I would expect Tamine to get a sentence in line with the other two. I don’t really have any sympathy for any of the 3. There are consequences to one’s actions and they now must pay those consequences.
Quebecois cocaine cowgirls
- Thread starter PopeDover
- Start date
I'm amused that people on a forum dedicated to the enjoyment of an activity (paying for sex) that is illegal and considered inherently harmful by many people have no sympathy for the "cocaine cowgirls" and their bosses. 
You guys sound like President Richard Nixon (who launched the "War on Drugs" in 1971) and every president since then (including Trump). We have been fighting this "war" for almost 50 years and we are still losing. Drug use and prostitution are comparable in the sense that both can sometimes cause harm to those involved in those activities. But most of the harm, when it occurs, affects those who voluntarily engage in those activities. Prohibiting activities that many people want to engage in simply does not work.
To condemn those who supply drugs to the many people who obviously want them is like condemning prostitutes for supplying sex to those who are willing to pay for it. You may as well say: Throw those evil hookers in jail and throw away the key. I have no sympathy for them. They get what they ask for! How dare they take money for sex and ruin the lives of their customers!
I feel sorry for the girls and yes for their boss too. The war on dugs is stupid and counter productive just like the war on prostitution that is going on right now. Prohibition does not work, whether it's prohibition of alcohol, prostitution or drugs.
Think about it and read this article by Harvard economist Jeffrey Miron:
Why all drugs should be legal. (Yes, even heroin.)
Jeffrey Miron
theweek.com
7/28/2014
We've come a long way since Reefer Madness. Over the past two decades, 16 states have de-criminalized possession of small amounts of marijuana, and 22 have legalized it for medical purposes. In November 2012, Colorado and Washington went further, legalizing marijuana under state law for recreational purposes. Public attitudes toward marijuana have also changed; in a November 2013 Gallup Poll, 58 percent of Americans supported marijuana legalization.
Yet amidst these cultural and political shifts, American attitudes and U.S. policy toward other drugs have remained static. No state has decriminalized, medicalized, or legalized cocaine, heroin, or methamphetamine. And a recent poll suggests only about 10 percent of Americans favor legalization of cocaine or heroin. Many who advocate marijuana legalization draw a sharp distinction between marijuana and "hard drugs."
That's understandable: Different drugs do carry different risks, and the potential for serious harm from marijuana is less than for cocaine, heroin, or methamphetamine. Marijuana, for example, appears incapable of causing a lethal overdose, but cocaine, heroin, and methamphetamine can kill if taken in excess or under the wrong circumstances.
But if the goal is to minimize harm — to people here and abroad — the right policy is to legalize all drugs, not just marijuana.
In fact, many legal goods cause serious harm, including death. In recent years, about 40 people per year have died from skiing or snowboarding accidents; almost 800 from bicycle accidents; several thousand from drowning in swimming pools; more than 20,000 per year from pharmaceuticals; more than 30,000 annually from auto accidents; and at least 38,000 from excessive alcohol use.
Few people want to ban these goods, mainly because while harmful when misused, they provide substantial benefit to most people in most circumstances.
The same condition holds for hard drugs. Media accounts focus on users who experience bad outcomes, since these are dramatic or newsworthy. Yet millions risk arrest, elevated prices, impurities, and the vagaries of black markets to purchase these goods, suggesting people do derive benefits from use.
That means even if prohibition could eliminate drug use, at no cost, it would probably do more harm than good. Numerous moderate and responsible drug users would be worse off, while only a few abusive users would be better off.
And prohibition does, in fact, have huge costs, regardless of how harmful drugs might be.
First, a few Economics 101 basics: Prohibiting a good does not eliminate the market for that good. Prohibition may shrink the market, by raising costs and therefore price, but even under strongly enforced prohibitions, a substantial black market emerges in which production and use continue. And black markets generate numerous unwanted side effects.
Black markets increase violence because buyers and sellers can't resolve disputes with courts, lawyers, or arbitration, so they turn to guns instead. Black markets generate corruption, too, since participants have a greater incentive to bribe police, prosecutors, judges, and prison guards. They also inhibit quality control, which causes more accidental poisonings and overdoses.
