Atlanta’s highways and the drug trade (violent crime, houses)

[atltechdude]

Originally Posted by ATLTJL

Jamaica is one of the most dangerous places on earth. It has an extremely high murder rate. Besides, marijuana is illegal there, so how is the comparison even valid?

Well, you were looking for evidence of what widespread use of Marijuana does sociologically. That's why I offered that example. That is probably the country with the widest use.

As far as the murder rate, in 2010 Jamaica had a murder rate of 52 people per 100,000, which is roughly the same as New Orleans for that year (at 49). Do you also feel that New Orleans is one of the most dangerous places on earth?

United States cities by crime rate - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Not saying it's paradise, I'm just saying their society has not fallen apart which seemed to be the boogeyman you were worried about with widespread use.

Originally Posted by ATLTJL

I always find it humorous to see the crazy arguments and statistics that the marijuana legalization crowd comes up with. I actually had a guy tell me one time that marijuana smokers are as persecuted as Jews during the Holocaust.

I believe I've offered factual statistics in this thread, and I don't believe I've made any arguments as absurd as that one.

Originally Posted by ATLTJL

Here's a newsflash: already nobody cares if you smoke weed.

Except the police. What does it say about the intelligence of the current policy when no one cares that our current president smoked weed in the past (nor should they) but that he would likely have been disqualified from that office totally if he had ever been caught with it?

Originally Posted by ATLTJL

Just be smart. If you don't know where to get it, you aren't looking very hard. If you get caught with it, you are a fool. Even though marijuana is illegal, its use is already widespread and commonly accepted.

Of course, which is why it should not be illegal any longer, especially when the science has been done and we've found that it is less dangerous than either alcohol or tobacco.

Originally Posted by ATLTJL

I can see how legalization might make sense as just a principle, but I don't get why some people are so vocal about it. Do you really think your life is going to change drastically if it becomes legal? Is it that hard to get now? Too expensive?

My life, no. But then again I'm white and fairly affluent. The place it hits people is poor minorities, and it makes their chances for productive lives and gainful employment very hard. I don't see how that is fair in anyway for simply smoking a mostly harmless substance.

Originally Posted by ATLTJL

Aside from the moral high ground, what's the actual advantage to legalization? And I mean for you personally, not the idea that it can be taxed because I know you don't actually care about that, it's just an excuse. For you personally, how would your life change if it was all of a sudden legal? Let's assume it is legal the same way in places like the Netherlands where you still can't just smoke in the street or buy it at 7-11.

The advantage in my view is that it proves we as a society can recognize that there might be better ways of doing things than what we've done before, as a result of new information. We learned that with Prohibition, and I'm convinced we can learn it again with this. I'm a very logical person and so it kind of irks me when people oppose fact based positions with emotion and hypotheticals. Another advantage is that we would be sending less money to Mexican drug cartels and spending more in the US economy (that is another economic benefit aside from the tax issue).

[ATLTJL]

Do you also feel that New Orleans is one of the most dangerous places on earth?

Yes, I do feel that is true.

[atltechdude]

Originally Posted by ATLTJL

Yes, I do feel that is true.

Ok, well at least you are consistent.

That said, I don't see why greater marijuana use would lead to more murders. Seems to me the greatest factor in that is an inadequate police force. Most murders in Jamaica go unsolved for example, so the murderers are never caught.

[tonygeorgia]

- First off this article is BS because most of the drugs are in Dekalb and Gwinnett County

- Second I'm sick of Atlanta being considered dangerous because our city limits having a smaller population making it seem like Atlanta is dangerous when it really isn't. Hopefully the CITY OF ATLANTA population will continue to increase so that we will not be lumped in with smaller cities making our city seem dangerous when it really isnt generally

- Third there have only been a few homicides in METRO ATLANTA on record with the "transportation hub" drug trade because the Mexicans know that committing homicides is bad for business. Those crimes happened I think in Gwinnett that I remember

- Atlanta Only had 87 murders in 2011 and 93 in 2010

[nature's message]

Originally Posted by ATLTJL

I don't see the logic in this train of thought.

Atlanta has long been the heroin capital of the southeast. It may not be grown, processed, or even come into the country here, but like legitimate products, it comes here to get distributed. I was always told that Vine City/Bluffs is the epicenter of this activity.

Crystal meth is also widely trafficked through Atlanta.

I don't know that much about cocaine or marijuana.

The reason drugs and even marijuana are not legalized is because it is a bit of a Pandora's box issue. People can make all kinds of arguments, but the bottom line is nobody really knows what would happen if drugs were legalized. One thing that is known is that when something is legalized, use goes up. Aside from that, the sociological effects are impossible to know. The problem is, if it turns out that the effects are very harmful, it is very difficult to close Pandora's box and make the drugs illegal again. We learned that with Prohibition.

So the biggest argument not to legalize drugs is not to say that it would definitely be horrible. It's more to say that nobody really knows what would happen and if it turned out to be horrible, we'd be stuck with it.

Many jobs are dependent on drugs operations. Legalizing drugs will lay off a considerable amount of government jobs. On the bright side, it also opens up opportunities for private investments.

