Another homicide: Travis Baltimore, 24, 3400 block of Virginia Avenue
Sunday, December 12, 2010
Gory stories
So much for pot being the drug of peace and groovy love.... investigators believe that missing Michael Paul Knight, 50, was "beaten, tied up, and murdered, and his body was then dismembered 'with a power-type saw'" in Rosedale after he ran afoul of a national weed-smuggling operation.
Another homicide: Travis Baltimore, 24, 3400 block of Virginia Avenue
Another homicide: Travis Baltimore, 24, 3400 block of Virginia Avenue
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8 comments:
209 on 12/12. If we come in under 234 I cringe at the backslapping that will occur when everyone congratulates themselves for the big reduction in violent crime. :wince:
When there is a demand that it not being met by the regular market, you can always count on the black market to deliver, with all of its horrors.
For example, in 18th century Britain, tea was so highly taxed that the average person had to rely on illegal means to get it. Of course, the smugglers were just as ruthless.
See the UK Tea Council - http://www.tea.co.uk/tea-smuggling
"The smugglers assumed that they would be protected by silence, but large rewards were offered, and when one gang member was arrested he agreed to give evidence against his fellows in exchange for leniency. The whereabouts of the bodies of the two men were revealed, but it was only when the authorities went to recover the bodies that they realised the full horror of the crimes of the Hawkhurst gang. When Chater was brought up from the well, one of his legs had been entirely severed by the injuries inflicted upon him. Then when Galley, the customs officer, was dug up some time later, he was found in an upright position, with his hands in front of eyes. Though the smugglers claimed that they had all believed him to be dead, it was clear that Galley had actually been buried alive.
There was an outcry at the brutality of these crimes, and in the end, eight of the ringleaders were tried and sentenced to death. One of them died before he could be executed, but his dead body was still put in chains and hung in the open air as a warning for all.
While the murders of Galley and Chater were especially barbaric, they were not isolated incidents. A few months after these murders, two members of the Hawkhurst gang who had not yet been arrested accused a farm labourer of stealing two small bags of tea from a huge stash of smuggled tea which they had concealed in a barn where he was working. Though the labourer begged them to spare him on account of his wife and children, they whipped him to death and then threw him into a pond, his body weighed down by rocks. Later they returned to the barn, and discovered the missing bags of tea, which they had simply overlooked earlier."
The smugglers were only defeated when the tax was reduced and smuggling no longer made economic sense. You think we would have learned by now that we are just doing the same stupid thing in the war on drugs. We should legalize and regulate marijuana and all other drugs now. But the people who have a vested interest in the status quo: police officers, prosecutors, probation officers, politicians, etc will continue to make the average person think that this war on drugs somehow benefits or protects him or his family.
Obviously the War on Drugs is a failure, however I don't think that you can compare tea, or even marijuana, to drugs like crack, heroin or crystal meth.
People can drink tea or smoke weed and still be functional, productive members of society. The use of a drug like crystal meth almost always goes hand in hand with criminality and anti-social behavior though. Yes the drug warriors have exaggerated some of the dangers (see myths about crack babies or "meth mouth") but these are still incredibly harmful substances. I'm absolutely in favor of ending marijuana prohibition, however for harder drugs the correct answer about what to do isn't nearly as simple.
Ppatin,
Portugal decriminalized the use of all illegal drugs and do you know what happened? Crime and drug use both went down.
There is a mistaken belief that if we ended prohibition that drug use would go up. But are you going to start using crack or crystal meth today if they were legalized?
There is no question that these drugs are dangerous and society should discourage use. But this ought to be treated as a medical and moral problem, not a criminal one.
Portugal decriminalized possession, however trafficking & sale of illegal drugs is still very much against the law there and you can't just walk into a store to buy heroin. There's no question that our current approach is an unmitigated failure, however the hardcore libertarian approach of "legalize everything" doesn't seem like a particularly well thought out alternative.
One policy that I do approve of is how Switzerland deals with heroin addicts. People who're hooked can go into clinics where they get their drugs for cheap/free (I don't recall if they have to pay) and can shoot up without the risk of violence, dirty needles, etc. It minimizes the damage that heroin addiction does to both the addicts and to society, and it removes a lot of the economic incentive for people to deal heroin since addicts don't have to go to dealers.
did someone go in and change my post? The homicide victim's name is reported as Travis Alexander by WBAL, not Travis Baltimore. It's cool if you want to change that but please note the discrepancy.
BTW re the drugs, I'm reading that Keith Richards autobio, which is moderately interesting-- apparently in his early days he got hooked on the smackedy smack because the English "registered junkies" would re-sell a portion of their government drugs, and the fact that it was pure, medical-grade hair-ron and not "Mexican shoe scrapings" was a major selling point back when he had the ability to be picky.
So while I see everybody's point about decriminalization, it seems like the only people who would want to register would be really end-stage, hardcore addicts with nothing to lose, and for the early-60's- Keith Richards-style "dabblers," access to "medicinal quality" drugs might just add to the appeal (or at least lessen the disgust) for people who might otherwise "just say no" to skeevy drugs from the corner. There's also the reality that medicalization would bring more drugs into the marketplace, and won't end the black market, because there will always be people who don't want to register.
While you will never have a perfect solution. The decriminalization/medicalization plans tried in parts of Europe have generally reduced crime and have improved public health.
Most people just aren't going to go out and start using heroin simply because it is available.
Before we had federal drug laws less than 2pc of the population was addicted. Nearly a 100 years later, that number is about the same. What has the war on drugs achieved?
Another approach is needed. I am not opposed to a prescription plan, but would rather just treat adults like adults and allow them to make their own decisions.
the war on drugs is a total failure, no doubt.
But I also believe that more people will use a drug if it's more available. No one ever intends to become a junkie (or alcoholic or chronic smoker or coffee addict). But there's no denying that the more any substance is around someone, the more likely they are to try it. And the more you try it, the more likely you are to move from dabbler to weekend warrior to Keith Richards city.
I'm also not sure the data from Portugal is so black-and-white. Says this study, heroin use went down, but use of every other drug, including cocaine, marijuana and ecstasy, went up. But overdose deaths went down, and so did court caseloads. So how much of a solution decriminalization is might depend on how you define the problem.
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