What's more, prohibition creates health risks that wouldn't exist in a legal market. Because prohibition raises heroin prices, users have a greater incentive to inject because this offers a bigger bang for the buck. Plus, prohibition generates restrictions on the sale of clean needles (because this might "send the wrong message"). Many users therefore share contaminated needles, which transmit HIV, Hepatitis C, and other blood-borne diseases. In 2010, 8 percent of new HIV cases in the United States were attributed to IV drug use.
Prohibition enforcement also encourages infringements on civil liberties, such as no-knock warrants (which have killed dozens of innocent bystanders) and racial profiling (which generates much higher arrest ratesfor blacks than whites despite similar drug use rates). It also costs a lot to enforce prohibition, and it means we can't collect taxes on drugs; my estimates suggest U.S. governments could improve their budgets by at least $85 billion annually by legalizing — and taxing — all drugs. U.S. insistence that source countries outlaw drugs means increased violence and corruption there as well (think Columbia, Mexico, or Afghanistan).
The bottom line: Even if hard drugs carry greater health risks than marijuana, rationally, we can't ban them without comparing the harm from prohibition against the harms from drugs themselves. In a society that legalizes drugs, users face only the negatives of use. Under prohibition, they also risk arrest, fines, loss of professional licenses, and more. So prohibition unambiguously harms those who use despite prohibition.
It's also critical to analyze whether prohibition actually reduces drug use; if the effects are small, then prohibition is virtually all cost and no benefit.
On that question, available evidence is far from ideal, but none of it suggests that prohibition has a substantial impact on drug use. States and countries that decriminalize or medicalize see little or no increase in drug use. And differences in enforcement across time or place bear little correlation with uses. This evidence does not bear directly on what would occur under full legalization, since that might allow advertising and more efficient, large-scale production. But data on cirrhosis from repeal of U.S. Alcohol Prohibition suggest only a modest increase in alcohol consumption.
To the extent prohibition does reduce use drug use, the effect is likely smaller for hard drugs than for marijuana. That's because the demands for cocaine and heroin appear less responsive to price. From this perspective, the case is even stronger for legalizing cocaine or heroin than marijuana; for hard drugs, prohibition mainly raises the price, which increases the resources devoted to the black market while having minimal impact on use.
But perhaps the best reason to legalize hard drugs is that people who wish to consume them have the same liberty to determine their own well-being as those who consume alcohol, or marijuana, or anything else. In a free society, the presumption must always be that individuals, not government, get to decide what is in their own best interest.
You guys sound like President Richard Nixon (who launched the "War on Drugs" in 1971) and every president since then (including Trump). We have been fighting this "war" for almost 50 years and we are still losing. Drug use and prostitution are comparable in the sense that both can sometimes cause harm to those involved in those activities. But most of the harm, when it occurs, affects those who voluntarily engage in those activities. Prohibiting activities that many people want to engage in simply does not work.
To condemn those who supply drugs to the many people who obviously want them is like condemning prostitutes for supplying sex to those who are willing to pay for it. You may as well say: Throw those evil hookers in jail and throw away the key. I have no sympathy for them. They get what they ask for! How dare they take money for sex and ruin the lives of their customers!
I feel sorry for the girls and yes for their boss too. The war on dugs is stupid and counter productive just like the war on prostitution that is going on right now. Prohibition does not work, whether it's prohibition of alcohol, prostitution or drugs.
Think about it and read this article by Harvard economist Jeffrey Miron:
Why all drugs should be legal. (Yes, even heroin.)
Jeffrey Miron
theweek.com
7/28/2014
We've come a long way since Reefer Madness. Over the past two decades, 16 states have de-criminalized possession of small amounts of marijuana, and 22 have legalized it for medical purposes. In November 2012, Colorado and Washington went further, legalizing marijuana under state law for recreational purposes. Public attitudes toward marijuana have also changed; in a November 2013 Gallup Poll, 58 percent of Americans supported marijuana legalization.
