Oh hey, another round of arrests for drugs and other minor violations downtown. I’m sure unlike a few years ago, this time, this time, this time, we’ve solved it.
And to be clear, that part of Pike-Pine can be really sketchy, and of course they are going to arrest people in that area for selling crack, meth, and other drugs. I’m not sure what the solution is here, but it can’t just be lock them up and throw away the key. I praised the police for the Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion program a few weeks ago. If the people they arrested here can get some help of that kind, it might be a net positive for them. That’s a big if, and one I’m not at all confident about given the coverage I’ve seen so far.
Still, even then, I’m not sure how it solves the underlying problem for the neighborhood. A war-on-drugs, lock-’em-up approach isn’t going to get addicts and small time street dealers the help they need. And in the long term, it’ll either go back to the way it was or move the dealing to somewhere else.
” … or move the dealing to somewhere else”
It already has.
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/mi.....ossession/
Meth is for poor white trash.
As Pogo says we have met the enemy. The enemy is us.
having doubts about this — it’s drug war lite.
1. if you are on drugs, you are putting yourself in hell anyway, why do we have criminal laws to you know, put you in hell for using drugs?
2. they don’t work, cost money and cause great harm.
3. still the drug dealers are obnoxious and disreputable, well this is because it’s all illegal.
4. the new program is working but costs a huge amount of $100K a year cop time.
5. if we want to offer treatment, um, why prioritize it for the sellers or users who happen to get caught up in the sweep?
shouldn’t a user who’s actually motivated on his own, or her own, have priority?
6. better solution: legalize all drugs. then, drug dealers wouldn’t need guns to do business and enforce contracts, they could have stores or deliver without “taking over” a few blocks and making them full of criminals and violence and whatnot.
7. would drug rates rise? well. look. I don’t think people who are rational, normal, doing okay, that our society lets do okay, do drugs. drugs can destroy you if used too much. most people try them don’t use them too much. we dont criminalize playing football, that’s harmful, we don’t criminalize anorexia, we don’t criminalize depression, many things require treatment, are harmful and are their own punishment. it’s just not worth it. this here is a show effort that will drive it elsewhere and why on earth are we training cops to now be social workers anyway, don’t they have more violent crimes to deal with? the violence in the drug market is because WE MADE IT ILLEGAL, want to end the violence and disorder, make it legal.
would prohibition have made sense if we told the cops to ask the capone gang of rum rummers to seek treatment, bust them tell them to seek treatment? this does not take the vast black market profits out, you want the profits out, the violence out, make it legal.
Bear in mind that nearly all of these assholes were also career thieves. Many, many musicians including dozens of my close friends have lost valuable instruments while playing clubs downtown. These guys are professionals. They break into trailers, walk out of clubs with guitars and other instruments like $15000 saxophones and such, and they get away with it because there isn’t a hock shop anywhere in the State that’ll question why some greasy bum with no teeth is pawning a Selmer Sax for $50.
This has been a long time coming.
@5 If they are professional thieves the goods won’t be pawned at some local pawn shop. It will be sold to the buyer the instrument was stolen for. If it’s a really unique instrument it won’t see the light of day for a very long time. Stuff pawned at a pawn shop is usually by thieves who are opportunists.
Economists make the argument drugs should be legalized and doing so will reduce this type of crime. For those willing to pay for a hot Selmer Sax not so much.
@ 6
You misunderstood the word “professional” here. A professional is an individual who supports themselves by doing what they do. The guys who walk into the clubs and grab instrument cases are supporting themselves by doing so. They’re supporting their food consumption and their drug habits by stealing other people’s shit.
The saxophone in question was recovered by the Seattle Police, in a hock shop less than three blocks from the club in which it was stolen about six months after the theft. The shop owners knew it was stolen, and instead of putting it on their shelf, they tried to put it on EBay for auction.
Many of those arrested and charged in the Belltown sweep will be offered drug court in lieu of punishment. It’s heavy duty monitoring with free treatment. It’s not the solution but it’s not the war on drugs.