Incenting Drug Dealers to Snitch on Each Other

Local police are trying to convince drug dealers to turn each other in by pointing out that it reduces competition.

It’s a comical tactic with serious results: “We offer a free service to help you eliminate your drug competition!” Under a large marijuana leaf, the flier contained a blank form encouraging drug dealers to identify the competition and provide contact information. It also asked respondents to identify the hours the competition was most active.

Tags: , , , ,

Posted on August 11, 2015 at 6:41 AM • 59 Comments

Comments

Marcos El Malo • August 11, 2015 8:12 AM

Small potatoes, really. Even when done at higher levels, others move up or move in to fill the vacuum. The only tangible effect seems to be a period of violence as a new power structure forms. A far better strategy would be to end prohibition and redirect resources.

Pat • August 11, 2015 8:46 AM

For more fun, report non-existent competition so that the police resources are less likely to be out while you’re trying to conduct business.

paul • August 11, 2015 9:14 AM

This may make sense if what police want to do is reduce the unauthorized violence historically associated with competitive drug markets (by outsourcing that violence to the police). Likely won’t do much to reduce actual sales in a monopoly or a disciplined oligopoly.

Craig • August 11, 2015 9:15 AM

I sense a new variation on swatting… just inform the police that someone is selling drugs out of their home and has a huge arsenal. To make it even more fun, report the local police chief.

Derp • August 11, 2015 10:05 AM

And then after arresting your competition they offer them a plea bargain for turning you in as well. Derp.

albert • August 11, 2015 10:34 AM

@Marcos El Malo,
Correct, but
you really can’t use logic in dealing with gov’t pogroms. Folks are making lots of money, and it’s not just the drug dealers.
.
How about outlawing paper currency and making everyone use bitcoin?
. .. . .. o

Anura • August 11, 2015 11:44 AM

@Pat

In a bad part of a city, there is plenty of junk lying around; all you have to do is randomly report “suspicious” packages/devices, and you get a bunch of police diverted to close down streets and the like while the bomb squad deals with it.

John Galt III • August 11, 2015 11:49 AM

The FBI was doing that for Whitey Bulger 25 years ago. More recently, Eric Holder was providing weapons and money laundering services for the Sinaloa cartel in return for them reporting on the competition. It’s about time that the local police got in on the action.

Thare be smarty coppers • August 11, 2015 12:01 PM

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/how-authorities-infiltrate-the-internet-underworld/

During an October 2014 seminar at the annual conference of the International Association of Chiefs of Police in Orlando, John Szydlik, a special agent with the Secret Service, gave tips on fitting in when interacting on an illegal market.

Szydlik told a room of roughly three dozen police officials that while arresting a suspect accused of data crimes, he asked how to make it so no one on a dark forum will think he’s a cop.

“All you gotta do is refer to everybody as ‘bro’ and you’ll be OK,” Szydlik said the suspect told him.

Mike Giuseppe • August 11, 2015 12:32 PM

@topic

High false positives, dangerous false positives. And a totally destructive agenda to enforce in the first place. Which is worse, some person taking some drugs because they are not happy in their lives, or some cop locking them up for decades because they did so? Same equation with the dealers.

Pot is even worse here, it should have been legal decades ago, never made illegal, and is much safer then alcohol. (But, neandrathals, please do not even ban alcohol.)

And, yet, they would brag about their cruelty.

@Thare be smarty coppers

“All you gotta do is refer to everybody as ‘bro’ and you’ll be OK,” Szydlik said the suspect told him.

Lol, some mad undercover skillz right there.

related article, though hard to read the news and not come across a new story, everyday. Truly, the justice system is screwed up. It is an incompetence, a deep one, despite whatever moral angles there may be.

http://www.cracked.com/article_22742_5-elaborately-stupid-ways-police-screwed-people-over.html

Three Percenter • August 11, 2015 1:31 PM

Oracle’s CSO does not like people reverse engineering their product to find vulnerabilities.

http://www.zdnet.com/article/oracle-to-sinner-customers-reverse-engineering-is-a-sin-youd-better-pack-it-in/

“I can understand that in a world where it seems almost every day someone else had a data breach and lost umpteen gazillion records to unnamed intruders who may have been working at the behest of a hostile nation-state, people want to go the extra mile to secure their systems.”