Yet amidst these cultural and political shifts, American attitudes and U.S. policy toward other drugs have remained static. No state has decriminalized, medicalized, or legalized cocaine, heroin, or methamphetamine. And a recent poll suggests only about 10 percent of Americans favor legalization of cocaine or heroin. Many who advocate marijuana legalization draw a sharp distinction between marijuana and "hard drugs."
That's understandable: Different drugs do carry different risks, and the potential for serious harm from marijuana is less than for cocaine, heroin, or methamphetamine. Marijuana, for example, appears incapable of causing a lethal overdose, but cocaine, heroin, and methamphetamine can kill if taken in excess or under the wrong circumstances.
But if the goal is to minimize harm — to people here and abroad — the right policy is to legalize all drugs, not just marijuana.
In fact, many legal goods cause serious harm, including death. In recent years, about 40 people per year have died from skiing or snowboarding accidents; almost 800 from bicycle accidents; several thousand from drowning in swimming pools; more than 20,000 per year from pharmaceuticals; more than 30,000 annually from auto accidents; and at least 38,000 from excessive alcohol use.
Few people want to ban these goods, mainly because while harmful when misused, they provide substantial benefit to most people in most circumstances.
The same condition holds for hard drugs. Media accounts focus on users who experience bad outcomes, since these are dramatic or newsworthy. Yet millions risk arrest, elevated prices, impurities, and the vagaries of black markets to purchase these goods, suggesting people do derive benefits from use.
That means even if prohibition could eliminate drug use, at no cost, it would probably do more harm than good. Numerous moderate and responsible drug users would be worse off, while only a few abusive users would be better off.
And prohibition does, in fact, have huge costs, regardless of how harmful drugs might be.
First, a few Economics 101 basics: Prohibiting a good does not eliminate the market for that good. Prohibition may shrink the market, by raising costs and therefore price, but even under strongly enforced prohibitions, a substantial black market emerges in which production and use continue. And black markets generate numerous unwanted side effects.
Black markets increase violence because buyers and sellers can't resolve disputes with courts, lawyers, or arbitration, so they turn to guns instead. Black markets generate corruption, too, since participants have a greater incentive to bribe police, prosecutors, judges, and prison guards. They also inhibit quality control, which causes more accidental poisonings and overdoses.
What's more, prohibition creates health risks that wouldn't exist in a legal market. Because prohibition raises heroin prices, users have a greater incentive to inject because this offers a bigger bang for the buck. Plus, prohibition generates restrictions on the sale of clean needles (because this might "send the wrong message"). Many users therefore share contaminated needles, which transmit HIV, Hepatitis C, and other blood-borne diseases. In 2010, 8 percent of new HIV cases in the United States were attributed to IV drug use.
Prohibition enforcement also encourages infringements on civil liberties, such as no-knock warrants (which have killed dozens of innocent bystanders) and racial profiling (which generates much higher arrest ratesfor blacks than whites despite similar drug use rates). It also costs a lot to enforce prohibition, and it means we can't collect taxes on drugs; my estimates suggest U.S. governments could improve their budgets by at least $85 billion annually by legalizing — and taxing — all drugs. U.S. insistence that source countries outlaw drugs means increased violence and corruption there as well (think Columbia, Mexico, or Afghanistan).
The bottom line: Even if hard drugs carry greater health risks than marijuana, rationally, we can't ban them without comparing the harm from prohibition against the harms from drugs themselves. In a society that legalizes drugs, users face only the negatives of use. Under prohibition, they also risk arrest, fines, loss of professional licenses, and more. So prohibition unambiguously harms those who use despite prohibition.
It's also critical to analyze whether prohibition actually reduces drug use; if the effects are small, then prohibition is virtually all cost and no benefit.
On that question, available evidence is far from ideal, but none of it suggests that prohibition has a substantial impact on drug use. States and countries that decriminalize or medicalize see little or no increase in drug use. And differences in enforcement across time or place bear little correlation with uses. This evidence does not bear directly on what would occur under full legalization, since that might allow advertising and more efficient, large-scale production. But data on cirrhosis from repeal of U.S. Alcohol Prohibition suggest only a modest increase in alcohol consumption.
