It’s one of those hideous little episodes making minor headlines this week that will be forgotten by the media next week. 15-year-old Vada Vasquez of the Bronx is in a coma with a bullet in her brain, after being caught in the crossfire when a group of Bloods took aim at 19-year-old Tyrone Creighton (and succeeding; he’s in the hospital, too).
The Bloods went after Creighton at the behest of friends of a man in Rikers who suffered a beatdown by Creighton’s two brothers in Rikers with him. The shooter was allegedly little 16-year-old Carvett Gentles, “baby-faced” as the stories are terming him with the regularity of a Homeric epithet.
Tuesday night there was a vigil for Vasquez, the usual scene with the usual “Stop The Violence” placards. This is the kind of event about which wise heads regularly intone about how the problem is with family discipline, with inadequate schools, with inadequate community policing, with the availability of guns.
All true. But there is another primum mobile in this case, as is also usual: drugs. Creighton’s brothers are in for killing a Bronx man three years ago – and it is doubtful that they did it simply for sport because there were no deer around to shoot. Ghetto murders of this kind are typically connected with maintaining turf in the sale of drugs. Plus, the Bloods are not exactly uninvolved with selling drugs, and Gentles was the only one of his group without a criminal record. And Tyrone Creighton himself has been out on bail for attempted murder and drug charges.
There is good money to be made by selling drugs on the street, because they are illegal and prosecuted, driving up the profit margin. And that means that details aside, we can all agree that what happened in the Bronx on Monday would have been very different if there were no War on Drugs. In fact, it probably wouldn’t have happened at all.
It’s one more indication of what a tragedy this modern replay of the disaster of the Volstead Act currently is. The simple fact is that if there were no profit to be made in selling drugs on the street, no one would bother. For all of the “root causes” reasons so many young black and Latino men turn to this trade instead of seeking legal work, if there were no War on Drugs, they would seek other solutions to the obstacles that face them. And whatever those were, they would involve less murder, fewer crossfire injuries and killings of the kind that have likely ruined Ms. Vasquez’ life at 15, fewer men in prison for long periods, and fewer of their children growing up fatherless and on their way to repeating their father’s mistakes.
I am moved in the light of this by the recent policy paper by the Transform Drug Policy Foundation, carefully outlining what a world could be like without a War on Drugs, where instead, even hard drugs are treated as controlled substances.
Yes: heroin by prescription. It sounds weird and menacing now, but so, once, did injecting people with viruses as vaccines. To someone who was born in the teens or early twenties, it looked strangely libertine when the sale of alcohol was reinstated – they had never known anything else.
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COMMENTS (13)
Why wait until 2014? This idiotic "war" has ruined our justice/prison system, devastated poor neighborhoods all over the country, and abroad hurts some of our most important allies while helping some of our worst enemies. The attempt to shift blame for drug abuse from recreational users in rich countries to poor farmers in the Third World is morally and pragmatically unsupportable.
An irreducable, quite small, minority of people will ruin their lives with drugs NO MATTER WHAT. Let them! This is essentially a self-limiting problem that we have made significantly worse by trying to use a giant multi-billion dollar militarized policy to save people from themselves.
Why wait until 2014? This idiotic "war" has ruined our justice/prison system, devastated poor neighborhoods all over the country, and abroad hurts some of our most important allies while helping some of our worst enemies. The attempt to shift blame for drug abuse from recreational users in rich countries to poor farmers in the Third World is morally and pragmatically unsupportable.
An irreducable, quite small, minority of people will ruin their lives with drugs NO MATTER WHAT. Let them! This is essentially a self-limiting problem that we have made significantly worse by trying to use a giant multi-billion dollar militarized policy to save people from themselves.
Thanks for nothing Nancy Regan.
Thanks for nothing Nancy Regan.
I agree with the thrust of this piece. However, one potential unintended consequence should be kept in mind. Probably a sizeable proportion of the incomes generated by the illicit drug trade (one estimate - $1 million per day in Baltimore alone) is spent in the inner city generating income and "employment" for some of America's most at risk citizens. Legalization will bring some of this to an end and thus add to the employment and income crisis already afficting inner city neighbourhoods. Such an outcome was a feature of the legalization experiment depicted in The Wire. This is not to argue against legalization, but rather to suggest that it be accompanied by efforts to offset these pote ... view full comment
I agree with the thrust of this piece. However, one potential unintended consequence should be kept in mind. Probably a sizeable proportion of the incomes generated by the illicit drug trade (one estimate - $1 million per day in Baltimore alone) is spent in the inner city generating income and "employment" for some of America's most at risk citizens. Legalization will bring some of this to an end and thus add to the employment and income crisis already afficting inner city neighbourhoods. Such an outcome was a feature of the legalization experiment depicted in The Wire. This is not to argue against legalization, but rather to suggest that it be accompanied by efforts to offset these potential consequences.