“Many companies are screaming, fainting, and throwing underwear at security researchers**** to find problems in their code and insisting that This Is The Way, Walk In It: if you are not doing bug bounties, your code isn’t secure. Ah, well, we find 87 percent of security vulnerabilities ourselves, security researchers find about 3 percent and the rest are found by customers.

I am not dissing bug bounties, just noting that on a strictly economic basis, why would I throw a lot of money at 3 percent of the problem?”

Pierce • August 11, 2015 2:24 PM

@Three Percenter

what we learn from the Oracle CSO’s opinion piece is that, if you find a cool vulnerability in their software, don’t tell them about it.

Sell it on the black market instead;-)

Gerard van Vooren • August 11, 2015 2:37 PM

@ Mike Giuseppe,

I hear you. It’s a joke, the war against drugs I mean. Not for the victims of course! The initial idea by Nixon is a joke and the execution is clearly hypocrite. When it comes about a true war against drugs, let’s arrest the chiefs in charge. I am quite sure George Bush (both jr and sr) are drinking a beer or whiskey this night. Let’s also arrest Clinton for smoking his cigars. O, its about marijuana, a relatively harmless drug.

Let’s start The War Against Shortsightedness!

SJ • August 11, 2015 2:44 PM

@Gerard, didn’t Clinton claim to not inhale?

Oh, wait…he wasn’t talking about tobacco when he said that.

albert • August 11, 2015 2:45 PM

@Three Percenter,

“…why would I throw a lot of money at 3 percent of the problem?…”

Why would I believe anything Oracle says?

Looks like social media is dangerous for everyone.

Well, it’s Oracle, the company that owns Java. So are they going to start suing their customers again?

Maybe they’ll buy Adobe, so all the crap can be concentrated in one place.
. .. . .. o

Anura • August 11, 2015 2:53 PM

Sorry for the double post, but hearing a Presidential front-runner say “Elect me, and I will declare love on income equality!” would be such a nice change of pace.

Gerard van Vooren • August 11, 2015 3:01 PM

@ SJ

Yeah, that’s the problem with tobacco. Cough-blowjob-cough. Still he should be arrested for that. Not that he did have any sex with that girl. But its because of the war against drugs.

HippityHop • August 11, 2015 5:48 PM

They are hoping to catch both dealers with this trick- they’ll bring in the perp, play show and tell with the tip they got, and get them to rat back on their competition for a reduced sentence.

This is why you never, ever inform unless you are already caught and you have it in writing that you are getting some sort of immunity or other deal. The tipster in this case has no immunity, and whatever contact method they use to deliver the tip will be targeted for surveillance, as by using the form they have already established probable cause that they are dealing drugs.

Justin • August 11, 2015 5:55 PM

Uhh, yeah. Report the competition to the local cops. Then you wake up some morning with a nasty haircut and high on meth. Funny how that works, isn’t it?

Mike Giuseppe • August 11, 2015 6:25 PM

@Gerard van Vooren

Yes sir, fully agree (though ‘in spirit’, I would prefer we do away with the current penal system, if we could just find some way to get people to learn in such a way they keep it. They certainly deserve it. Absolutely thoughtless behavior, which is devoid of empathy — running on pure sociopathy.)

Much worse for those entrusted in authority to do such things, then everyday people.

Frankly, by the time we figure out how to get them to change, however, we will probably have figured out a way to have people have lives that do not stink of such desperation. (Again, talking about the hard drugs that people get into, knowing how it will end, not pot or booze or hallucinogenics, for instance.)

On booze, that and so much more they enjoy, the wealthier have the choices for psychiatric drugs of all stripes. Even the non-‘party prescription drugs’ give an able alternative for anxiety and depression. Which probably need to be there to initially get into something you know will get you hooked.

65535 • August 11, 2015 6:36 PM

@ Craig

“I sense a new variation on swatting…”

I agree.

How do the police verify that the tip comes from a real dealer [or user] not just an angry teenager?

Or, from NSA spying and parallel construction.