To the extent prohibition does reduce use drug use, the effect is likely smaller for hard drugs than for marijuana. That's because the demands for cocaine and heroin appear less responsive to price. From this perspective, the case is even stronger for legalizing cocaine or heroin than marijuana; for hard drugs, prohibition mainly raises the price, which increases the resources devoted to the black market while having minimal impact on use.
But perhaps the best reason to legalize hard drugs is that people who wish to consume them have the same liberty to determine their own well-being as those who consume alcohol, or marijuana, or anything else. In a free society, the presumption must always be that individuals, not government, get to decide what is in their own best interest.
Personally i hope Tamine get the same as them not more. Its not just because there hot or anything. They don't deserve a harsh sentence. I would had never given them more than 2-3 years personally and still.
Personally im like Cpt Renault on this one. I get that some peoples ruin there life with drugs but quite honestly, they do often of there own free will. Lots of peoples ruin there life with alcool too, or ruin the ones of others by drinking and driving. Yet prohibition didn't work in the states and it will never work. Its not because some peoples can't do it "reasonably" that it should be illegal. Im sure there is a lot of peoples who do a couple line of coke in a party ocasionally and thats it. Peoples who want to do drugs will find ways to do drugs and even if we arrest some peoples bringing it, others will take there places.
I don't even take any drugs, i smoked a bit of weed when i was younger but thats about it, so i got nothing to gain personally by wanting drugs to be legalized.
Also its been proven that what is illegal or against the rules often drive peoples to do it. Some peoples find exitement of having sex in a public place juste because of the risk of being caught, yet the sex it self ain't better thecnically.
Im sure if drugs where more legal, there wouldn't be more problems linked to them.
Personally im like Cpt Renault on this one. I get that some peoples ruin there life with drugs but quite honestly, they do often of there own free will. Lots of peoples ruin there life with alcool too, or ruin the ones of others by drinking and driving. Yet prohibition didn't work in the states and it will never work. Its not because some peoples can't do it "reasonably" that it should be illegal. Im sure there is a lot of peoples who do a couple line of coke in a party ocasionally and thats it. Peoples who want to do drugs will find ways to do drugs and even if we arrest some peoples bringing it, others will take there places.
I don't even take any drugs, i smoked a bit of weed when i was younger but thats about it, so i got nothing to gain personally by wanting drugs to be legalized.
Also its been proven that what is illegal or against the rules often drive peoples to do it. Some peoples find exitement of having sex in a public place juste because of the risk of being caught, yet the sex it self ain't better thecnically.
Im sure if drugs where more legal, there wouldn't be more problems linked to them.
I agree. However the cocaine route from cultivation to production is the evil part.
The manufacturing process in countries such as Colombia and Peru had huge social consequences. In Colombia especially, drugs lords have blackmailed for decades poor farmers to produce coca-leave or else they would be killed. Cocaine has also help finance terror groups to commit crimes against humanities including kidnappings, tortures, rapes, etc.
These girls and Tamine deserve to serve their sentence in totality.
Without realizing it, you are echoing one of the main arguments for legalization of drugs, i.e. that prohibition generates a black market with side effects such as increased violence and corruption. If cocaine were legal there would be no drug lords and no drug-financed terror groups, just as there are no "alcohol lords" or "cigarette lords" and no alcohol or cigarette financed terror groups. Similarly, most of the harms associated with prostitution would disappear if prostitution and associated activities (advertising, brothels, "living off the avails") were decriminalized.
As Miron said:
[FONT=&]First, a few Economics 101 basics: Prohibiting a good does not eliminate the market for that good. Prohibition may shrink the market, by raising costs and therefore price, but even under strongly enforced prohibitions, a substantial black market emerges in which production and use continue. And black markets generate numerous unwanted side effects.
[/FONT][FONT=&]Black markets increase violence because buyers and sellers can't resolve disputes with courts, lawyers, or arbitration, so they turn to guns instead. Black markets generate corruption, too, since participants have a greater incentive to bribe police, prosecutors, judges, and prison guards. They also inhibit quality control, which causes more accidental poisonings and overdoses.
