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Me: HT @miyagi ""Drug barons" do not care if their drug mules are hanged or let go after they're caught." (in reference to this post)
A: but they care abt the amt of drugs seized.
Me: This is about the death penalty for drug trafficking, not stepping up efforts to catch them in the first place
A: yea i know. and many ppl are arguing tt the death penalty doesn't deter drug trafficking.. while i'm against the death penalty.. i must still pt out tt drug barons do care abt their mules being caught 'coz it means their drugs are seized.
and some economist should factor in the demand and supply of drug mules, not to mention the cost and effort to recruit and train them.
It's too simplistic to say tt drug barons do not care.
B: they care about their mules being caught, yes, for the reasons you give. But they don't care if the mules are hanged or simply imprisoned after they are caught because it makes no diff to their drugs seized anymore.
Me: If your drug mule goes to prison for 20 years, you still lose him
Hell, if your drug mule goes to prison for 1 year, you also lose him (Would you reuse a drug mule who'd already gotten caught? Would you wait for your drug mule for a year, or just get another fresh-faced one? Drug mules are cheap)
Do you think it's very hard to train a drug mule? The only training I can think of is how to hide the drugs, and that can't take very long.
A: how do you know that drug mules are cheap? have you tried recruiting one before? ask around and see if anyone wants to be a drug mule if not because of extreme conditions (extreme greed, dire circumstances, or low IQ). Takes effort to create/ find such matches.
And why do we like to stereotype drug barons? It's the same type of stereotyping we see for terrorists, sexual minorities, gangsters and hooligans, feminists (in Gabriel's case) tt they are uncaring, self-centered egoistic power-hungry freaks who only care abt themselves.
My pt is not abt the death penalty. It is abt otherising and stereotyping those we deem to be social misfits
Me: >how do you know that drug mules are cheap?
http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=41264
Poverty Provides Growing Number of 'Drug Mules'
"According to the histories of detainees taken by the anti-drug police at the airport, the going rate paid by drug traffickers to couriers who swallow cocaine packets and are sent to Brazil or Argentina is about 1,000 dollars.
If they are sent to the United States, Europe or Asia, where the drugs have higher value, payment can be between 2,000 and 3,000 dollars"
>ask around and see if anyone wants to be a drug mule if not because of extreme conditions (extreme greed, dire circumstances, or low IQ).
That's why most drug mules are poor and from developing countries. I didn't say drug mules were cheap in Singapore. Or even from Developed Countries
>Takes effort to create/ find such matches.
http://www.iss.co.za/pgcontent.php?UID=13845
"Law enforcement agencies across the globe are observing a worrying upward trend of vulnerable persons being recruited as drug mules or couriers into the international drug trade. Regionally this trend has reached epic proportions, with many Africans serving long sentences in prisons across the world. The promise of easy money and a holiday in exotic locations such as Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo, Mumbai or Hong Kong, in exchange for carrying drugs, is hard to resist."
>And why do we like to stereotype drug barons?
Stereotypes persist and endure because they are often true.
http://www.apcj.org/documents/5_2_1%20Dabney.pdf
"In a sample of 100 known drug dealers... drug dealers exhibit lifestyle profiles that differ from those of the normative and other non-criminal samples but approximate those observed in samples of known criminals."
And since when did I say feminists were uncaring, self-centered egoistic power-hungry freaks who only care abt themselves. Just because they're crazy doesn't mean they're those things.
>My pt is not abt the death penalty. It is abt otherising and stereotyping those we deem to be social misfits.
Criminals are usually misfits for a reason.
A: And you've just proven tt death penalty probably makes it more expensive to recruit drug mules. Easy money/ exotic holidays in exchange for long sentences versus death. Long sentences in a prison with meals might not sound tt bad if i don't even have meals now to begin with.
"Using 'mules' is a cheap method for them, because losing half a ton or one ton of cocaine in a big shipment is worse than losing one kilo when a 'mule' is caught"
So wouldn't the elimination of mules allow the focused attention such big shipments?
"Criminals are usually misfits for a reason."
Then why not focus on this 'reason' to eliminate crimes instead of debating the death penalty? Unfortunately, most ppl only want the easy way out. Why do I want to address the root of social ills when I can simply enact a law to criminalize them?
