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In reply to the discussion: 15-year-old girl who performed at Obama inauguration gunned down in Chicago [View all]Glassunion
(10,201 posts)You are correct "it aint the chronic in those chambers", however would that chamber had been loaded in the first place if there was no market for illegal drugs?
The illegal drug market for MJ alone is between $35 and $45 billion dollars a year in the US (How big is the marijuana market). That is a lot of easy money. The distribution networks across the entire country are run, maintained, and operated by primarilly gangs. In the US today there are an estemated 1.5 million gang members spread throughout every state and community.
The pot smoker is no less or more responsible for the violence in our nation than gun owners.
A pot smoker who buys an ounce from a dealer has directly and willfully contributed to a network of violence that is responsible for up to 80% of crime in the US.
That dealer buys from a supplier, that supplier buys from a distributor, that distributor buys from a producer. Every single one of these steps throughout the process is illegal throguhout the vast majority of the US. So basically you have a network of criminals, who want to make lots of easy money distributing their product for cash.
If one dealer has a problem with another dealer trying to take away his customers, they cannot up their advertizing costs, they cannot do a market study, they cannot put together a focus group. They take care of the other dealer through violence. If a customer steals from a dealer, the dealer cannot call the police, they cannot file a claim in court, they deal with it through violence. If a supplier is not making sales because another supplier is moving in on their network, again, they resort to violence.
The problem is that the statement that pot is not a "victimless crime" is not 100% accurate. The simple "illegal" purchase of pot: fuels, funds, and promotes gang violence in this country.
You state that "The reason pot isn't the general center of drug crime is that it's bulky.", this is not an accurate statement. Pot is the #1 illegally traded and consumed drug in this nation.
Annual Prevelance in the US
Opioids - 5.90
Opiates - 0.57
Cocaine - 2.40
Cannabis - 13.70
Amphetamines - 1.50
Ecstasy - 1.4
Directly because of the violence that the trade in illegal drugs brings is why I do not smoke pot. This is why I want ALL drugs to be legal. The war on drugs in this country is a complete failure.