Interesting discussion between Bill, Margaret Hoover, and Gretchen Carlson about legalizing drugs on Bill O’Reilly last night. Interestingly Bill seems to be softening his typical hardline approach. Me thinks maybe he and John Stossel have been talking backstage…
Margaret Hoover said something like “If you legalize it then crime will move in. Crime controls vice the world over. Just look at what’s happened in Amsterdam and The Netherlands.”
If we had lower crime rates than Amsterdam and The Netherlands I might agree with that part of her argument, but… Per capita we in the U.S. have 2 times as many auto thefts, 12 times as many drug offenses, 5 times as many murders (we have 3.5 times as many if you eliminate those in the U.S. committed with a gun), 4 times as many assaults, 3 times as many rapes, and 1.5 times as many robberies. The only crime that they have more of is petty theft.
By most measures we have 2 to 3 times the per capita drug users as The Netherlands. As just one example, twice as many of our teens smoke pot as theirs. And who controls this much larger drug industry in the U.S.? Organized crime. In The Netherlands approximately 50% of the industry is through the semi-legal coffeeshops. We not only have a much larger industry but more of ours is controlled by criminal organizations as theirs.
OK, so much for Margaret Hoover.
Gretchen Carlson said “what do we tell our kids? Telling them that drugs are illegal is the best thing we have to hang our hats on. If it’s legal then what do we tell them?”
Here is an even bigger argument for ending our war on drugs. Telling our kids to not do drugs just because they are illegal is the absolute worst reason. The average teen in the U.S. is already so accustomed to breaking laws (mostly by drinking alcohol) that this is meaningless to them. “So what” they think.
What Gretchen needs to tell her kids is that doing drugs is stupid! There is nothing better to hang our hats on than that.
Showing posts with label Bill O'Reilly. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bill O'Reilly. Show all posts
Friday, October 23, 2009
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Dissapointment in John Stossel
It was great to see John Stossel on Bill O’Reilly tonight. I’m not sure if John was completely unprepared or if he was intentionally deferring a bit to Bill in his first appearance on his new network… In any case, he was weak. And even admitted it.
In their discussion on legalizing drugs O’Reilly used as his primary argument the harm that drugs do and several times used as an argument that people buy pot legally in California medicinal clinics and sell it to school kids in order to buy their own hard drugs. And THAT is why we need to continue our war on drugs.
Let’s consider… With our current 40 to 50 year old war on drugs we have a worse drug problem than any country in Europe. Our war is doing absolutely nothing to stem to flow of drugs in to the U.S. nor to reduce the abuse of drugs. Our war though is leading to hundreds of innocent deaths every year such as the recent killing of Jonathan Ayers. By most estimates over 90% of corruption in our law enforcement community is related to vice prohibition laws (drugs, prostitution, gambling, and underage alcohol). Generals in Afghanistan and Iraq have estimated that over 60% of funding for the Taliban and al Qaeda has come from illicit drug sales, mostly to the U.S.
Perhaps more damning is that it’s easier for high school folk in the U.S. to obtain drugs than it is for them in countries such as The Netherlands, Germany, and Switzerland who are taking a much different approach. About twice as many of our high school students smoke pot as do those in Amsterdam!
I’m looking forward to seeing this debate again with a much better prepared Stossel.
In their discussion on legalizing drugs O’Reilly used as his primary argument the harm that drugs do and several times used as an argument that people buy pot legally in California medicinal clinics and sell it to school kids in order to buy their own hard drugs. And THAT is why we need to continue our war on drugs.
Let’s consider… With our current 40 to 50 year old war on drugs we have a worse drug problem than any country in Europe. Our war is doing absolutely nothing to stem to flow of drugs in to the U.S. nor to reduce the abuse of drugs. Our war though is leading to hundreds of innocent deaths every year such as the recent killing of Jonathan Ayers. By most estimates over 90% of corruption in our law enforcement community is related to vice prohibition laws (drugs, prostitution, gambling, and underage alcohol). Generals in Afghanistan and Iraq have estimated that over 60% of funding for the Taliban and al Qaeda has come from illicit drug sales, mostly to the U.S.