[/FONT]
I agree with the Captain. It may seem a bit callous, but in the U.S. we have a huge opioid epidemic. I say to all those people who want to kill themselves on these pills - go ahead, you voluntarily took these pills. So go ahead and get on with it. Just don't bitch about it and moan about not knowing they were addictive.
Actually that’s not what usually ends up happening. Most do not die. Instead they lose their jobs due to addiction issues and become wards of the State. They then get supported by taxpayers (but due to your and CR posts they should ask you guys to foot the bill before the rest of us).
I have provided legal representation to many persons with addiction issues. Some resorted to criminal activity after losing their jobs to support the addiction. The other societal cost is now you can’t get a legit prescription for painkillers or sleeping pills because doctors, due to civil and criminal liability issues, have stopped prescribing them. The addicts get them on the street while law abiding citizens who need legit pain relief or sleeping aids can’t get prescriptions because doctors are running scared.
Addiction to painkillers is a driving force behind a lot of personal injury litigation and worker’s compensation cases. It drives up treatment costs and duration and settlements. I have been on both sides of it. Insurance companies can’t prove the cases are fraudulent and they are hard and time consuming and costly to defend. So they settle, and premiums go up for all- including you and CR. You are paying for the costs and don’t even know it.
Eager, you sound more like a fervently prohibitionist prosecutor than a defense attorney. Remind me not to hire you if I'm ever charged with a crime where you're licensed to practice.
I agree (and so does J. Miron) that drug use causes various harms such as addiction. No one disputes that. However the prohibition of drugs has not put a stop to people using and getting addicted to drugs and harming themselves. If drugs were legal we would have the same problem with addiction as we have now. The situation would be similar to legal addictive substances like alcohol and tobacco. Actually if drugs were legal, they would be much safer than illegal drugs which are often adulterated or mixed with lethal substances. Nobody really knows what's in illegal drugs.
But we wouldn't have nearly as much of a problem with all the crime that is caused by the illegal nature of the drug trade. The "criminal activity" to which you refer is a direct result of the prohibition of drugs. There is virtually no criminal activity associated with the legal trade in alcohol and tobacco (but there would be if we banned them because they are "harmfiul.")
You're concerned about costs?
There are tremendous costs to society associated with the prohibition of drugs. There is the resulting crime whose costs are mostly hidden but still very real, the greatly increased costs of law enforcement, the costs associated with keeping hundreds of thousands of people (many of them non violent offenders) in jail, etc. Not to mention the cost of creating a narco-state on the southern border of the U.S. because of the illegal nature of the drug trade. The effects of the war on drugs have resulted in tens of thousands of murders in Mexico and quite a few in the U.S. too.
Take the money we would save by legalizing drugs and not incurring these costs and reallocate it towards mitigating some of the actual harms that drugs cause to the people who use them. In the long run we would save money and we would have no more drug addicts than we have now and maybe fewer.
I agree (and so does J. Miron) that drug use causes various harms such as addiction. No one disputes that. However the prohibition of drugs has not put a stop to people using and getting addicted to drugs and harming themselves. If drugs were legal we would have the same problem with addiction as we have now. The situation would be similar to legal addictive substances like alcohol and tobacco. Actually if drugs were legal, they would be much safer than illegal drugs which are often adulterated or mixed with lethal substances. Nobody really knows what's in illegal drugs.
But we wouldn't have nearly as much of a problem with all the crime that is caused by the illegal nature of the drug trade. The "criminal activity" to which you refer is a direct result of the prohibition of drugs. There is virtually no criminal activity associated with the legal trade in alcohol and tobacco (but there would be if we banned them because they are "harmfiul.")
You're concerned about costs?
There are tremendous costs to society associated with the prohibition of drugs. There is the resulting crime whose costs are mostly hidden but still very real, the greatly increased costs of law enforcement, the costs associated with keeping hundreds of thousands of people (many of them non violent offenders) in jail, etc. Not to mention the cost of creating a narco-state on the southern border of the U.S. because of the illegal nature of the drug trade. The effects of the war on drugs have resulted in tens of thousands of murders in Mexico and quite a few in the U.S. too.