@ Clive

“For even more fun and quick promotion, report your boss…” – Clive

Ha. That’s an interesting way of moving up the ladder.

Smirk • August 11, 2015 8:20 PM

For even more fun, make the database insecure or let it “leak” on purpose and let them take out each other.

That way you don’t need to do those annoying investigating and following those stupid rules you have to follow in an investigation. Dont get me started on those pesky warrants.

tyr • August 11, 2015 8:40 PM

Turning in your local police department would
have an effect on the war on drugs. The Volstead
Act in USA was the historical lesson on how bans
work.
Before the act 50% of the adult population had
never had a drink. The day after the act passed
the number was down to 10%. That’s typical govt
fail. Finally getting rid of the Volstead Act
couldn’t erase the ill effects it had because
it grew an entire criminal class into existence
because of citizen demand. It also corrupted
the entire justice system as a side effect.
They were so proud when they put Al Capone in
jail for income tax evasion. Weapons prohibition
works the same way, NYPD issued Dutch Shultz
a concealed carry permit because he used his
gun in his business, says so on his paperwork.

What they are after is the dumb shit on the
corner. I watched them unload a drug bust here
with a forklift from a cargo ship in Stockton.
None of the street corner dummies were involved
in that amount of product getting here. How
about them trying to catch Carlos Lehder again?
He was sentenced to 375 years the last time and
managed to escape when some government agency
sprung him to help them. He hasn’t been seen
since. Where’s Chapo ? Maybe some teenager will
turn him in again to save the donut stuffers
from doing their job.

If you want to see total insanity look at the
prohibitions on neural chemicals that have been
imposed. Every one of you is holding two of
the proscribed schedule one chemicals in your
skull. Now everyone is a criminal for the act
of being alive. They have declared war on
nature itself, how’s that for rational behavior?

Drugs are a big money business run by governments
for their own mad schemes. The USA version was
G. Gordon Liddy and Nixon starting the war on drugs
which has wrecked society, lives, and any chance
for rational governments.

It has been used as an excuse to re-institute the
wonderful idea of slave labour in USA. Because
those who are not in jail yet think it is where
bad people go. If that’s true USA must be the
most crime-free area on earth. The truth is far
too ugly for most to even think about.

You want to see something funny hop over to
thoughtmaybe and watch “the revolution will not
be televised”. No drugs in it anywhere. The
people who pulled that stunt are living in USA
instead of being in jail.

Justin • August 11, 2015 9:29 PM

@tyr

Trouble with drugs is the dealers and shrinks force them on others against their will. If people could keep their drugs to themselves, that would be great, but that’s not how it works in real life.

Gerard van Vooren • August 11, 2015 9:43 PM

@ Mike Giuseppe,

When it comes to legalization of drugs, I am more liberal. We all know people who have died from both alcohol and nicotine. The number of people who have died from other drugs is not that ‘high’. In the Netherlands alone (~17M) there are a quarter of a million people who use XTC and amphetamine on a regular recreational basis. Both are illegal. The only time you hear that someone dies using these drugs (one or two a year) is that when the dose is wrong and most of the time that’s because there is no quality control on the manufacturing process such as with alcohol, because these drugs are made illegally.

AFAIK in Portugal they made all drugs legal to use (or something like that) and there is no significant increase in use. And why should it? I am not gonna use cocaine or heroin when that becomes legal.

So my POV is that as long as people do not cause nuisance they should be allowed to use any drug they want, preferably for recreational purposes and preferably used with care. What’s important, really important is education and help, not fear mongering and draconian penalties and certainly not when it comes to weed. The war on drugs is an insult to common sense, especially when even the chiefs in charge use drugs by their own, like a lot of us, on a recreational base.

tyr • August 11, 2015 10:13 PM

@Justin

”

Trouble with drugs is the dealers and shrinks force them on others against their will. If people could keep their drugs to themselves, that would be great, but that’s not how it works in real life.

”

Great grandpa is all ears. Start by explaining how
many times you have seen a dealer force someone to
take drugs against their will ?

Feel free to expound at length upon how “real life”
works, I’m sure others will be as interested in the
topic.

