From: Kennita Watson (kwatson@netcom.com)
Date: Sun Dec 29 1996 - 11:10:20 MST
>I have lived in crack neighborhoods. Most of the problems were do the
>fact that crack users could not afford their habit. If cocaine were legal
>it would be dirt cheap and not provoke the robbery, gang warfare, slavery,
>kidnapping, forced prostitution, crack houses, destruction of
>neighborhoods, etc. that it does now. [By the way, it is the brutal police
>raids on "crack houses" that destroys most of the property!]
Crack _is_ dirt cheap. Cocaine may cost hundreds -- crack costs maybe $5
per "rock" (which I think is a single dose -- it may be more).
>
>People who use too much and go "raving paranoid" would be primarily a
>danger only to themselves and those who choose to associate with them.
It's not so neat or so fair as that. What about the unfortunate people
who happen to be on the bus, train, or street, or in the store or post
office or bank, or wherever such people show up and start shooting
everybody in sight? Also, you may underestimate the strength of bonds
of love (familial and romantic), of codependency, even of friendship.
"It's their own fault" is disturbingly easy to say.
Kennita
Kennita Watson | The bond that links your true family is not one of blood,
kwatson@netcom.com| but of respect and joy in each other's life. Rarely do
| members of the same family grow up under the same roof.
| -- Richard Bach, _Illusions_
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