, where heroin is supplied by the government, and there is no particular reason for an addict to hide his addiction from government statisticians. (And a powerful incentive to "own up", because only then can he get the very cheap heroin). By contrast there were probably (said the doctor) more than 1500 addicts within a few blocks of the Manhattan hotel that hosted the convention. His explanation for this peculiar fact was that herion addicts in England HAVE NO FINANCIAL REASON TO TRY TO ADDICT ANYBODY ELSE. In an area where heroin sale is illegal, the price of heroin is VERY high: If heroin were legalized, an addict could obtain his daily need for about the cost of a loaf of bread, according to best estimates. ... Under prohibition, heroin addiction may cost as much as $100 per day for a mature habit. Depending upon market information and alternative sources of supply, the addict spends about $35,000 per year to support his habit ... To have the annual amount of $35,000 necessary to buy drugs, the addict must steal roughly FIVE TIMES that amount (almost $200,000 per year), since the buyers of stolen merchandise (fences), usually pay only 20% or less of the retail value of what they buy.... [From "Defending the Undefendable: The Pimp, Prostitute, Scab, Slumlord, Libeler, Moneylender and Other Scapegoats in the Rogue's Gallery of American Society", by Walter Block, Fleet Press, NY, 1976, Pp 40-41.] Given the poor return on fenced goods, it is not surprising that the addict should seek other revenues. Quite often, (and obviously enough in retrospect), the addict will turn pusher himself, deliberately addicting others to the drug to ensure himself a market, and charging his addicts enough to support his own habit as well as theirs. But if heroin is CHEAP, there's little point in addicting children (or anyone else) to heroin, and if heroin is LEGAL, there's real danger in addicting others. Who will risk having an angry father knocking at the door in exchange for (possibly) the price of a loaf of bread or two? No, I don't know any pushers. I rather doubt that they are "honest businessmen" -- because the illegality of their actions DEMANDS that they lie constantly to protect themselves. Further, the fact that they can hardly advertise leaves the field wide-open for sleazy dealing. The doctor mentioned that studies of the wares of one pusher meant to be sold as "heroin" contained, in fact, between 0 and about 30% heroin, cut with various substances. On the other hand, were the profession legal, I imagine one could avoid such poor quality control in one's pusher simply by paying more for the brand ok'd by some such organization as Consumer Reports. Block makes a further point, though. The more pushers there are, the lower the price of heroin (the greater the competition between pushers). I think he's reaching there, but consider what would happen if there was really, truly, only one criminal source for heroin rather than many. Now consider if there were many LEGAL sources, and no markup for graft, shakedown, corruption of politicians, "insurance", and other extra-legal expenses. So, unc!bts, there you have it. It is the enormous profitability of heroin due to its artificially scarce and unreliable supply that makes it profitable for one person to turn another on to heroin. This scarcity is brought about by those who make it illegal. It is the enourmous expense to the addict that brings about almost all of the socially expensive aspects of his habit. The drug trade is also thought to be the biggest source of money for organized crime. That organized crime is in the drug trade should surprise nobody -- it's illegal, right? You've got to bribe people, break legs, smuggle, repulse the angry fathers, obtain other illegal goods (syringes, for example). and sell all those fenced goods. Works better when you've got precious few scruples. Further, nobody can complain about fraudulently-diluted heroin (who would they complain to?) so the unsavory will make more money diluting it, and because the users are CRIMINALS, they must accept expensive, low-grade stuff. To turn your own device of the last-paragraph zinger back on you, could some of you kind prohibitionists, who are so quick to keep us from what you regard as less-than-nice forms of behavior, kindly explain to me how the situation you've set up didn't result in pushers selling smack to schoolchildren? Nat Howard