I hear the truth will set you free…: ^ )

Justin • August 11, 2015 11:20 PM

@tyr

Great grandpa is all ears. Start by explaining how
many times you have seen a dealer force someone to
take drugs against their will ?

Oh, many times, myself, just recently in fact. Reported it to the cops, too. Tends to happen early in the morning when you are still sleeping. Then you wake up all of a sudden high on cocaine or methamphetamine or who knows what else. Face flushed, heart racing, little pin-pricks in your skin somewhere. Oh, I say no to drugs, believe you me, but dealers aren’t really the type to take no for an answer. See, they’re stupid enough to think they can get away with it, just not quite stupid enough to think they can get away with first degree murder. The trick is to catch them at their level of stupidity.

Meanwhile, life goes on, however “real” (or not) it might be to you, and Great Grandpa’s progeny still lives.

I hear the truth will set you free…: ^ )

Sure. You might’ve read that in the Bible somewhere, if you read the Bible.

Anura • August 12, 2015 12:19 AM

It seems to me that the best way to stop illegal drug dealers is to legalize drugs entirely. I mean, you are basically looking at a situation in which you are spending tens of billions of dollars a year, but accomplishing absolutely nothing – people still do meth, cocaine, heroin, LSD, MDMA, peyote, psilocybin mushrooms and, worst of all, marijuana. People find their way to get them, and the best way to handle it is to legalize, regulate for quality, focus on harm reduction, and tax them to pay for the externalities. Imprisonment makes it more difficult to get by in the future, and does serious harm to our economy.

Then again, we should think about all the prison companies that will lose business if the “land of the free” all of a sudden loses the title of “country with the highest imprisonment rate.”

Jay • August 12, 2015 3:46 AM

Anyone noticed these: http://static3.parool.nl/static/photo/2014/17/4/1/20141110125854/media_xl_2596006.jpg in Amsterdam ..? They’re very, very real, not photoshopped…
Yes, that’s Protection of the general public taking precedence over ‘regular’ hunting for the dealers, wholesale suppliers et al. [In NL, softer dope kinds are legal to have in amounts for personal use, trade quantities are still illegal to traffic…]
An industry-wide ;-| hunt was on for the dealer who sold this bad stuff (pun not intended); he was caught. Claimed stupidity, that always works here… (because otherwise, politicians would be the first to be brought down).

Clive Robinson • August 12, 2015 6:05 AM

@ tyr,

With regards drug dealers forcing drugs on people, it rather depends on how you look at it…

As far as I can tell when drugs are illegal, there is no quality control.
History from before Hogarth’s time shows us that landlords, publicans and inn keepers used to put salt in beer and water down spirits. The same still happens with heavily salted bar snacks being “the legal” way, and in some parts of the world water and surgical spirit make one bottle of vodka into six, whilst still passing a weights and measures check.

Thus “cutting” is the way of the world, where “quick profit” is rated more highly than longterm business relationships.

From what I’ve read, “cutting” is also made legal by the distinction between “addative” and “processing” agent in the food industry. A few years ago a very well known fruitjucie supply company used “nitric acid” as a processing agent in getting more flavour out of oranges, thus testing of the juice showed nitric acid even though it was not on the contents… Oh and lookup the allowable list of addatives in the likes of cigarettes it usually includes chemicals that effectivly “freebase” the nicotine making it many many times more addictive….

So what do you think a street dealer is going to “cut” his product with… simple answer anything that’s going to keep his profits high.

Obviously that could be anything they think they can get away with, from baby milk formular, drain cleaner or rat poison. Whilst that may get profit from the poor customers who would buy wherever it’s cheap, what about the rich customers? I suspect that they get product that is cut with less dangerous products, but the dealer will want to keep them, so the idea of slipping a little extra hit –like salt in beer– would occure to quite a few dealers, to keep the richman’s money flowing into their pocket.

Such are the joys of “business ethics” in a “free market”…

Dirk Praet • August 12, 2015 6:14 AM

I’m sure that would work over here too, if it weren’t for the fact that all prisons and detention centres for illegal immigrants are full. Yes, you hear that right. In practice, police will only move against dealers if they’re selling to minors or when fed up locals take matters into their own hands and form lynch mobs. It’s one of the more surreal aspects of the town where I live.

