TS> At least 50% of current murders include demographics that appear
 TS> related to drug Prohibition.  Now, is it more 
 TS> useful for politicians to
 PN>  Is there a good cite for this?
That's a rational extrapolation by me based on a number of government reports
on crime and arrest reports by police and other law enforcement, prison
populations, and drug studies.  If you've ever studied the way FBI/NCIC 
releases
its primary crime reporting, you'll notice they play some fast and loose 
ames
mixing and matching raw numbers and percentages, as well as demographic and
crime definitions, such that it's not easy to make side by side comparisons 
f
many categories without attempting to do a bit of algebraic translation to 
avoid
the apples and oranges type problems.  
In rough numbers, we've gone from decades of 7-9,000 murders to nearly a 
decade
of 20-30,000 murders over the past 3 decades or so.  Of those, about half are
now reported as done by older youth and young adult black males, primarily in
urban areas often officially designated as high intensity drug zones.  
Obviously
not all of those are Prohibition-II related, while some other ethnicities are
clearly involved in black market competition as well as crime related to
supporting street costs inflated about 20,000 percent by Prohibtion-II.  
We have a reported 30-35 % of prison system populations convicted of
non-violent drug related offenses only, and some further percentages for drug
violations including violence, but without distinction as to whether such
violence is related to black market support laws based business, support of
habits at obscenely inflated prices, or side effects of medical addiction
problems.  Also not reported distinctively are arrests over spiritual 
practices
in theory protected by our 1st Amendment, or medical uses whether pain 
control,
prevention of premature blindness, nausea control of MS, AIDS, chemotherapy, 
or
the drugs to treat them, or many other such areas where it's none of our
government's business how we address serious personal and medical needs.  
It was early 70's when Rockefeller, from the family that believes all
governments and peoples should be manipulated by world economic elite 
(including
as that affects 1st, 2nd, 4th Am et al rights), managed to start in NY state 
the
craze of insane Prohibition-II laws.  That's in the early end of the window 
over
which murder rates tripled.  
From there it takes a mix of assumptions as to relationships among stat's not
directly cross corrolated as published or recorded to get to an assumption 
that
about 3/4ths of new murders represents the pre-intensified Prohibition plus 
new
directly Prohibition related amount.  Some of that is based on social 
hypothesis
supported by testing against specific stats on drug use, crime, or prison
systems, which I've tested for a number of years without thinking this would
become a serious enough government problem to keep notes over the time period
I've been testing such hypotheses as I try to run across stats in the course 
of
other study.  With a little grant to justify the work of creating publication
ready form, as such number crunching makes for boring books that sell few
copies, I'm certain one could show 45% of murders are Prohibition-II related,
while I'd guess 60%+ as a possible high limit could also be documented as the
other end of the possible range, depending on how ambiguous areas of stats 
re
rounded, based on the number crunching I've done for several years this 
decade,
most of which have stable general crime patterns.  That points toward low 
0's
percentages of murders as caused by drug Prohibition based on assuming a low
average within the range.  
There are some arguable credibility issues with such calculations, based on
less than perfectly clear comparitive data and definitions of reporting 
groups. 
There's also been a stable general pattern over more than a few years, which
adds to the reliability of that mix of verifiable data and social study
assumption based hypothesis testing of indirect data.  As such, taking the 
time
to formalize presentation of such numbers and clearly state conditions 
attached
to them if done as honestly as possible, which not all researchers do, would
reveal areas where reporting would have to be more detailed to avoid some
uncertainty.  Assuming my informally tested error range can be upheld, a 20%
range around 50% is a lot more precise than stat's like self defense firearms
use, as well as being small enough alongside a 200% murder increase to stay
meaningful.  
 TS> Address the underlying problem, laws making 
 TS> nonviolent consensual use
 TS> of drugs people use regardless of laws criminal, 
 TS> and the symptoms of a
 TS> black market and related feuds loses its economic motivation faster
 TS> than anything else that legislatures or Congress could try.  
 PN>  Well, so far in all of recorded history, prohibition has been a
 PN>  failure.  But heck, maybe this time...
The alternate reality is that Prohibition-II has been an overwhelming 
success. 
Since that 20,000% typical product markup wouldn't be possible to sustain
without the laws, it helps an entire drug industry.  Since that's only about 
5%
of cash flow related to Prohibition drugs.  Think any lawyers who are
legislators consider firm income when voting, or any cops know that their
several officers would get laid off in some departments if they stopped 
stealing
assets without court orders?  
If politicians found social or economic problems they could fix in short 
rder
within Constitutional powers limits, what would they use for issues next
election?  By creating a paper tiger of an unwinnable war, they almost 
guarantee
a problem which scares many people that they can attack with promised 
programs,
and still have the same issue to rearrange for next election.  Besides, look 
at
the fringe benefits of attacking firearms and all sorts of other peripheral
issues that would become moot with an end to Prohibition-II, just as they did
after the 21st Amendment through 1968.  
There's even money to be made pitching programs to increase demand for drugs 
to
kids in schools, as D.A.R.E. has been shown to cause.  That has an element 
that
indoctrinates kids that all handguns are used primarily by criminals, who are
also selling illegal drugs.  The firearms rights misrepresentations in DARE 
are
worse than the spiritual and other protected drug usage lies.  
Terry
--- Maximus 2.01wb
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