From: Mark Grant (mark@unicorn.com)
Date: Tue Oct 28 1997 - 04:17:27 MST
Wayne Hayes [wayne@cs.toronto.edu] wrote:
>>As the
>>drug trade comes from underground into daylight, violence should
>>decline;
>Again, could you justify this? I can see that as a possibility, but
>I can also see the possibility of turf wars being even more violent
>than they are now.
Frankly, a couple of seconds thought should give you enough proof. When
was the last time you heard of a drive-by shooting by a tobacconist or
liquor store owner? When drugs are legal, drug dealers are too busy
collecting money from their customers to worry about shooting each
other.
Of course there are dangers: there was a drive-by shooting between
alcohol and tobacco smugglers in England earlier this year, as
thanks to the oppressive British taxes they can make tens of thousands
of dollars just by taking a van through the Channel Tunnel and bringing
it back loaded up with cheap alcohol and cigarettes from the
Continent. So legal drugs with high taxes are still a problem; and
as a Canadian I'm sure you're aware of the level of cross-border
smuggling of legal drugs from the US into your country. From what
I hear that's not entirely violence-free either.
First big murder to hit the headlines in England after the handgun ban
happened late one night just outside London; a driver apparently got
annoyed by the car in front and rammed it several times, finally
pushing it across onto the other side of the highway, where it was hit
by a car coming the other way which killed everyone inside. Really lucky
they didn't have handguns, eh?
Mark
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