What a real war on drugs looks like
A few weeks ago, I mentioned that Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’ declared a war on drugs in his country when he took office. Police have admitted to killing 110 drug suspects since then, but there are others that have turned up dead that police don’t admit to killing.
From AFP;
As the official death toll has mounted, and other bodies not confirmed killed by police have been found with placards declaring them drug traffickers, human rights lawyers and some lawmakers have expressed deep concerns about the war on crime spiralling out of control.
In response to the criticism, Solicitor General Jose Calida held a press conference on Monday at national police headquarters to insist on the legality of the police killings and to encourage more deaths of people suspected of being involved in the drug trade.
“To me, that is not enough,” Calida said of the killings so far.
Now, I certainly don’t advocate that we adopt that method in the United States, in fact, we’re close enough to being a third world country without taking that last step. I don’t like the death penalty as it is – the government shouldn’t be in the business of declaring who should live and who should die given their incompetence is most things.
Category: Crime
On the other hand, no other punishment has a 0% recidivism rate. The death penalty is not a punishment, it is the ultimate means of making sure the criminal never commits that crime again.
That being said, the process if convicting people to it is flawed and should be modified – for instance, no single-witness ID should ever be allowed to generate a death penalty.
Drug dealers kill with impunity; I don’t see why some payback would be a problem.
How long would gangbangers and drug dealers last if a Chicago or Detroit mayor declared open season on them?
Why would the officials you mention cut off so much of their own revenue?
I’m an optimist, TOW.
TOW, I ain’t so sure the fine folks that Ex-PH2 wrote about contribute much to their local communities.
I think he was talking about drug revenue kickbacks — protection money.
This sounds like something from “The Purge” – with life imitating “art”
Even Stevie Wonder could see personal vendettas being pursued under the color of getting rid of drug dealers.
The good news for the drug dealers still alive there: their competition is dwindling. The bad news: they are the competition to be eliminated later today or tomorrow.
It might be simpler to set up a pot of money, sell tickets to a stadium event, invite the drug dealers to it (and they have to prove they’re dealing), and tell them whoever survives at the end, gets the entire pot. Pile up the weapons in the field, turn them loose and see who survives. I doubt it would cost the government even a red cent.
Edged weapons only. Safety first!
Naw. All those guns that are turned in by honest citizens for cash cards, plus the stuff in the evidence lockers and whatever F&F crap shows up. Edged weapons take too long. We want results!
I wanna hug you again!!!
As AW1 and a few others will attest, the influx of heroin from Boston and NY to points north has become a crisis issue.
One 17 year old died of an overdose provided by her mother while momma’s boyfriend tried to cover it up.
One woman was arrested after pimping out her daughter for heroin money.
The daughter is 11 years old.
Thefts and burglary is skyrocketing in my town, and doubtless many other places as well.
While the DP might not be an answer (although it seems to work in places like Singapore), how about we adopt another method, like caning? Just a thought.
I can support that. Public caning, or even branding on the forehead.
Things are definitely getting out of hand here in points north of Boston. The public have had just about enough of it. The papers here ridiculed the Governor when he spoke about this, but the public has sided with him in large numbers.
But if the touchy-feely stank ass hippie crowd doesn’t start stepping up and urging for more drug enforcement and REAL prison terms, then the locals are gonna step in and deal with the problem directly.
There’s already been enough small-town dealings with the local drug suppliers that the warning signs are there that folks have had about enough of this crap.
