For years prohibitionists, including our own Drug Enforcement Administration, have claimed — falsely — that the tolerant marijuana policies of the Netherlands have made that nation a nest of crime and drug abuse. They may have trouble wrapping their little brains around this:
The Dutch government is getting ready to close eight prisons because they don’t have enough criminals to fill them. Officials attribute the shortage of prisoners to a declining crime rate.
Just for fun, let’s compare the Netherlands to California. With a population of 16.6 million, the Dutch prison population is about 12,000. With its population of 36.7 million, California should have a bit more than double the Dutch prison population. California’s actual prison population is 171,000.
So, whose drug policies are keeping the streets safer?
SOURCE: MPP BLOG
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It has always amazed me that no one looks at laws as the primary cause of crime, not the natural behavior of people! Pot is the best example; jail time and costly fines are its only hazard. A large portion of antagonistic antisocial behavior is acting out against the oppression of invasive laws. There is no amount of law that will stop the passion of a murderer upon spontaneous arousal.
ReplyDeleteI witnessed the most consistent, fearless eye contact among the women on the streets of Amsterdam of anywhere in the world, precisely because the more just-wanna-fuck oriented population had legal access in the red light district to all the sex their obsession could drool on.
People are much better than the law requires them to be. When the worst behavior is the basis for regulating the entire population, public morality seeks to make sheep of personal ethics.
So there is no "for the good of the people," it's "for the invasive control of the people and profit from the ones who don't like it."