Clive Robinson • August 12, 2015 6:19 AM

@ tyr,

On the subject of making “living chemicals” illegal.

It’s pointless for another reason. Our bodies manufacture many of the chemicals it needs sometimes from very basic “precursor chemicals” that are for obvious reasons other “living chemicals” in the food supply.

So it won’t be long befor some bright spark works out a way to make “binary drugs”, similar to “binary chemical weapons” where two or more legal chemicals react in the body to produce the desired illegal chemical. We know this because it’s one of the major goals of the pharmaceutical industry to make an “over the counter happy pill” to replace prozac and similar which need a doctors prescription.

When it comes to “pushing drugs” the pharmaceutical industry has less constraint or morals than your street corner dealer, importantly unlike the dealer they know that they can buy the legislation they want…

Clive Robinson • August 12, 2015 6:25 AM

@ Jay,

Am I correct in thinking that the establishment seen behind the sign is a very well known American Burger outlet?

Jay • August 12, 2015 6:38 AM

@Clive,
Didn’t even notice that. But true. Why not? The most famous coffee shop is there, too. It’s housed in, you guessed it, a (admittedly very) old police station. Next to the just a little less famous Heineken corner. And legal to a degree they get into court fights over URL, with other legal industries, as in this (in Dutch but you’ll get it): http://www.telegraaf.nl/binnenland/24366394/Pornoboer_eist_geld_Bulldog.html

But then, there’s guns… almost exclusively, gangs shooting up each other in drive-by’s. Which not too many care about, just the police that wants to maintain public order. And the monopoly maybe.

Justin • August 12, 2015 10:50 AM

@ Clive Robinson

When it comes to “pushing drugs” the pharmaceutical industry has less constraint or morals than your street corner dealer, importantly unlike the dealer they know that they can buy the legislation they want…

Much as I despise street corner drug dealers, I can’t really argue with you there.

Smirk • August 12, 2015 10:54 AM

One of the most irrelevant and stupid objection against legalizing drugs is: “yeah just put it next to the candy in the supermarket, right?”

I am all for legalizing drugs, maybe only for some drugs a questionnaire with questions like: “how much is a reasonable doses for this bodyweight” and “what are you supposed to do when you/someone else overdoses on drug X”, “what are the effects of drug x and symptoms of overdosis from drug x”. Just to inform people and educate them.

Also a voluntary questionnaire for medical purpose maybe helpful or a setup where you can chose to use a drug in a controlled environment with a doctor etc.

Because some drugs are helpful in some situations but research is limited because of their current illegal status. For example i saw somewhere that some hallucinogenics can be useful against seizures.

tyr • August 12, 2015 7:44 PM

@Justin

Post a pdf of your police report at archive.org.

If you’re nervous about personal info black it
out with a marker pen on a xerox copy. The rules
of evidence are not in abeyance for the new age.

@Clive

I live in the ghetto because I made a conscious
choice to do so. Maybe the example made a little
difference to a few of the kids. I have seen a
lot of truly insane behaviors on both sides of
the drug wars over the years. Like the Volstead
Act it is a really bad idea that hasn’t gotten
better with age. I was there when LSD was legal
and the pushers were the spooks and the idealistic
thought it might solve some problems with the
culture. Criminalization didn’t fix anything it
just started USA down the toilet.

I just finished watching Men who stare at Goats
so am quite bemused about it all today. Nutty
behavior seems to be the new norm. Lead and they
will follow takes on new meaning when the leader
is delusional beyond the dreams of fantasyland.

You have pinpointed one of the worst aspects of
the drug culture. How can you tell what you are
getting ? We just lost some movie star because
he bought uncut heroin thinking it was the usual
adulterated crap since it wasn’t it finished him
off. Caveat Emptor has a much wider range of
meanings once you get pharmaceuticals in the mix.
Some biologist recently claimed birds are obese
now because there is so much Prozac in the water
supply that levels are detectable.

If the culture you live in is designed to make
you clinically insane reinforced by the expert
definitions (DSM IV) and it’s big money to fix
it with pills what do you think corporations are
going to do ? They have advertisements on TV for
shit with side effects no sane person would ever
touch the stuff after hearing. I shouldn’t be so
mean about it but your brain is there to get you
through the world not to be dictated to by some
advertising ninnie working for a corporation.

