02-03-2016, 12:48 AM
(02-03-2016, 12:29 AM)Nebuchadnezzar Wrote: I'm all for legalizing certain drugs, like marijuana, but how would legalizing these certain drugs bring down the violent crime rate among inner city youths?
By completely eliminating the economic incentive to engage in such crime. Most gang crime is the result of attempts at controlling areas to distribute illegal drugs. Without illegal drugs to sell the economic incentive disappears.
Quote:I would think that the crime rate would rise and more innocent people would die if you take a poor kids money away from them. They would then turn their attention towards the neighborhood rather than each other and their "Clients".
Utter drek. You can only get people to risk their lives if they have something to gain by doing so. Eliminate the monetary incentive and that no longer exists. Your argument presupposes a need to engage in criminal activity among the poor that does not exist. Put simply, most poor people who engage in crime do so because they make money doing so. Eliminate that money and you eliminate the crime.
Quote:It's not like these poor kids are going to go out and find a job if their means of income is taken away especially when there are many good paying jobs out there to get.
Quite the opposite, that's exactly what they'll do. Hard to understand, but in a capitalist society accumulating wealth becomes the primary goal. For those denied traditional ways, or at least perceiving themselves as such, they will pursue unconventional ways to do so. Eliminate that way and they will be forced to find another path, pure logic dictates this. As it stands engaging in the distribution of illegal drugs is an excellent way to currently achieve this goal, albeit temporarily. No other criminal activity, available to street level criminals, is even remotely as lucrative.