When we consider the majority of firearms murders in the US are attributable to the drug trade there is a death penalty already in place for dealers now, except it’s administered as the dictates of turf struggle and retaliation dictate. I certainly agree with Jonn in that the death penalty as currently performed by the US has been less than stellar with respect to the number of people not actually guilty on death row or worse executed for something they didn’t actually do. I’m not against ending the life of habitual parasitic predators on our society, but I’m concerned about the ability of the government to accurately convict the appropriately guilty parties. Seems a bit less than accurate that OJ is alive while a some poor bastards who were innocent of the murders they died for are not. That said I’ve long advocated for a harsh approach to drug dealers and their sources, we pretend Mexico and Columbia are without guilt in this particular area, I would burn their crop fields to the ground and create a wall with a rather large kill zone to stop drug and human trafficking. I would execute foreign nationals regularly for being caught importing drugs into the US, and I would have no issue with targeted drone strikes of known drug kingpins in both Mexico and Columbia among others. Selling to children under the age of 21 would also result in a death sentence. Bad enough we have adult junkies, those who would poison our youth deserve to be electrocuted for their troubles. Arresting some junkies and some low level street thugs looks good on the 6 O’clock news but is relatively useless when it comes to stopping the influx of drugs. It’s either a war on drugs or it’s a simple containment process designed to limit drugs to specific urban areas while increasing the authority of an ever increasing police state over our citizens. If we are only fighting the latter I’d prefer a surrender and a return to more personal liberties and less encroachment on our bill of rights protections. Either fight… Read more »
I’ve said this before, and I will probably say it again VOV – I often find reason to disagree with you. But today…. today I want to print out your post and staple it all over town.
Bravo. I wish I had the verbosity to state the case as well as you have.
That is all.
One cannot wage war on an inanimate object. Thus, the war of drugs is silly. The war should be on importers and large-sacle dealers. Besides, oBaMa has freed thousands of druggies, just as he has overlooked the illegal aliens’ illicit conduct, not to mention the Gitmo Gang. “That’s not who we are,” he says. STFU, I says.
Good thing they were Philippine drug dealers and not black drug dealers or BLM would be all over them.
CM. It’s now BLM/NBPP. The New Black Panther Party has joined forces with BlackLivesMatter. I am waiting for Louie F’s outfit to make it a threesome.
On the humorous side, sounds like Duarte has been reading Clancy and Kratman. Both authors wrote some interesting “drug war as -war-” scenarios. They are certainly fun reads, especially Kratman’s work.
On the serious side, Communist China either sends drug dealers to “camps of strict regime” (slow certain anonymous death), or publicly shoots them and bills the family for the cartridge (quick certain notorious death). Since there is no freakin’ way we will -ever- match Red China for sheer systematic brutality, we should note that they have a significant and growing drug problem, endemic for centuries.
The illegal status drives a maket of absolutely scary potential. Real costs versus street sale prices indicate a markup anywhere from ten thousand to twenty thousand percent. Most of the “heavy” stuff can be made in bulk in real pharma factories for about the same cost as acetaminophen.
You can’t beat that, as long as the demand for the crap exists. The harder you try, the higher the mark-up. And all that money goes directly to corrupting your civilization’s institutions. Oops.
Unless and until you are willing to start killing addicts out of hand, in job lots, you are not going to reduce demand significantly through “war” methods.
If we diverted 90% of the “drug war” budget to treating additction, getting folks off the stuff, and ensuring that the idiots who won’t quit get -nothing- but a quiet corner in a remote location to finish themselves off with the stuff, we -might- make a dent in the problem.
The whole “war on whatever” meme is broken if you can’t describe the victory conditions, what the surrender ceremony will look like, who will attend, and where PVT Snuffy can best stick the bayonet to get to the participants to attend.
We have not EVER really fought a war on drugs. Knew some DEA guys in the 80’s. Top to bottom, the whole thing was a sham, high visibility politics and nothing more. And as far as legalizing the stuff…Google ‘Needle Park’s if you’ve never heard about it. The drug debate is very similar in some aspects to the gun debate, with no clear answer in sight.
I think that the lawyers over there are most pissed at their client base slowly shrinking
I saw one of his speeches.
He said” I don’t care what you do.you can be a criminal if you choose but you will have to realize the conseqences of your actions.”
“I don’t see the electric chair as a deterrent,I see it as retribution.”
Now we’re talkin’.