If the average dumbass would stop buying drugs
the dealers would disappear. Simply making growing
your own hemp/locoweed/marijuana legal would put
a major end to the contraband industry. I notice
Colorado hasn’t descended into lawless chaos yet.
The one thing I see is that any change is feared
and railed against at length. It can be the end
of blanket surveillance, ending the war on drugs,
ending the war on sharing knowledge, paying living
wages, it doesn’t matter, any change is viewed as
a threat to civilization. In the past the same
rhetoric was used and the dire predictions never
came true. What are we missing here ? This can’t
be a coincidence.

Clive Robinson • August 12, 2015 8:59 PM

@ tyr,

The history of prohibition is an interesting one, and goes back centuries and has a lot to do with the Royal Prerogative and what was later called “excise duty”.

At one point in order to raise Royal income people were pushed by the government into drinking jin. As can be seen from the Holbigne etchings, it had a fairly disastrous effect on the population of England, even though the Treasury did very nicely out of it.

The problem was that the backlash was to demonize drink, in which those etchings had a major part to play. Thus you had the Rich with nothing better to do looking down on the poor through the eyes of an artist living in a very nice house in west London, who hated the King because the King did not like art…

Those etchings gave rise to the idea of the poor, not being poor because they were being exploited by the rich, but because they were lazy, insensible and indolent through drink. Which played along nicely with another pretention of the rich the so called “Protestant Work Ethic”… thus drink that made the Government rich through the poor was demonised by the rich who payed nothing to the Treasury, and got wealthy themselves through exploiting the poor. So the battle ground over who got to steal from the poor was set…

And that’s pretty much how it is today, “excise duty” is a tax to keep the poor poor, and falls on alcohol, tobacco and fuel, which disproportionately falls on those on low incomes, just as VAT/sales tax does.

Thus a battle exists between those who chose to get rich at the expense of the poor. You will find that one of the biggest objectors to the legalization of drugs, will be the drug dealers. Because not only will it result in lower prices but taxation as well, thus it’s in the interest of those far enough up the ladder to ensure that legalisation of premium product does not happen…

As was once observed, behind every crisis is some one protecting their market. The trick is keeping the crisis going as cheaply as possible for as long as possible to maximise profits.

Smirk • August 12, 2015 10:40 PM

@Clive Robinson

Just like the same with tickets for speeding if you don’t drive fast enough to lose your driving lincens you don’t care about tickets if you drive a Ferrari.

Just the same with drugs.

Mike Giuseppe • August 13, 2015 2:44 AM

@Gerard van Vooren

<>

LOL! No… not more than me, lol… 🙂

But — hey, to be fair. I am an investor. I expect returns. And I get them.

So my POV is that as long as people do not cause nuisance they should be allowed to use any drug they want, preferably for recreational purposes and preferably used with care. What’s important, really important is education and help, not fear mongering and draconian penalties and certainly not when it comes to weed. The war on drugs is an insult to common sense, especially when even the chiefs in charge use drugs by their own, like a lot of us, on a recreational base.

Look, no offense, I admit it. I have a lot of investments. Many are very, very bad. So, I have to be cold hearted and just pull them up.

But… I both smoke and drink. I like both.

Admittedly, I did have the pope try and bring me out of me.

Okay, joking.

Look. IDK, as scary and horrible as cops and whatever are, I mean. Well? At least they are not exorcists? LOL!

In all seriousness, everybody has a debt. A lot of people who are cops or others in authority owe quite a bit.

It is just a charge card, though.

Not for the guys and girls currently serving. In prison. Any more then I would put these others in there.

I just want my money back.

🙂

And, bizarrely?? LOL! Have a certain talent for gettin justthat. ROFL.

Mike Giuseppe • August 13, 2015 2:49 AM

@Smirk

One of the most irrelevant and stupid objection against legalizing drugs is: “yeah just put it next to the candy in the supermarket, right?”

Smirk.

Ask your self.

What would Jesus do.

If your idea of Jesus is “the Dude” from “the Big Lebrowski” or “Neo” from the “Matrix”, clearly you are unstable.