Of coz, some might say tt it's not really tt more expensive since a quick death might not be tt bad compared to a slow starving death.
Oh well. I don't really have answers. All i have are questions.
Me: The death penalty undoubtedly does make mules more expensive to recruit. However, the issue here is whether the expense affects drug barons' operations
The first 4 mule examples I got off Google:
http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Grieving+parents+warn+others+against+being+drug+mule/2947697/story.html
Columbian Cocaine with a street value of $3.5 million. The payment to the mule? $12,000
Even if we assume that the death penalty premium is 100%, that just raises the cost of the shipment by $12,000, which against the street value of the drugs is a paltry 0.34%
http://www.seattlepi.com/local/417840_mule03.html
$2.28 million of Cocaine
http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Crime/2010/02/04/12733076-sun.html
$20.8 million of ecstasy
http://www.usp.com.au/fpss/news-hongkong02.html
$1 million of heroin for a payment of ~$4,000. Again this is 0.4% of the value of the shipment.
>So wouldn't the elimination of mules allow the focused attention such big shipments?
???
The death penalty for drug mules doesn't make drag barons switch to big shipments. It makes them recruit more mules.
>Then why not focus on this 'reason' to eliminate crimes instead of debating the death penalty? Unfortunately, most ppl only want the easy way out. Why do I want to address the root of social ills when I can simply enact a law to criminalize them?
That is a broader public policy question, but how is that relevant here? Why can't we debate the death penalty at the same time as focusing on the root causes of crime? The perfect is the enemy of the good.
And that is not to say that we (either as individuals or as governments) are focusing exclusively on law and order without tackling the reasons why people turn to crime. Education, progressive taxation, social welfare and the creation of jobs all serve to lower the crime rate.
In any case, we will never be able to completely eliminate crime, so there will always be a room for a criminal justice system.
A: crime is only a crime if it's criminalized under existing legal framework. If there's no law, there's no crime. Legalize the drug market then and believe in the invisible hand.
Me: I support decriminalisation of drugs, but that's an entirely separate issue
One can be against the death penalty for drug trafficking and for drug decriminalisation at the same time
A: How can they be entirely separate issues? With or without a death penalty, as long as you're advocating some forms of penalty for drug trafficking, decriminalization of drugs cannot take place. Any compromise is against decriminalization.
Unless of course you are against death penalty AND all other penalties for drug trafficking.
Me: The world is more complicated than that.
Just because you're against the death penalty for drug trafficking does not mean you are for a penalty for drug trafficking.
Operationally, you can even advocate some penalties for drug trafficking as a second-best compromise to decriminalisation (the need for popular support and all that), or as an interim step towards decriminalisation.
An example of the latter is the reduction of the term of National Slavery from 30 months to 24 months - it was done in stages, with a reduction first to 28 months and then to 26 months.
One could have supported the reduction in the term of Slavery to 24 months while still pushing for this transition period.
Another example is gay marriage in the US. Most Americans oppose gay marriage but are for allowing civil unions. Even if I support gay marriage, I can operationally campaign only for civil unions, since I recognise that an overly aggressive push on my part will lead to a backlash and gay marriage being outlawed (as has happened in many states).
I also note that drug decriminalisation as it is practised today is not the same as drug legalisation. Decriminalisation is typically for small amounts of drugs, and is a grey zone - you're not doing something legal, you just won't be punished (or at least not too much). Penalties typically range from confiscation of the drugs to a fine IIRC.
A: Pragmatic. But it leads to a crass kind of pluralism. What works for you may not work for others.
My concern is whether half truths can still be considered truths. And we've reached a quandary
Me: You don't have to consider something to be a total truth in order to work towards it
A: Of course you can. But there are ethical concerns. What if it turns out to be untruth? Do I not have some moral obligations?
Me: Now we move into the realm of philosophy
If you are a consequentialist, your moral obligation will be to do what leads to the best outcome.
Addendum: I would also note that when you work towards a goal, you do not have to claim that it is an ideal. So just because you're campaigning against the death penalty for drug trafficking does not mean that you're telling people that you're only against the death penalty for drug trafficking (i.e. that you support other penalties for drug trafficking).