The support isn't that conclusive, as there were a lot of other factors that went into it, isolating one single cause is not really possible.
A major factor to be sure, but not the *only* factor.
Another significant factor: Better law enforcement.
The police of 2012 are far better than the police of 1975 for a host of reasons.
You have to control for income. Single mom with a $75,000/year job will always have offspring that will be far less likely to become criminals than one earning $24k.
It is poor males of every race that commit the majority of violent crime. A rather damning bit for our half of the species.
Legalization would go a long way in reducing that or choking off the supply of minor offenders that become violent criminals.
Heavily tax the legal drugs and funnel the money to rehab centers. Cut a 7 time a week addict to 1 or 2 times a week, and you eliminate the need for criminal behavior to feed a habit, and have a fairly functional human being.
"It is poor males of every race that commit the majority of violent crime"
yes, old story. crime correlates with poverty, not with race. Blacks and browns being more impoverished, racists say RACE is the problem, not poverty.
Eh, I wouldn't say it's damning. Obviously the poor person has more incentive to commit theft. And testosterone probably explains why the male is more likely to take risks and do so.
If you legalize and tax the drugs, won't there still be a huge black market for cheaper non-taxed drugs?
"huge black market"
yep, exactly the same situation as the "white lightening" bootleggers avoiding paying booze tax to the "revenuers"
Any legalization of mj therefore would have to allow for some private "brewing" of mj plants for own consumption, as you can brew your own beer and wine without paying the revenuers.
Production of drugs is a relatively small part of the drug cost; bigger parts include operation of the organized crime ring, and the premium the supplier demands for the risks involved in supplying the drug. Under a legalized drug regimen, the state should be able to maintain a price no higher than current street prices. With the barriers to entry reduced, there will be suppliers willing to accept a much lower rate of return. Thus taxation could represent a significant part of the consumer price.
Under such a regime, the demand for cheaper illegal drugs will be significantly reduced. Consumers will pay a price premium for legality. Demand at the legal price will be zero. Meanwhile, the risk premium for supplying the drugs illegally remains. Under those parameters, I would expect a small black market charging somehere around halfway between the cost of production and the legal price. There would not be a business case for running large violent international crime rings to supply drugs. There might be a business case for licensed providers to sneak small quan ies of black market drugs locally on the side.
HS mostly covered it, but as an example; how large is the black market for untaxed cigarettes proportionate to the entire market.
Is there a huge black market for illegal moonshine and/or tobacco?
The black market always depends on how high the sales tax to be avoided is. A very high tax, like $100/oz tax for $300/oz of mj, would definitely create a huge black market.
Thank you captain obvious. My point is that despite high taxes (~25%) legal cigarettes seem to be doing a great job keeping the black market at bay.
Pretty much.
The risk premium represents a huge part of the cost structure at the moment, and also includes the value of all the lost shipments.
Right now it is so expensive that it makes sense for people to grow their own.
Few people brew their own beer, or have tobacco plants growing in their closets, and the reason for that is industrial processes operating in an environment where their products are legal, if highly regulated.
"despite high taxes (~25%) legal cigarettes"
That's not high taxes!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cigarette_taxes_in_the_United_States
$3/pack! high?
it's the absolute number of tax $ that counts, not the %age.
Ummm.....currently, the only market is a black market. The black market will inevitably be reduced by legalization. There is no downside to this.
"despite high taxes (~25%) legal cigarettes"
That's not high taxes!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cigarette_taxes_in_the_United_States
$3/pack! high?
it's the absolute number of tax $ that counts, not the %age.
No it's not. It's the percentage. If you were selling 1000 dollars worth of some product, and the tax was 50 bucks, that is no big deal, but if you sold a 10 dollar product and the tax was 7 dollars, that IS a big deal.
The Shocking Details of a Mississippi School-to-Prison Pipeline
A bracing Department of Justice lawsuit filed last month against Meridian, Miss., where Green lives and is set to graduate from high school this coming year, argues that the city’s juvenile justice system has operated a school to prison pipeline that shoves students out of school and into the criminal justice system, and violates young people’s due process rights along the way.
In Meridian, when schools want to discipline children, they do much more than just send them to the principal’s office. They call the police, who show up to arrest children who are as young as 10 years old. Arrests, the Department of Justice says, happen automatically, regardless of whether the police officer knows exactly what kind of offense the child has committed or whether that offense is even worthy of an arrest. The police department’s policy is to arrest all children referred to the agency.
http://www.alternet.org/education/sh...ter751292&t=19
IIRC, it was in PA where a judge was being paid by a detention center/jail to send it juveniles.
Private Prison Company Used in Drug Raids at Public High School
Corrections Corporation of America used in drug sweeps of public school students in Arizona.
Trick or Treat
At 9 a.m. on the morning of October 31, 2012, students at Vista Grande High School in Casa Grande were settling in to their daily routine when something unusual occurred.
Vista Grande High School Principal Tim Hamilton ordered the school -- with a student population of 1,776 -- on "lock down," kicking off the first "drug sweep" in the school's four-year history. According to Hamilton, "lock down" is a state in which, "everybody is locked in the room they are in, and nobody leaves -- nobody leaves the school, nobody comes into the school."
"Everybody is locked in, and then they bring the dogs in, and they are teamed with an administrator and go in and out of classrooms. They go to a classroom and they have the kids come out and line up against a wall. The dog goes in and they close the door behind, and then the dog does its thing, and if it gets a hit, it sits on a bag and won't move."
While such "drug sweeps" have become a routine matter in many of the nation's schools, along with the use of metal detectors and zero-tolerance policies, one feature of this raid was unusual. According to Casa Grande Police Department (CGPD) Public Information Officer Thomas Anderson, four "law enforcement agencies" took part in the operation: CGPD (which served as the lead agency and operation coordinator), the Arizona Department of Public Safety, the Gila River Indian Community Police Department, and Corrections Corporation of America (CCA).
It is the involvement of CCA -- the nation's largest private, for-profit prison corporation -- that causes this high school "drug sweep" to stand out as unusual; CCA is not, despite CGPD's evident opinion to the contrary, a law enforcement agency.
Welcome to Prison Town, U.S.A.
CCA, the nation's largest for-profit prison/immigrant detention center operator, with more than 92,000 prison and immigrant detention "beds" in 20 states and the District of Columbia, reported $1.7 billion in gross revenue last year. This revenue is derived almost exclusively from tax payer-funded government (county, state, federal) contracts through which the corporation is paid per-diem, per-prisoner rates for the warehousing of prisoners and immigrant detainees.
http://www.alternet.org/drugs/private-prison-company-used-drug-raids-public-high-school?akid=9728.187590.XcojIB&rd=1&src=newsletter 751694&t=7
yeah, yeah, I know, right-wingers, just a Minor Detail that CCA mercenaries were used, no BFD.
Because we don't just take them out back and shoot them like they do in China and Iran.
nope. it's the damn, dumb drug war.
Actually, growing your own pot in this regulatory climate is insane. If you get raided it's an automatic felony because they pull the whole plant up roots and all and weigh it and the weight is classified as intent to sell.
lol...I've got a buddy who bought a house in North Carolina..out in the sticks. When he was remodeling his garage, he found a false wall...knocked it down and discovered an old 12x20' grow room complete with hydroponic trays.
SECRET LEVEL!!!
You received HYDROPONICS LAB.
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