The following is commentary intended for discussion. Add your comments.
When I was a young journalist, I think I probably bought into the notion that there are victimless crimes, such as personal use of illegal drugs, and we should live-and-let-live.
But my decades of experience in covering crime stories across the world have taught me otherwise.
Starting with personal use of illegal drugs, it wouldn’t seem to be something that would impact those besides the user. But it’s clear that whether it’s marijuana or fentanyl, users young and old are having a detrimental impact on the rest of society. One way in which that happens is that the drug users need money to buy their drugs but aren’t getting a proper education to be employable, or can’t pass employment drug tests, or have lost their motivation and ability to hold down a job. So they end up stealing drugs and money from family members and strangers. Sometimes these encounters turn violent and deadly.
Another way personal drug use impacts all of us is that even if the user is buying from someone they know, there is almost always a foreign drug cartel at the end of the line being enriched by trafficking the drugs that end up in the hands of Americans. These cartels are responsible for unthinkable violence and horrors, yet we are making them rich beyond their wildest imaginations.
That ties into another way in which seemingly victimless crimes impact us. The illegal border crossings likewise enrich cartels and the human traffickers who work for them. The open border allows record amounts of drugs to illegally come into the US from China and other countries. We have a record number of drug deaths and record high costs in terms of money to deal with the accompanying homelessness, mental illness, and other problems.
Prostitution typically brings in a criminal element that destroys neighborhoods in terms of value and safety. Prostitutes are also spreading diseases including HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. The cost to society when it comes to medical treatment and care is large. According to CDC, nearly half of all transgenders in major cities (many of the prostitutes) are infected with HIV. The same survey finds the majority of black transgenders in big cities have HIV. They are spreading a debilitating disease that requires a lifetime of expensive medicine to try to manage– and we’re footing the bill for that with patients who are too poor to afford their own medical care.
It may be like the famous Broken Window theory. When officials give up on enforcing the law when it comes to seemingly victimless crimes, it invites escalating costs and more crime to spiral out of control.
Agree or disagree? Leave your comments below.
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You make some great points, but there’s also another side of this argument. You address personal choices and their consequences that are part of an overall harmful social structure. But what about the personal and responsible individual choice, for example, to consume pot from legal sources in various states? The joke goes: If 5 guys get together and drink alcohol, they’ll start a fight. If 5 guys get together and smoke pot, they’ll start a band.
There’s also the casual wine or beer or cocktail drinkers who never harm anyone, either in the supply chain or in the consumption of those products.
If you consider all personal choices in light of the most extreme and destructive manifestation of them, you are asking for prohibition…and we all know how that turned out.
I have friends who have painful autoimmune conditions who no longer can get drugs strong enough to manage their pain now because some people have promoted and abused opioids. My late husband was dying of cancer and his doctor refused to replace his morphine drip when it ran out…because there’s a risk of addiction! And a relative in hospice care who was recently dying of cancer, screaming “Help me!” in agonizing pain, could not get the Fentanyl patch… that 15 years ago gave my mom comfort when she was dying of cancer…simply because today Fentanyl is trafficked and abused.
It’s a slippery slope to criticize something that has both positive and negative applications and potentials….because that criticism becomes judgment, which can lead to limitation…and finally prohibition. I urge us all to consider the bigger picture and think critically.
You make some great points, but there’s also another side of this argument. You address personal choices and their consequences that are part of an overall harmful social structure. But what about the personal and responsible individual choice, for example, to consume pot from legal sources in various states? The joke goes: If 5 guys get together and drink alcohol, they’ll start a fight. If 5 guys get together and smoke pot, they’ll start a band.
There’s also the casual wine or beer or cocktail drinkers who never harm anyone, either in the supply chain or in the consumption of those products.
If you consider all personal choices in light of the most extreme and destructive manifestation of them, you are asking for prohibition…and we all know how that turned out.
I have friends who have painful autoimmune conditions who no longer can get drugs strong enough to manage their pain now because some people have promoted and abused opioids. My late husband was dying of cancer and his doctor refused to replace his morphine drip when it ran out…because there’s a risk of addiction! And a relative in hospice care who was recently dying of cancer, screaming “Help me!” in agonizing pain, could not get the Fentanyl patch… that 15 years ago gave my mom comfort when she was dying of cancer…simply because today Fentanyl is trafficked and abused.
It’s a slippery slope to criticize something that has both positive and negative applications and potentials….because that criticism becomes judgment, which can lead to limitation…and finally prohibition. I urge us all to consider the bigger picture and think critically.
Different people have different experiences with marijuana. One must be able to play music or sing to start a band. If you have only resentment and lies in your head there’s nothing positive about being high.
Completely agree.
‘Victimless crimes’ is a ruse pushed by those segments of society which have – to put it ridiculously politely – a deficient understanding of the concept of responsibility.
Completely agree.
‘Victimless crimes’ is a ruse pushed by those segments of society which have – to put it ridiculously politely – a deficient understanding of the concept of responsibility.
Agree 100%
Agree 100%