Contrary to such rebellious opinions, God hates all “wrongdoers”, and that means, you know, people who do that stuff they do.

That is. Jesus would never smoke pot.

So, shame on you. You should know. Your eternal salvation is in question for having mercy on people who are more desperate then your own self.

Gerard van Vooren • August 13, 2015 4:26 AM

@ Mike Giuseppe,

I’ve said what I wanted to say about the war against drugs and I don’t think discussing it any further would introduce new insight. If it does, please correct me. Also I didn’t want to offend anyone, except of course that this war is an insult to common sense as I pointed out before. And it is obvious hypocritical. When it comes to politics and shortsightedness, as an engineer I am pretty powerless and I can only show how wrong the current and recent past situation is.

Smirk • August 13, 2015 5:14 AM

@Mike Giuseppe,
Quote: “What would Jesus do.”

Which Jesus? The one from Israel or the one from mexico?

I am quite sure if you are joking or not.
But if you are serious and need some threat about going to hell if you dont or do certain things and that is the reason you do or dont do those things, then maybe you are unstable one.

MrPuck • August 13, 2015 9:30 PM

Anura • August 12, 2015 12:19 AM

It seems to me that the best way to stop illegal drug dealers is to legalize drugs entirely

Hey! The (few) states that have legalized marijuana see it as a big revenue bonanza for the state. If it really is so harmless, why not treat this like alcohol? People can grow 5-10 bushels a year (I have no idea) for personal consumption. The “industry” could sell the “refined” and taxable product.

Is this a big hit to the alcohol market? Would it knock down the state revenue?

This could still be an issue on the 2016 ballot.

tyr • August 14, 2015 3:57 AM

I liked the John Alegro (sp) take on it. He was
one of the leading Aramaic scholars who worked
on the dead sea scrolls. When questioned about
them in a TV interview he said “Jesus was a
mushroom being grown in caves around Qumran”.

So you can ask the next Psyilocybe Cubensis you
meet what would Jesus do and get an answer since
they talk to those who want a conversation. In
the UK you’ll have to find a Liberty Cap.

Growing your own alcohol fuel would make sense
until you run afoul of the laws and regulations
that have risen around alcohol. Instead of
tossing out the first and last third of your
corn product when making moonshine you can use
it all, cars burn Methyl Alcohol just fine.
People do not another lesson they learned the
hard way during prohibition. The japanese still
drink some stuff that is dangerous because of
it (Akadama Plum wine).

For the gourmet boozer who wants to live on the
edge try Shoktung, by drowning a Cobra in it
you get a nicely toxic extra kick.

Clive Robinson • August 14, 2015 5:49 AM

@ tyr,

For the gourmet boozer who wants to live on the edge try Shoktung, by drowning a Cobra in it you get a nicely toxic extra kick.

You raise a point that a lot of Wives And GirlfriendS (WAGS) would like an answer to. “What it it about men and the stupidity they go to to ‘live on the edge’?”.

The classic examples being the “contests” like who can eat the most of the hottest curry/etc food, or who can buy the most expensive round of drinks etc, etc, etc.

It goes on so much you will hear people refering to it in a disparaging tone as “Willy waving”…

ljhdsf9 • August 14, 2015 10:54 AM

This is nothing new. Competing dealers have always known of the power of narcing – and the dangers. “Snitches get stitches”, or worse. As the late Biggie instructed us in the Ten Crack Commandments, even innocent contact with the police could be a fatal mistake: your competition “ain’t trying to listen, they be sittin’ in your kitchen, waiting to start hittin'”.

jonathan • August 14, 2015 11:48 AM

While I’m suppose to be interested in seeing a current example of setting enemies against one another, I have a powerful disgust associated with the War on Drug.

the US government and the DEA love the use of hard force against drug cartels but legalization in Colorado and other states has done what decades of DEA work and billions of dollars could not do — reduced import of marijuana and consequently reduced marijuana revenues to drug cartels.

http://time.com/3801889/us-legalization-marijuana-trade/

How big a business is illegal alcohol? Mmmmhmmm, but since Bruce’s readers are all fairly rational I’m preaching to the non-idiotic choir.

back on topic, what I think might be interesting is looking at how well this strategy is working with the drug cartels compared with other groups the strategy has been employed on. What do the effectiveness (or lack thereof) say about the dynamics and culture of the drug cartel ecosystem?

