Supporting the legalization of drugs as a means of reducing crimes against persons is very controversial. Kurt Schmoke got raked over the coals merely for suggesting it. Crablaw's official position is that drugs should be decriminalized and that any judicial proceedings involving drug addicts should be conducted, if at all, under the guardianship/person in need of assistance procedures.
The Crab is, however, a tithing member of the Reverend Leroy's Church of What's Happening Now. Accordingly, what's happening now is that the drug trade, like the Prohibition alcohol trade before it, is murderous in the extreme. 85% of the murders in Baltimore are thought to be directly connected to the drug trade - turf wars, assassination of witnesses, "internal discipline" of drug organizations, desperate addicts doing insane things, etc. Accordingly, anything that one can do to assist addicts, dealers and guilty bystanders to reject that way of life - of death, really - is a meritorious act.
Dan Rodricks has published in today's Sun a good piece on how people can get out of that life, and accordingly earns a Good Crabbing award.
-- Bruce Godfrey
Trackback
Permalink/Below the Fold