Perhaps more damning is that it’s easier for high school folk in the U.S. to obtain drugs than it is for them in countries such as The Netherlands, Germany, and Switzerland who are taking a much different approach. About twice as many of our high school students smoke pot as do those in Amsterdam!
I’m looking forward to seeing this debate again with a much better prepared Stossel.
Tuesday, December 9, 2008
Bill O'Reilly's Prostitutes
“Amsterdam is a disaster.” Bill O’Reilly said on his show last night, “And they’ve finally realized it.” O’ Reilly pontificated about Amsterdam finally realizing what a failure their city policies are and are finally doing something about it.
O’Reilly promoted an impression that crime and social problems are soaring in Amsterdam, that the city now realizes it, and is closing all of it’s prostitution and coffeeshops. He also made mention of the apparent failure of their safe sex programs for teens.
Well, that’s not exactly accurate. Not even remotely close. Bill must be learning journalism and honesty from his friend Geraldo.
Let’s make sure we all understand exactly what Amsterdam is doing. They plan to close approximately 30% of the prostitute windows in the city center area and 22% of the over 200 coffeeshops. The bulk of these are in the relatively unknown areas of The Singel and Pijp. While they are closing some windows along the perimeters of the more famous Walletjes RLD the city said that they plan to leave at least 200 windows and very specifically said that they do not want to close any more as they believe that a legal industry is better for everyone than an illegal underground industry under prohibition. In total the plan represents about a 4% overall reduction of prostitution locales in the Amsterdam area (windows make up less than 15% of legal prostitution in Amsterdam) though likely no reduction in activity as many of the displaced prostitutes are expected to move elsewhere and continue working. This move by the city is aimed more at simply reducing visibility.
Now, back to Amsterdam realizing how screwed up they are.
As we’ve already discussed, Amsterdam appears, from every report published, to have significantly less human trafficking and underage prostitution than the US. The Netherlands has 1/5 the teen pregnancy rate of the US (34/100k in NL vs. 176/100k in the US) and also has about 1/3 the per capita abortion rate. The US has about 2 to 3 times the incidences of AID’s as The Netherlands and over twice the incidences of other STD’s. (I believe in abstinence until marriage, but the results of safe sex programs in The Netherlands and elsewhere cannot be ignored.)
We also know that about 50% more kids smoke pot in the US than in The Netherlands. Adult use of pot in the US is higher by an even greater margin.
As O’Reilly pointed out the government says that one reason for taking these measures is to cut down on crime. Let’s get some perspective on this. ALL of the following is based on per capita rates per 100k population as per the World Bank and US Justice Dept. The Netherlands has less than half the theft rate of the US and 15% less fraud. The US has 12 times (yes, twelve) the arrest rate for drug offenses as The Netherlands. The US has 3 times as many murders and 4 times as many assaults, most of these related to our war on drugs that doesn’t exist in The Netherlands. (And these don't include numerous deaths and assaults such as Tarika Wilson.) The Netherlands has 20% fewer robberies. The US prison population is 9 times that of The Netherlands. And The Netherlands has 32% fewer law enforcement personnel than the US. If the FBI, border patrol, state SBI’s are included they have 69% less and if military personnel used for drug interdiction are included they have 82% fewer.
Organized crime is very difficult to measure but according to what I’ve been able to quickly pull together it appears that the US has about 2 - 3 times as much organized crime as The Netherlands. More research is needed on this one though.
What O’Reilly also didn’t mention is that this past summer when Conservatives in the national government were looking at a law to close all prostitution and coffeeshops throughout the country that over 85% of the mayors, including Amsterdam, Maastricht, and all other major cities, very strongly protested this effort saying that this would increase crime and other problems. And many of these mayors are Conservatives. Nor did he mention that they also hope to close over 50% of the mini-marts and souvenir shops.
