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Activist Groups Call for End to War on Drugs
(continued - part 2) There are only three ways most drug addicts can afford to pay the high prices of illegal drugs: 1. You can sell your body. The major cause of prostitution -- male and female, teenage and adult -- is drug addiction. 2. You can steal from others. When I debated County Supervisor George Bailey on the Roger Hedgecock radio show (about the jail sales tax), Mr. Bailey insisted that the county’s studies found that 80% of all property crime (mugging, robbery, burglary and car theft) in San Diego is committed by drug addicts trying to get money for drugs. The lowest figure mentioned by law enforcement agencies is 40%, and 60% is normal for urban areas. 3. This third method is perhaps the most harmful of all -- become a member of a perverse version of a multilevel drug marketing system. Become a dealer, sell to your friends and expand the drug problem. We should end this madness. Let's legalize drugs and eliminate such problems. We will still have the very real medical and social problem of drug abuse. Utopia is not an option. But look at the benefits of drug legalization: 1. Drastically reduce property crime (burglaries, auto thefts, muggings and commercial robberies). Estimates start at 40%. 2. Greatly reduce the corruption of our law enforcement people. 3. Relieve our overburdened court system. 4. Relieve the overcrowding in our jails. Our country now provides the highest per capita incarceration of any country in the world, passing the 2,000,000 prisoner level in early 2000. And California has the highest per capita incarceration rate of any state (plus by far the highest annual prisoner cost of any state). 5. End the routine drug shootings of dealers and bystanders over turf wars and drug deal rip-offs. You don't see 7-11 owners shooting it out with AM/PM shareholders over who gets to sell alcohol at an intersection. 6. Destroy the multilevel marketing scheme that fills our schools and playgrounds with children selling drugs. 7. Destroy the power of the hoodlum gangs and drug lords. 8. Reduce the desperate acts of prostitution to acquire overpriced drugs. 9. Greatly reduce the overdoses from ingesting unknown purities cut with unknown materials. An estimated 80% of the nation’s 3,500 annual illegal drug “overdose” deaths are caused by these two factors. 10. Reduce the spread of AIDS and other diseases from sharing scarce prohibited needles. (continued)— June 22, 2011 4:46 p.m.
Activist Groups Call for End to War on Drugs
Richard Rider's Thoughts on Drug Legalization Revised 12/1/2009 Some people feel that the solution to the drug problem is to become like Iran and other totalitarian countries -- crack down hard on drugs (and porn and deviant sex habits and on and on). Institute a death penalty for users and sellers, and repeal the Bill of Rights where drug violations might be involved. Perhaps they are partially right -- kill a few hundred thousand people, institute a police state, and perhaps we can significantly reduce drug use in our society. But the country will not be the America that our Founding Fathers envisioned in 1776. Furthermore, I doubt that we can put the genie back in the bottle -- drugs are here as we have far too many users out there already. Malaysia has the drug death penalty and still has over 300,000 addicts getting their product. After all, if we can't keep drugs out of our prisons, how do we ever plan to keep drugs out of the whole country? But even if it would work, I would oppose such an approach. To paraphrase Ben Franklin, those who are willing to sacrifice freedom for security will end up with neither. As a parent of boys who grew up in today’s society, I had the same concerns that all thinking parents have for their children and the temptation of drugs. I know that my children have been approached by drug dealers in school. But I also know that no one sidled up to my kids and tried to get them to buy a pack of Marlboros, or a fifth of Jack Daniels. Why? Because there is no excess profit in dealing in legal drugs, even though they are illegal for minors to use. The key to understanding the drug problem is to realize that the huge profits (a 12,000% markup in cocaine, for example) are the direct result of prohibition. Most of the problems we ascribe to the “drug problem" are really the problem of drug prohibition. A $1 a day drug habit becomes under prohibition a $100 a day habit, and crime will inevitably result on both the buyers' and sellers' part. (continued)— June 22, 2011 4:45 p.m.
San Diego’s pension fund expects to earn 7.75 percent a year
Know what this public safety employee's definition is for "no community respect"? "You sucker taxpayers don't want to pay me a six figure wage and pension, with retirement as early as age 50." Personally, I LOVE my firefighters, but I could love them just as much for half the pay and a third the pension. It's a blue collar job that does not merit such opulent compensation. After all, 72% of the ff's in America are VOLUNTEERS. And don't stop with the ff's and police. Our retired San Diego city head librarian has a $227,000 pension -- not counting the half million or more in her city 401k plan (the SPSP plan). A retired 30 year 4 star general or admiral with 100 times the responsibility and a far more arduous career receives a $140K pension. This is absurd.— October 13, 2010 2:02 p.m.