[oldschoolChevy]

Originally Posted by FlyiMetro

When a drug bust happens in Atlanta do they mostly get weed or coccaine? I don't think crack is doing as well as it did between 87-94...curious if users still even buy crack or if they moved over the meth.

Crack is still very much the drug of choice in the inner city of Atlanta. Meth isn't really a factor in the inner city, you find Meth mostly in suburban and rural areas. Crack will never go all the way away. A crackhead who has been hitting a straight shooter for the past 20 years isn't going to just switch to a different drug like that.

[MattCW]

Originally Posted by atltechdude

Cocaine, and Heroin use would drop if Marijuana was legalized.

Makes absolutely no sense that it should be illegal if tobacco remains legal. And what's wrong with getting spaced out and high? Some people like that. Who are you to make that moral judgement for someone else?

What's wrong is when someone spaced out and high, takes a shower and goes for a drive. Unlike Alcohol where impairment systems are relatively pronounced, and there's an easy, reliable field-test in the brethalyzer, there's nothing for marijuana. I mentioned the shower specifically because simply being red-eyed, and slightly slow isn't (shouldn't be) enough probable cause for an arrest and blood test and the usual "officer detected scent of marijuana" wouldn't exist.

Originally Posted by atltechdude

*SNIP*

What we learned from Prohibition is that banning something does not erase the demand for it, nor curtail it's availability if people want it. That's why it failed, and that's the same reason the "War on Drugs" is failing today.

The difference between alcohol prohibition and the current drug prohibition is that alcohol was an otherwise legal substance with widespread use dating to prehistory, that was banned during a time when it was affordable to get alcohol. The drug prohibitions aren't like that. Drugs generally weren't in widespread general use, and have rarely been readily accessible to the general population prior to their criminalization.

Marijuana will be legal within the next 20 years. It's likely that at least one or two states will legalize it on Nov 6th (3 states are holding referendums on statewide legalization). Younger people overwhelmingly support it being legal. Among everyone, it has reached a majority opinion. Record-High 50% of Americans Favor Legalizing Marijuana Use

Let's hope not. Many of the previous marijuana referendums occurred during mid-year election days. Those days typically have lower turnouts primarily drawing voters passionate about one issue or another (see our own T-SPLOST). Looking at the history of state subversion of Federal cannabis law referendums, most of the measures that successfully subverted Federal law were during these mid-year elections, while most of the measures on standard November general-election ballots, were defeated.

[nature's message]

Originally Posted by MattCW

My dad is on the night shift, and going in, he'll see a lot of cars pulled over in the emergency lane, sometimes two together. Our guess is that there is a drug deal going down. On my morning commutes, I never see that many vehicles stalled or in a wreck so what is it that causes far more vehicles, out of a far smaller population of vehicles to "stall" or have wrecks??? It's hard to enforce though as most patrol officers are patrolling solo and I doubt anyone would want to approach a suspected, and possibly armed, drug deal alone.
Legalization isn't the answer. If marijuana suddenly becomes legal, then what about cocaine? Maybe legalize heroine next? Oh, and we can legalize opium after that! Drugs serve no purpose in society; neither does tobacco, but at least its damaging effects are long-term, you don't get spaced out and high off tobacco. Alcohol gets you drunk, but at least drunkenness is fairly obvious, and field-testable. Other than laziness, there's no reason to allow drugs like these in our society.

We've already wasted billions of dollars into this useless "War on Drugs" campaign. That's billions of dollars going into the same drug cartels that law enforcement are trying to stop. This is exactly the same scenario as the alcohol prohibition in the 1930s.

[brownhornet]

Countries where there is prohibition on drugs have higher crime. There's really no disputing that. When Colorado made dispensaries legal the black market drugs there all but disappeared. How about the irony of cigarettes and alcohol being legal, both 10 times more harmful than marijuana and both cause cancer.

[oldschoolChevy]

Originally Posted by tonygeorgia

- First off this article is BS because most of the drugs are in Dekalb and Gwinnett County

Very true, most of the drugs are in stash houses in quiet subdivisions in the suburbs. Little do OTP'ers know, as much as they complain about the BS in the city, all the while they could be living next door to 10 million worth of dope with a small arsenal of weapons to match. I know people who are involved in that life and when it is re-up time they go to places like Dunwoody, Norcross and Lawrenceville, not to the locales in the city which you see on the news all the time. Lots of transactions in Hospital and Hotel parking garages in suburban areas, not on ghetto street corners in the inner city. If OTP'ers only knew the real truth.

Originally Posted by nature's message

Many jobs are dependent on drugs operations. Legalizing drugs will lay off a considerable amount of government jobs. On the bright side, it also opens up opportunities for private investments.

Legalizing drugs also means no one to work in the chain gangs which means no more free (slave) labor.
Legalizing drugs means the private prison industry will most likely go under over night.
Legalizing drugs means police will not have anything to do
Legalizing drugs means the govt. will actually have to help people who really have addiction problems instead of just throwing them away to be forgotten in a hole somewhere.
Legalizing drugs means that the govt. will actually have to eat crow and admit not just defeat but the fact that it was wrong about something in the first place.
Legalizing drugs also will mean a lot more Black and Latino males on the streets, a lot more.


With that said the people who pull the strings want none of the above to go down, so it wont happen. Not in my lifetime anyway