Anura • August 14, 2015 12:14 PM

@Clive Robinson

“who can eat the most of the hottest curry/etc food”

Which is kind of a dumb way to judge toughness, because people build up a resistance or, like me, are just less sensitive than the average person to capsaicin. I mean, when someone eats something and they are noticeably in pain from it, while I’m feeling a mild burn, it’s not because I am tougher than them, it’s because I’m actually feeling less pain. It’s kind of like a “getting kicked in the balls” contest between a paraplegic and an able-bodied individual.

Satan’s Blood is 800,000 scoville units and is on the painful, but tolerable side for me, but I add a few drops to hot wing sauce, and while my tongue is not really burning, I’m writhing in pain if I eat it with chapped lips.

Clive Robinson • August 14, 2015 7:11 PM

As others have noted trying to get drug dealers to rat each other out, still leaves you with drug dealers. Because the demand for drugs does not go away.

The solution to getting rid of drug dealers is to remove the profit from their business. There are two ways to do this, firstly alter the supply side of the market, which is what legalization does, secondly alter the customer side of the market.

Nearly all past attempts to alter the customer side of the market have failed for basic political reasons, based on the fact the politicos do not take the time to study what works and does not work.

Well there is a way that does show that the customer side of things can be changed. I first heard about it several years ago when a judge found the most effective preventative method was a modern equivalent of “the stocks” or “rough music”.

Offenders got a choice, when taken out of the cell the morning after being detained for Drink Driving or Drunk and Disorderly, go through the long slow legal process with a recomendation for high sentancing or stand for a certain number of hours for the next three days in a public place where many of their neighbourhood could see them with a sign around their neck saying what they had been detained for.

The results showed that those who opted for the legal process would more than likely be detained again within a relativly short time, whilst those that went through the “quick shaming” rarely reoffended.

Well it started other “short sharp shock” systems and various things were tried and found to work.

One of which is,

http://www.wsj.com/articles/a-simple-fix-for-drunken-driving-1439564251

It has the benifit of being fairly effective, simple to run and not requiring very expencive prison systems. In effect a win-win for offenders and tax payers. As the article indicates similar systems work for other drugs, and also lower other related crimes including those involving violence or abuse whilst under the influance.

It’s not perfect, no system is, but it does appear more effective longterm than the “lock em up and throw away the key” systems prefered by politicos and the rent seekers who have vested interests in such policies.

As another advantage, the short sharp shock method does not involve a criminal record which acts as a significant bar on employment, thus the offender remains “economicaly active” and not an enforced welfare expenditure, another benifit to tax payers.

tyr • August 14, 2015 9:40 PM

@Clive

What you are talking about is a result from behavior science
and a time honoured method of animal trainers. Shortening the
time between offense and punishment and making the punishment
cause pain (mental or physical) works. Dragging out the process
until there is no proximity in time to the offense just tends
to confuse the offender. Trying to get the overly elaborated
pork barrel of criminal justice to apply this is almost impossible.

Flogging may seem cruel but if you apply it immediately it cuts
recidivism way down. Public shaming does the same. Those on the
unreachable end of human behaviors can’t be fixed but the 99%
will at least become more careful about criminal behaviors in
the future.

The legal system is to blame for their own massive problems
because they are in it for the paycheck so have no reason to
seek efficiency.

A few bankers in stocks on the street corners would do wonders
for the financial industry these days. Particularly if it was
a Greek street corner or one in Spain.

uh, Mike • August 16, 2015 10:07 AM

I try to imagine a world where the police are not stupid.

What are we doing to limit the quality of police work? Is there more to it than low pay?

Leave a comment

Login

Allowed HTML <a href="URL"> • <em> <cite> <i> • <strong> <b> • <sub> <sup> • <ul> <ol> <li> • <blockquote> <pre> Markdown Extra syntax via https://michelf.ca/projects/php-markdown/extra/

Sidebar photo of Bruce Schneier by Joe MacInnis.