World Bank Supports Organised Crime (Along With The Cdn Gov And Most Others)

Out of the box: - Out of the box, here, things look a bit differently. Let's just think, for a second - what would happen if opium was legalized - controlled, regulated, whatever, but legalized. Addicts could get it through normal channels, like alcohol or tobacco addicts (or valium addicts for that matter) get theirs. If the addict becomes problematic, in the sense of posing a danger to others, as they occasionally do, we look after them (on Green Island we do a considerably better job of looking after unwell people than you do in Canada, including addicts, but that's another story). And what else happens with legalised opium? Big stuff. We knock the feet right out from both organised and a lot of petty crime. Imagine organised crime with no drug money. Just imagine. Must be about their worst nightmare. And a lot of other people's nightmares too - it is no secret at all that at least the American CIA is heavily involved with drugs and drug running and drug money - just google around a bit. No shit, you would really cut organised crime at least in half, just by legalising opium and marijuana. Which leads to the question of why they don't do it, and that leads to some places most people probably don't want to go. So back in the box they go. In bigger cities like Toronto or Vancouver or Calgary, there is a lot of petty crime carried out by poor, desperate people looking for their next fix - and a lot of prostitution by young women looking for the same fix - and a lot of other crime by the pimps 'looking after' such women. And increasingly the last few years a lot of bullets flying around and innocent people killed by young gangs trying to become dominant in this illegal drugs (and other stuff) business, which, to many of them, is a lot better future than anything else they see. But!! - Legalise the stuff - you take a big chunk out of such petty crime rates, and also remove the incentive for a lot, if not most, of the gang warfare. But (say the doubters) - The addicted people will cost money to be looked after? Uhh-huhh - but a lot less money than the cops and courts and jails and social disruption and bullets flying around randomly currently cost, I'd bet a big chunk of money. How'd you like addict-free (mostly) streets to walk around at night, fewer gangs shooting up each other, fewer prostitute addicts on the seedier corners? At a cheaper cost than we pay now, for illegal opium losers/users addicted to illegal drugs and prostitutes and petty crime everywhere to support illegal habits? Me, I bet a lot of people would like that, and regard the price as cheap too. But for soooommmmmeeee reason - our cops and politicians prefer all that money going to organised crime, and those petty criminals and prostitutes all over the streets, than the obvious and sane solution. Like I said, ya gotta wonder why. You don't suppose that some of that drug money is finding its way into certain pockets who are kind of arranging to make sure the drug money keeps flowing, do ya? Is that really too cynical? Certainly in the box it is, where everyone is expected to believe all our politicians and cops would just never, never NEVER do something so terrible (all available evidence and common sense to the contrary - the box is not a rational place...). Outside the box - well, as the great man said, follow the money and you get to interesting places. And what about in Afghanistan, which this story talks about? If there was legal international opium trade, these farmers would suddenly find themselves owning prosperous farms!! - and the warlords who deal in ILLEGAL opium would suddenly find themselves out of business - boy, wouldn't that just be a terrible thing!! (well, maybe not actually 'suddenly', but it would happen quickly enough, as legal channels don't normally interact with illegal channels - illegal channels are all about huge profits or there's no point in them, and with the profits becoming open and legitimate, there'd just be no place for these illegals - like the organised suppliers for illegal drugs in Toronto or wherever. No market, no customers, no business. No shootemups to control a nonexistant trade. Safer streets. Lots of money freed up for more useful stuff.) And of course with Afghani warlords suddenly defunded, and thus having no overwhelming reason to be competing with guns and killing people for a market that does not exist anymore, things suddenly get more peaceful there, and there's less work for our soldiers to be doing - maybe they could actually start building schools for the farmers' kids rather than destroying valuable commercial crops!! Imagine!! Geezus I better stop I think I'm becoming hallucinatory. What's with the politicians that they refuse to consider this? The excuses about 'increased crime' etc are obvious nonsense, when examined rationally - it's the illegality that encourages all the crime, not the other way around. There is no doubt a certain segment of society that considers opiate use as just 'a sin', and thus is their rationalisation for making it illegal etc - but do we need to encourage all that crime just because some people find the idea of others getting 'high' distasteful or 'sinful'? Do you think that idea would garner majority support in a democratic vote? I kind of doubt it, myself. Odd that we NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER see this stuff talked about rationally in the media. Sorry, I guess I shouldn't exaggerate - I suppose about once a year somebody will be allowed on some obscure part of the news suggesting something like this (only to be rebutted at much greater length, and by friendly interviewers, by Chiefs of Police and Stockwell Day types, and then the whole thing once again confined to the "We are NOT talking about this stuff!!!!' file, along with things like Where DOES the Money that these idiots are playing with COME from???, and no matter how much the media loves the Official Conspiracy Theory of 911, there are a LOT more unanswered questions than there is 'truth' floating around out there about it all, and other stuff like that. Pretty important stuff, really, in terms of 'we the people' running 'our' country. You learn to watch for that, actually, the media are by and large much more interested in Britney's underwear or lack thereof than things like where the money comes from, or why the country is so very NOT democratic. But then, the old master himself said it right out in public, although apparently not that many actually understood (too much tv does that to you) - you dance with the one that brung you. And for the people high up in the media, it wasn't 'we the people' that brung em. It was ..... (g'wan, figure it out yerself...). And so it looks on this morning On Green Island. Truthful here, somewhat less so there. And so it will stay, as long as you let it. (and always more out-of-the-box ideas at On Green Island - http://www.rudemacedon.ca/lgi/ogi-home.html )

Note: www.cbc.ca/world/story/... http://www.rudemacedon....