I concur with Mr. Powell -- why wait until 2014?
But I credit the Obama Administration for at least one hesitant step toward a sane drug policy -- ending the persecution of medical marijuana networds in States which legalize them. G.W. Bush's slavering drug-war fanaticism was an important reason he ranks as the worst US President of all time.
--Hugo S. Cunningham
http://www.cyberussr.com/
I concur with Mr. Powell -- why wait until 2014?
But I credit the Obama Administration for at least one hesitant step toward a sane drug policy -- ending the persecution of medical marijuana networds in States which legalize them. G.W. Bush's slavering drug-war fanaticism was an important reason he ranks as the worst US President of all time.
--Hugo S. Cunningham
http://www.cyberussr.com/
dmbrown--
Why not bailouts for drug dealers? It worked for GM...
dmbrown--
Why not bailouts for drug dealers? It worked for GM...
Are you guys tone deaf? 2014 - he's safe after willing his second term and the midterms are done. The only time anyone could press an agenda so politically unpopular (and rightly so) is when elections are not a concern.
Are you guys tone deaf? 2014 - he's safe after willing his second term and the midterms are done. The only time anyone could press an agenda so politically unpopular (and rightly so) is when elections are not a concern.
It's never too soon to do the right thing. And where does the idea come from that this would be unpopular? All the polling I've seen indicates that a substantial majority of citizens recognize the counter-productive nature of prohibition, and given the facts of the matter a little public education in place of the usual propaganda couldn't hurt either.
It's never too soon to do the right thing. And where does the idea come from that this would be unpopular? All the polling I've seen indicates that a substantial majority of citizens recognize the counter-productive nature of prohibition, and given the facts of the matter a little public education in place of the usual propaganda couldn't hurt either.
I think McW is simply being realistic about there being a limit to how much a President can pursue at one time. And even if a majorithy of citizens recognize that prohibition is counterproductive, you can bet that there will be virulent opposition. Among the Republicans in Congress, the opposition will be apoplectic.
I think McW is simply being realistic about there being a limit to how much a President can pursue at one time. And even if a majorithy of citizens recognize that prohibition is counterproductive, you can bet that there will be virulent opposition. Among the Republicans in Congress, the opposition will be apoplectic.
Great article, I could not agree more
Great article, I could not agree more
I have been in favor of such a change in drug policy for a long time in principle. In practice, however, I do have this concern. All the proponents of these schemes insist that, "of course, minors could not buy drugs" from their programs, but doesn't that just create a black market demand right there? I suppose it would be smaller, but there would still be a demand for illicit drugs from illicit vendors.
I have been in favor of such a change in drug policy for a long time in principle. In practice, however, I do have this concern. All the proponents of these schemes insist that, "of course, minors could not buy drugs" from their programs, but doesn't that just create a black market demand right there? I suppose it would be smaller, but there would still be a demand for illicit drugs from illicit vendors.
Well, kerFuFFler, when prohibition on the sale of alcohol was lifted, it remained in place for minors, and there is not, that I am aware of, a black market for the sale of alcohol to minors. So why should the legalization of other drugs have a different result?
Well, kerFuFFler, when prohibition on the sale of alcohol was lifted, it remained in place for minors, and there is not, that I am aware of, a black market for the sale of alcohol to minors. So why should the legalization of other drugs have a different result?
dhurtado,
Maybe I worry about it because currently there are so many vendors and users of illegal drugs who are currently minors. Were minors intimately involved in the black market for alcohol during the prohibition? I don't know for sure, but I doubt their involvement was anywhere near as pervasive as in the present drug distribution scheme. The fact that these youthful addicts and traffickers already have the connections that they have will make it much harder to eradicate that end of the trade, I suspect.
dhurtado,
Maybe I worry about it because currently there are so many vendors and users of illegal drugs who are currently minors. Were minors intimately involved in the black market for alcohol during the prohibition? I don't know for sure, but I doubt their involvement was anywhere near as pervasive as in the present drug distribution scheme. The fact that these youthful addicts and traffickers already have the connections that they have will make it much harder to eradicate that end of the trade, I suspect.
Well, if the black market already sells drugs to minors, what reason is there to believe that lifting the prohibition with regard to adults would increase that trade? I believe William F. Buckley once said that he would favor the legalization of drug use and sales, provided that a convicted purveyor of drugs to children wuuld be executed. I am not a supporter of the death penalty, but perhaps very aggressive laws against the sale of drugs to minors would be the way to go.
Well, if the black market already sells drugs to minors, what reason is there to believe that lifting the prohibition with regard to adults would increase that trade? I believe William F. Buckley once said that he would favor the legalization of drug use and sales, provided that a convicted purveyor of drugs to children wuuld be executed. I am not a supporter of the death penalty, but perhaps very aggressive laws against the sale of drugs to minors would be the way to go.