Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!hoptoad!ptsfa!ihnp4!inuxc!iuvax!rutgers!husc6!bu-cs!acm From: acm@bu-cs.UUCP Newsgroups: alt.flame Subject: Re: Crime notes (was: Nothing to do with Gun Nuts) Message-ID: <14836@bu-cs.BU.EDU> Date: Sun, 25-Oct-87 16:45:25 EST Article-I.D.: bu-cs.14836 Posted: Sun Oct 25 16:45:25 1987 Date-Received: Tue, 27-Oct-87 06:22:00 EST References: <21300@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> <3144@bellcore.bellcore.com> <21354@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> Reply-To: madd@bucsb.bu.edu Followup-To: madd@bucsb.bu.edu Distribution: na Organization: Boston University ACM Lines: 78 In article <21354@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> jwl@ernie.Berkeley.EDU.UUCP (James Wilbur Lewis) writes: >In article <3144@bellcore.bellcore.com> tr@wind.UUCP (tom reingold) writes: >More importantly, the people who are victimized by drug addicts could >be considered to be victims of DRUG LAWS, not drugs! Tobacco is more >addictive than heroin, yet no one is forced to steal to support a nicotine >habit; cigarettes are legal, and cheap. Heroin and cocaine would be cheap >if they were legal, and addicts wouldn't need to steal to support their >habits. Woah! Hold it. Cigarettes kill people, true. Generally it only kills THEM. It almost never affects their decisions except that instead of buying a turkey for dinner they may get a TV dinner and a carton of cigarettes. Cocaine? Heroin? Imagine if they were cheap. Just imagine it for a minute. For my example, I'm going to use cocaine because I happen to know a lot more about that than I do about heroin. Now my little brother walks down to the local drugstore and buys himself a hit instead of a candy bar, goes home, and is blissfully happy for awhile. Next week he does the same. Next week the same. As with cigarettes, he craves a little more, then a little more, etc. With cigarettes he can really only smoke one at a time, limiting him to about a carton a day (maybe two). This will build over a long period of use. With cocaine, however, his tolerance will skyrocket after only a "relatively few" uses -- certainly within a year he could be a heavy user. Ok, now my brother is spending a pretty sizeable chunk on cocaine but not everything he earns. What's happening to him? According to the documentation I've read on cocaine (I can't give you the exact title of the documentation but it's whatever you get when you call 800-cocaine), after awhile the chemical that your body generates as a result of cocaine use (dopamine? something like that) will not be generated. Whatever the body uses to make it just stops working. Now, my brother is taking a pretty heavy dose of cocaine but he's terribly depressed because the cocaine isn't giving him the high anymore. Taking more cocaine isn't solving things because it isn't doing anything anymore. What do you think the results of this depression are? If you can't imagine it, I'll tell you because I've seen it. It ranges from degredation in quantity and quality of work to insanity and suicide. Often the person tries other drugs in order to get the high that s/he used to get from cocaine, which can lead to even more problems depending on the drug. Compare this to cigarettes. What are the effects of prolonged and heavy smoking? Usually death (after a good many years) by cancer. No depression. Little if any degredation in work. Very, very seldom insanity or suicide. Cigarette smokers don't generally seem to switch to other drugs because there isn't really a high, just a dependency, so there is no need. Can you really believe that cheap, legal cocaine would sove problems? I can't. The effects of cocaine usage are considerably different from the affects of cigarette usage. Ok, so the person who is getting the cocaine no longer has to mug people to get the money -- you've cut down on that. Depression often causes violence though, so the extra people that are now using the drug are more likely to be violent. Your new law (or lack thereof) will probably result in higher crime rates than before. In this case, the law is correct as is. --- Someone earlier stated that the way to deter crime is not to have stiffer penalties but instead to capture a higher percentage of the criminals. Does it matter to me that I'm going to go to jail for 5 or 10 years if I get caught? Not really. What matters to me is whether 50% of the people comitting "my" crime are getting caught or 2%. 98% odds is pretty good (as the condom manufacturers are betting on, but I digress). The point here is that the laws as they are now are pretty good but the enforcement of those laws is terrible. jim madd@bucsb.bu.edu