Prop R, for Rewards at Southwestern College
This is an EXCELLENT story. Well done! One aspect puzzles me -- how can a charitable foundation (presumably a 501(c)3 charity) give money to help pass a school bond? That's politics, and contributions for political causes are not deductible. Surely this can't be right. Even Larry Remer would not make this "error." Perhaps the foundation does not take deductible contributions -- perhaps it's not a charitable foundation (it IS possible). Can someone explain this?— September 15, 2010 1:42 p.m.
Consultants Deliver What Those Paying the Bills Want
Why has the U-T and the rest of the media not done this perfunctory background check into the (TOTAL lack of) objectivity of the Petco consultant? Could it be that (as one survey indicated) 40% of newspaper readers buy a paper for the sports section? And by far the most important part of the sports section is pro sports? And by far the most important interest in pro sports is the LOCAL pro team? Naaaahhhhhh. Silly me.— July 16, 2010 8:49 a.m.
U-T Doesn't Identify Paid Consultant
This is a bogus study, from a group that quite likely is PAID to provide bogus studies. If I get the time, I'll later run through some of the fatuous assumptions they used to reach their fatuous conclusions. This preordained result "consulting" is standard practice in politics. We've seen this with compromised actuaries providing skewed data to help approve unsustainable pension plans, or consultants justifying tax increases. Every stadium subsidy ever passed (or put before the voters) includes one of these ersatz studies as proof of the viability of the project. In the private sector, companies hire research consultants to give their best, honest analysis of past performance and future probabilities. Businesses do not profit from bad advice. In the PUBLIC sector, such consultants are hired to provide the answers desired -- the patina of respectability needed to go forward with unwise financial decisions. The consultants hired by government understand this. These are hired guns. If they come out with findings that are at variance with the desired results, they likely will never receive another government "consulting" contract. It would be interesting for this consulting firm to make public their studies that concluded that pro sports subsidies are a bad idea. Likely as not, no such studies exist from this consultant.— July 15, 2010 9:31 a.m.
San Diego’s chronic structural budget deficit affliction
I almost hope we DO put tax increases before the voters. I LOVE a good old fashioned massacre! At the polls, that is. San Diego voters KNOW what the problem is -- our overly generous pay and insane benefits for our city employees. As it now stands, our city public employee pay, pensions and "free" retire health care consume WELL over 80% of the city budget, and will get MUCH worse next year. All other city expenses and inefficiencies pale in comparison with this issue. Until our city worker over-compensation problem is truly fixed, tax increases are DOA. Thank goodness!— April 14, 2010 4:15 p.m.
Scholar Says He Is "Misrepresented" in Convention Task Force Report
The convention center expansion PROCESS is designed to provide the desired outcome with as little dissent as possible. Such is the nature of these "task force" oddities in San Diego. We had such a "task force" for the downtown ballpark where almost EVERY MEMBER of the the appointed group were Padre SEASON TICKET HOLDERS! Whatever the merits of such projects are, the task force conclusions cannot in any way be relied upon as meaningful vetting of these issues. In order to fund this convention center expansion, bonds will have to be issued. You'd THINK that both the state constitution and our city charter requires a vote of the public. Sadly, the courts have backed government slight-of-hand maneuvers that bypass any such stinkin' vote.— August 29, 2009 6:47 p.m.
Bruce Henderson: no room for a Chargers stadium downtown
Excellent column, Don. The Establishment's fixation on all things downtown results in neglect for the rest of the city -- you know, where everybody actually LIVES.— July 11, 2009 8:08 a.m.
Pro-football pushing San Diego closer to bankruptcy
Prop 13 is not the problem. We are collecting more property tax REVENUE today than we did in 1977, the year PRIOR to Prop 13 (when property taxes were sky high and driving the initiative). Even after adjusting for inflation and population growth, we are collecting more property tax revenue today than in 1977. For the county, in the last eight years (INCLUDING this abysmal fiscal year through 30 June, 2009), property tax revenues have doubled. DOUBLED! And even this year, the Assessor projects that the revenue will rise 2%. This is the unappreciated "smoothing" effect of the Prop 13 formula. Doubling property tax revenues in eight years is about three times the rate of inflation. During that time, our population has been essentially stagnant. I know it's popular to blame every government shortcoming on Prop 13, but it's simply not true.— January 1, 2009 1:36 p.m.