Take the money we would save by legalizing drugs and not incurring these costs and reallocate it towards mitigating some of the actual harms that drugs cause to the people who use them. In the long run we would save money and we would have no more drug addicts than we have now and maybe fewer.
No it's not. When a person loses their job they have no other way to pay for that which they are addicted to. It has nothing to do with prohibition of drugs. Addicts need drugs whether legal or not. The issue is not having the money to buy it. When there is no job you need to resort to criminal activity to pay for the drug. It's purely an income issue.
Eager, you sound more like a fervently prohibitionist prosecutor than a defense attorney. Remind me not to hire you if I'm ever charged with a crime where you're licensed to practice.
.
I am actually neither, but you sound more like someone that is drunk watching Fox News than someone who is at the frontlines dealing with some of these issues. The only point in your post that is valid is the untoward LE costs of the so called war on drugs. However, legalization means regulation and regulation also means costs, even if offset by the tax revenue generated from income of the business. Where in the World has this ever worked?
I knew someone would try to make this point. Thanks!
When government taxes a product like tobacco at a ridiculously high rate such that most of the cost of the product is in taxes and the final cost of the product rises way above its market value , then of course a black market will develop. Slapping incredibly high taxes on a product has the same effect as prohibiting the product. Economics 101.
Once again the harms of the product itself (lung disease, heart attacks etc.) are compounded and worsened by government trying to prohibit the product by taxing it out of existence. Some people still want to smoke so they resort to the black market. Black markets result in crime and corruption. But don't blame cigarettes for causing crime and corruption. Blame the government that tries to prohibit cigarettes with unreasonably high taxes.
BTW, I am not opposed to reasonable regulations and taxes on potentially harmful products like alcohol and tobacco. Legal, regulated alcohol is a generally good thing because it is much safer to consume than illegal alcohol. But if you overdo the regulations and taxes then a black market will naturally arise (as it did during the Prohibition era--how did that work out?).
You guys instinctively understand these basic economic principles as they apply to the market for sex. We don't have too many prostitution prohibitionists on MERB.
Why are you so enthusiastic about the prohibition of drugs?Here is a good article on how high taxes affect the demand for legal and illegal markets for cigarettes: http://business.financialpost.com/opinion/why-canadas-governments-should-butt-out-of-taxes .
EB,
I have to agree that I sympathize with those who become addicted to painkillers, through no fault of their own. The drug companies have become "legal" pushers and they are reaping huge profits. Did anyone see the recent 60 minutes report on the opioid epidemic. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fu-1dmXvlRA
Also, I don't think anyone has an answer to the biggest problem, which is the societal cost of dealing with drug addicts. It's not just the addicted person who suffers. His/Her entire family suffers along with all the crime inherent in feeding ones addiction. I think the Captain's point is that these costs would not exist if hard drugs were legalized or at least the costs would be lowered. I could see you arguing that the costs would be lower, but I don't think we have any evidence either way. I have been down to Colombia a few times where small amounts of pot and cocaine for personal use are legal. But I don't know if anyone has done any studies on the related costs of addiction in Colombia or any other Country.
I have to agree that I sympathize with those who become addicted to painkillers, through no fault of their own. The drug companies have become "legal" pushers and they are reaping huge profits. Did anyone see the recent 60 minutes report on the opioid epidemic. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fu-1dmXvlRA
Also, I don't think anyone has an answer to the biggest problem, which is the societal cost of dealing with drug addicts. It's not just the addicted person who suffers. His/Her entire family suffers along with all the crime inherent in feeding ones addiction. I think the Captain's point is that these costs would not exist if hard drugs were legalized or at least the costs would be lowered. I could see you arguing that the costs would be lower, but I don't think we have any evidence either way. I have been down to Colombia a few times where small amounts of pot and cocaine for personal use are legal. But I don't know if anyone has done any studies on the related costs of addiction in Colombia or any other Country.
Renault couldn't say it better. I agree with everything.
