Jock's Place - gun crime - Comments

I really couldn't agree

James Schneider — Sat, 03 May 2008 17:29:07 +0100

I really couldn't agree more. People often want to tar us "legalize, tax, and regulate" types as being unpragmatic ideological libertarian drug pushers. In fact, the legalize, tax, and regulate position is inherently pragmatic and non-threatening. The status quo, which keeps thousands of people living outside the law, at risk from abuse and sex slavery, is threatening. The status quo gives us a position where the IMF estimates that 15-20% of global GDP is orginised crime. A phenomenal level. If drugs were brought above board it would be taken out of the hands of the gangsters and out into the open. This is the pragmatic position.

Howard didn't keep quiet over Bulger

Mountjoy — Sat, 01 Sep 2007 14:56:18 +0100

The Rhys Jones murder has been compared by some in the press, media and blogosphere to the murder of James Bulger. I recall at the time that both Howard and Bliar were very vocal. But this time Brown and Jacqui Smith have both kept very quiet, while Cameron and Davis, for example, have made major statements. Today's Ipsos MORI opinion poll in the Sun shows that fear of crime has increased by 18 percentage points since last month. The Government needs to speak up and come up with some deliverable policy on this issue, rather than just keeping quiet.

I hadn't noticed, probably

Jock — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 18:02:09 +0100

I hadn't noticed, probably because I haven't noticed any politician saying anything terribly revelatory about all this. But now you mention it, it has been quiet from that quarter. Straw has popped his head up though I think hasn't he?

Personally though, I just have this horrible feeling that most if not all the main political parties are currently in a rut where policy making is centred on "managing decline" with no great visions, paticularly liberal visions, of how things could be different. So why say anything if all you're going to do is join he knee-jerking jig...:)

Why has Jacqui Smith been so

Mountjoy (The Wilted Rose) — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 16:55:28 +0100

Why has Jacqui Smith been so quiet about the issue of gun crime etc? Is it shame?

You read my mind

Paulus — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 09:38:35 +0100

It is not only failed drugs policy but youth unemployment that has brought us to this shocking place. The unemployment rate among 16-17 year old boys is 31% and among 18 to 24 year old men it is 15% (compared with the agerage of 5.7%). Fertile ground for gang recruitment. I have analysed these and other telling figues at: http://www.thinkhard.org/2007/08/gunned-down.html

Of course those are valid

Jock — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 18:32:10 +0100

Of course those are valid issues Laura. But I do happen to believe that the chaotic living currently a mark of heavy drug/alcohol use is partly down to the criminal supply mechanisms as well. If you can buy your hits in, for example, packets of twenty down the off-license, you are much less likely to spend your days chaotically searching for the next hit. Poly-drug users even call it "doing the business" - and all their days can be filled with worrying about where their next hit is going to come from and how to pay the inflated prices the black market is able to charge for it.

As to how various substances should be supplied in a legalized market I'm not sure that the NHS is the best way to dispense recreational substances. Except perhaps when it is in the process of treatment to get people off. As to dosoages and so on, a lot of mostly informal work is done at the moment about dosages often by drug users for other drug users. But any harm minimization possible by such information is then destroyed by not knowing strengths and so on of what one is sold in the black market. One of the marks of legalization must be some kind of regulation in the form of quality control.

You're not likely to be able to sue the pusher on the street corner, but companies manufacturing such substances for a mass market will themselves want to be wary that they're not peddling stuff that is knowingly unsafe.

I would be interested to see any research along the lines of the Nutt scale of relative harms (the one that says alcohol and tobacco are the fifth and seventh most harmful drugs IIRC) based on a legalized and quality controlled market. Clearly people have previously lived pretty functional lives with opium addictions for example, so whether people would gravitate back to those sort of drugs rather than heroin injections or whether completely new products would appear that provided safer delivery and dosage mechanisms would also be interesting.

When are drug users going to take any responsibility?

The Poet Laura-eate — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 17:40:17 +0100

I think that whatever the solution is to the problem of drug-related crime and sociopathy, it would be ideal if we could make it THEIR problem rather than ours. I was unfortunate enough to experience two nightmare drug/alco housemates in a row and I *so* resented clearing up after their messes even in a domestic situation and hated them for their unasked for-impact on my whole life and mental health while circumstances obliged us to share a roof. Let's not forget these people by and large CHOOSE to take drugs of their own volition. Why should we keep pandering to people who have chosen to make their own lives hell and then moved on to those of everyone around them/rest of society? It's not like they can claim they didn't know the risks. When are they going to take any kind of responsibility for their own lives and choices/consequences of? And to say that they can't is surely to deny them their humanity (if they didn't do such a good job of that all by themselves). Sorry, I get a bit emotional about this issue! Anyway, if street drugs *were* legalised, presumably you are not suggesting drug users should be able to obtain them on the NHS Jock? And who would decide doseages? And wouldn't doctors compromise the hippocratic oath by prescribing if it's not in the name of healing, but rather indulgence? I'm afraid I'm only a fair weather liberal myself (ie everything's only cool as long as it doesn't hurt or impact unduly on anyone else)

For what its worth, I agree

Tristan Mills — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 12:54:58 +0100

For what its worth, I agree entirely.

I don't want to take drugs myself (if I did, I would anyway), but from both a philosophical point of view (who am I to say what you put in your body?) and a practical point of view (as you have highlighted here) I am utterly opposed to the War on Drugs.

Thanks to Cameleon who

Jock — Mon, 27 Aug 2007 14:08:05 +0100

Thanks to Cameleon who highlighted this, whether with approbation or not I can't work out, in this week's Brit Blog round-up . My first mention I think in such a list!

Excellent article

Mountjoy — Sun, 26 Aug 2007 21:23:27 +0100

This is an excellent article, Jock, and I have already blogged today how the Government has failed to get a grip on teenage crime. Camila Batmanghelidjh provides some good insights and I agree with you that Government policy is responsible -- and they need to act now. I've put a link to your article as it is well worth reading.

More interference then?

Jock — Sun, 26 Aug 2007 14:32:51 +0100

More interference then? Like that's helped in the past. It's not so much about drugs per se as about the ease with which people can be dragged into organized crime. And the core of organized crime is drugs.

It is true that taking the criminality out of that market would probably push those sociopaths who do not want to operate in the legal economy into something else - protection rackets, gambling rackets, prostitution (though not so much as a great deal of prostitution is down to the drugs issue) - but these are less easy to recruit children to I'd suggest. Certainly not as easy as giving kids a handful of wraps or pills to sell to known customers. Yes, if you remove the core malaise that supports all this gang culture, one risks creating a vacuum in the absence of other things for those kids to do, but with a £18bn estimated annual "peace dividend" from ending the "war on drugs" that's a fair amount of support that can be paid for to help prevent something just as pernicious taking over.

I disagree

Gavin Whenman — Sun, 26 Aug 2007 13:32:13 +0100

I just disagree - I can't see how the legalisation of drugs will lead to a wonderful Utopia free of violence and gangs. I'm increasingly coming to the conclusion that we, as a society, should accept that we can only ever contain to an acceptably low level gangs and their violent behaviour - that there is no panacea that will truly eradicate this problem once and for all. There should be a mature consensus between political parties that this is the case - and then we can move on to how to contain and control, rather than headline grabbing initiatives which are proposed as the final solution.

Thanks - I wish I could get

Jock — Sat, 25 Aug 2007 16:50:11 +0100

Thanks - I wish I could get "trackbacks" working on my site, and comments not filtered for spam! I just had to update the title and so on of my post after listening with growing anger to the panel on Any Questions trying to think of "decisive things to do" about this.