I learned something about how drug prohibition generates crime during my 18 years of police service. Eighty percent of my property-crime case load was caused by addicts needing money to pay sky-high prices for crack, etc. Legal crack would cost an addict about a dollar per day, as would heroin and amphetamines.
Ronald Shafer (Letters, Dec. 30) worries about what drug dealers would do without their prohibition-generated jobs. The one million teens who sell drugs would begin flipping burgers and mowing yards. Serious thugs will rob banks where we will capture or kill them. Or was Mr. Shafer suggesting to continue prohibition as a jobs program for bad guys?
It’s really just that simple. People like to sell drugs because it’s ridiculously easy and profitable, not because they’re all born criminals. I can’t say for sure what all of them will do if we regulate them out of business, but I can tell you what they won’t do: sell drugs on the street to anyone with a $5 bill. And that’s the point.
We’re the only people entering this discussion with a plan to actually stop people from selling drugs on the sidewalk in our communities. Our plan may not be perfect, but the alternative is a proven disaster.