My mother is a smoker and for a while when i was young she smoked "indians" because they where much much cheapers and her paycheck was not super high back then. Nowadays she is back on "regular" cigarettes but she keep complaining the price is raise every couple of months. Much more than a normal raise of the "cout de la vie". It infuriate her. But she says she can't smoke "indians" anymore cause they taste too bad.
Obviously if the governement sell weed 150% higher than your local weed dealer, where you think peoples will buy it even if it get legalized?
Sometimes we want quality, there is times i buy micro brewerie beer at prenium prices. Other times im a bit "on the poor side" and i buy those labbath blue 10.1% that taste really bad, just cause 40% cheaper.
My mother is a smoker and for a while when i was young she smoked "indians" because they where much much cheapers and her paycheck was not super high back then. Nowadays she is back on "regular" cigarettes but she keep complaining the price is raise every couple of months. Much more than a normal raise of the "cout de la vie". It infuriate her. But she says she can't smoke "indians" anymore cause they taste too bad.
Obviously if the governement sell weed 150% higher than your local weed dealer, where you think peoples will buy it even if it get legalized?
Sometimes we want quality, there is times i buy micro brewerie beer at prenium prices. Other times im a bit "on the poor side" and i buy those labbath blue 10.1% that taste really bad, just cause 40% cheaper.
Bottom line, she wanted a free ride and live a life of luxury. If she had gotten away with it she would have spent like crazy and then go back to drug smuggling to get more money. She rolled the dice and got caught.
Drugs are associated with criminal activity mainly because they are illegal. Drugs "cause" crime in the same way that prostitution "causes" crime. If you make it illegal or really hard to sell and/or buy something that people want then it's only natural that the thing will become associated with criminal activity.
Legitimate businesses can't sell drugs so that raises the price a lot and leaves the market to criminals. In order to pay the high prices, users turn to crime. In similar fashion most of the criminal activity associated with prostitution stems from the illegality of the act itself or the activities associated with it. "Soliciting" is just advertising, "keeping a bawdy house" is just incall and "living off the avails" is just running an escort agency. Prostitution and those activities should not be crimes.
Also, people often point out that drugs are inherently evil because they kill people. Not necessarily. A lot of the deaths associated with drugs stem from adulterated, impure or fake illegal drugs. As explained in this article from Reason.com:
Overdose Deaths Are the Product of Drug Prohibition
Drug legalization will save lives.
Steve Chapman | April 12, 2018
During Prohibition, drinkers never knew what they would get when they set out to slake their thirst. Bootleggers often sold products adulterated with industrial alcohol and other toxins. Some 10,000 people were fatally poisoned before America gave up this grand experiment in suppressing vice.
So it was a tragedy but not a total surprise when three deaths were reported in Illinois from synthetic marijuana laced with an ingredient (possibly rat poison) that caused severe bleeding. Nationally, in 2015, says the Drug Policy Alliance, "poison control centers received just under 10,000 calls reporting adverse reactions to synthetic cannabinoids, and emergency rooms received tens of thousands of patients."
People consume synthetic cannabis for the same reason people once consumed bathtub gin: Their drug of choice is illegal. Criminal organizations that cater to forbidden demands don't always make a fetish of quality control. After Prohibition was repealed, though, tipplers could buy from legal, regulated suppliers. They no longer had to worry about ingesting sudden death.
In nine states and the District of Columbia, pot users now enjoy the same protection. Recreational marijuana is allowed and subject to government regulation and the discipline of the market—ensuring purity through accountability. But in most places, Americans who want to get high have to take their chances with unsanctioned dealers who may be sorely lacking in moral scruples.
The bigger toll from modern drug prohibition, however, comes among opioid users. By making criminals of many people who are dependent on prescription painkillers such as oxycodone and hydrocodone, the law exiles them to the black market. There, consumers may find legitimate FDA-approved medicines, but they may also buy counterfeit versions or heroin—which often carry far greater hazards.
The most urgent danger comes from fentanyl, an opioid at least 30 times more powerful than heroin that illicit producers often mix with other opioids. It plays a rapidly growing role in the epidemic of drug overdose deaths.