The ignorance of O’Reilly and his guests on this issue is a new level for him.
An accurate statement is that Amsterdam is very slightly tweaking their already successful prostitution and drug policy in hopes that they can further reduce crime (that overall is already about 1/6 that of the US crime rate) without increasing social problems (that are overall about 1/3 that of the US).
O’Reilly promoted an impression that crime and social problems are soaring in Amsterdam, that the city now realizes it, and is closing all of it’s prostitution and coffeeshops. He also made mention of the apparent failure of their safe sex programs for teens.
Well, that’s not exactly accurate. Not even remotely close. Bill must be learning journalism and honesty from his friend Geraldo.
Let’s make sure we all understand exactly what Amsterdam is doing. They plan to close approximately 30% of the prostitute windows in the city center area and 22% of the over 200 coffeeshops. The bulk of these are in the relatively unknown areas of The Singel and Pijp. While they are closing some windows along the perimeters of the more famous Walletjes RLD the city said that they plan to leave at least 200 windows and very specifically said that they do not want to close any more as they believe that a legal industry is better for everyone than an illegal underground industry under prohibition. In total the plan represents about a 4% overall reduction of prostitution locales in the Amsterdam area (windows make up less than 15% of legal prostitution in Amsterdam) though likely no reduction in activity as many of the displaced prostitutes are expected to move elsewhere and continue working. This move by the city is aimed more at simply reducing visibility.
Now, back to Amsterdam realizing how screwed up they are.
As we’ve already discussed, Amsterdam appears, from every report published, to have significantly less human trafficking and underage prostitution than the US. The Netherlands has 1/5 the teen pregnancy rate of the US (34/100k in NL vs. 176/100k in the US) and also has about 1/3 the per capita abortion rate. The US has about 2 to 3 times the incidences of AID’s as The Netherlands and over twice the incidences of other STD’s. (I believe in abstinence until marriage, but the results of safe sex programs in The Netherlands and elsewhere cannot be ignored.)
We also know that about 50% more kids smoke pot in the US than in The Netherlands. Adult use of pot in the US is higher by an even greater margin.
As O’Reilly pointed out the government says that one reason for taking these measures is to cut down on crime. Let’s get some perspective on this. ALL of the following is based on per capita rates per 100k population as per the World Bank and US Justice Dept. The Netherlands has less than half the theft rate of the US and 15% less fraud. The US has 12 times (yes, twelve) the arrest rate for drug offenses as The Netherlands. The US has 3 times as many murders and 4 times as many assaults, most of these related to our war on drugs that doesn’t exist in The Netherlands. (And these don't include numerous deaths and assaults such as Tarika Wilson.) The Netherlands has 20% fewer robberies. The US prison population is 9 times that of The Netherlands. And The Netherlands has 32% fewer law enforcement personnel than the US. If the FBI, border patrol, state SBI’s are included they have 69% less and if military personnel used for drug interdiction are included they have 82% fewer.
Organized crime is very difficult to measure but according to what I’ve been able to quickly pull together it appears that the US has about 2 - 3 times as much organized crime as The Netherlands. More research is needed on this one though.
What O’Reilly also didn’t mention is that this past summer when Conservatives in the national government were looking at a law to close all prostitution and coffeeshops throughout the country that over 85% of the mayors, including Amsterdam, Maastricht, and all other major cities, very strongly protested this effort saying that this would increase crime and other problems. And many of these mayors are Conservatives. Nor did he mention that they also hope to close over 50% of the mini-marts and souvenir shops.
The ignorance of O’Reilly and his guests on this issue is a new level for him.
An accurate statement is that Amsterdam is very slightly tweaking their already successful prostitution and drug policy in hopes that they can further reduce crime (that overall is already about 1/6 that of the US crime rate) without increasing social problems (that are overall about 1/3 that of the US).
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