The number of deaths caused by fentanyl and other synthetic opioids, says the National Center for Health Statistics, increased by 88 percent per year from 2013 through 2016. In 2016, these drugs killed more than 19,000 people.
Why would traffickers cut a dangerous drug (heroin, oxycodone) with an even more dangerous one? Fentanyl's low cost and high potency allow sellers to make more money. The iron law of prohibition stipulates that banning a substance encourages more powerful alternatives because they are more compact and thus easier to hide (boxes of pills versus bales of marijuana). The side effect is to greatly compound the dangers of drug use.
As if its role in opioids weren't bad enough, fentanyl has shown up in cocaine. Law enforcement agencies in Connecticut and Massachusetts report a surge in this particular mixture, which is especially dangerous because cocaine users usually lack a tolerance for opioids.
Fentanyl was just the beginning. The latest additive is carfentanil, a compound 100 times more powerful than fentanyl that is used to tranquilize elephants. It's shown up in a street drug known as "gray death," which sells for much less than pharmaceutical opioids. Its advent is likely to boost the casualty count.
These side effects are an inevitable result of treating a vice, or a medical condition, as something to be punished. The simplest way to curb the epidemic would be to make it possible for those addicted to opioids to obtain and use them legally. Pharmacists don't mix up cocktails with sedatives meant for animals weighing 6 tons.
Short of some form of legalization, useful steps could be taken. Drug testing kits can detect the presence of fentanyl and other contaminants—but in many places, including Illinois, they are classified as illegal drug paraphernalia. The District of Columbia recently decided to grant an exemption letting syringe exchange programs screen drugs for the people they serve.
In some states, syringe exchange programs don't do that because there aren't any. Twenty-two states criminalize the mere possession of hypodermic needles.
It would help to have facilities where opioid users could inject drugs under the supervision of medical professionals who could intervene to reverse overdoses—not to mention offer counseling and treatment referrals.
In 2016 alone, more Americans died of overdoses than were killed in the Vietnam War. Drug prohibition is justified as a vital protection against the ravages of abuse and addiction. But our graveyards are filling up with people it was supposed to save.
Puppies Used As Drug Mules
From what I have read, going back to at least 2005, the Colombian drug cartels have used puppies as their favored choice of drug mules:
https://www.google.com/amp/www.news...-smuggle-drugs-us-extradited-new-906682?amp=1
This recent arrest is by no means an isolated incident as far as use of puppies.
From what I have read, going back to at least 2005, the Colombian drug cartels have used puppies as their favored choice of drug mules:
https://www.google.com/amp/www.news...-smuggle-drugs-us-extradited-new-906682?amp=1
This recent arrest is by no means an isolated incident as far as use of puppies.
They are lucky the cruise didn’t end in Malaysia.
https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo...ntenced-to-die-in-malaysia-for-drug-smuggling
https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo...ntenced-to-die-in-malaysia-for-drug-smuggling
That is fucking stupid... I would never visit that country for sure. Killing peoples for drugs... like cmon...
The penal code and penal system in Malayasia is largely based on radical interpretations of Islamic law. Adulterers are harshly caned or stoned, as appropriate in the eyes of their system of justice:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1yxCFn6gock
Usually it’s the females who get caned. Drug offenses are harshly punished here and death penalties are not uncommon for serious drug offenses.
You don’t have to agree with the laws in order to travel there, but you do need to obey them.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1yxCFn6gock
Usually it’s the females who get caned. Drug offenses are harshly punished here and death penalties are not uncommon for serious drug offenses.
You don’t have to agree with the laws in order to travel there, but you do need to obey them.
Tough Malaysia was an asian country? I know the Fillipine also have idiotic penalties like that and its asian...
Someone in an earlier post had speculated that this may have been a set up to distract authorities from a much larger operation.
This article sheds some more light on this event.
https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/cana...a-much-larger-game/ar-BBORRra?ocid=spartandhp
This article sheds some more light on this event.
https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/cana...a-much-larger-game/ar-BBORRra?ocid=spartandhp
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