Is it left wing to tolerate crack dealers?

[Blagsta]

There's a lot of bollocks on this thread. From all sides.

 

[likesfish]

well waiting around for social change is not going to get the dealers off the street.
somebody floggin a bit of puff now and again isn't really going to impact on me and mine.
but if I could'nt walk down my street because I was trespassing on some scums
turf and the police refused or were unable to deal with the problem.
then all bets are off why should my poor neighbourhood tolerate violent dealers and there desperate customers.
then can all go hang round teejays for all I care worked in paulsgrove

 

[Blagsta]

I'd bet that some of the desperate customers are from your neighbourhood. As are the dealers. Ignoring and not understanding the social and economic factors involved in drug use, abuse and dealing is really quite short sighted.

 

[likesfish]

not bothered about that
want to be able to walk my own street in safety if the police won't do there job then me and my mates will
not argueing that its a permanant solution or its a paticular fair solution.
But its a solution to a specfic problem i.e. crack dealer intimidating the local residents.
don't care where ho goes as long as he goes if the local junkies are a menace make it quite clear by "rough music"
time to sling there hook.
if your suck an git that your neighbours are prepared to gang up to get rid of you its your own behavior thats at fault go deal on a barret estate instead.

 

[kyser_soze]

go deal on a barret estate instead.

Ahh, so basically you're a NIMBY at heart then?

 

[Monkeygrinder's Organ]

not bothered about that
want to be able to walk my own street in safety if the police won't do there job then me and my mates will
not argueing that its a permanant solution or its a paticular fair solution.
But its a solution to a specfic problem i.e. crack dealer intimidating the local residents.
don't care where ho goes as long as he goes if the local junkies are a menace make it quite clear by "rough music"
time to sling there hook.
if your suck an git that your neighbours are prepared to gang up to get rid of you its your own behavior thats at fault go deal on a barret estate instead.

You think you and your mates can deal with a load of crack dealers? Up for getting shot in the cause?

 

[likesfish]

as far as crack dealers concern not in anyones back yard but if they have to exsist why not on a nice excutive estate with plenty of parking space for there pimped SUV

 

[Blagsta]

not bothered about that
want to be able to walk my own street in safety if the police won't do there job then me and my mates will
not argueing that its a permanant solution or its a paticular fair solution.
But its a solution to a specfic problem i.e. crack dealer intimidating the local residents.
don't care where ho goes as long as he goes if the local junkies are a menace make it quite clear by "rough music"
time to sling there hook.
if your suck an git that your neighbours are prepared to gang up to get rid of you its your own behavior thats at fault go deal on a barret estate instead.

so you're not bothered about people who've had a rough deal from this society and have turned to drugs as a way of coping? Well whatever your politics are, I don't want anything to do with them. They're as alienating to me as Thatcherism.

 

[Blagsta]

as far as crack dealers concern not in anyones back yard but if they have to exsist why not on a nice excutive estate with plenty of parking space for there pimped SUV

not that connected with reality are you?

 

[Sue]

Think the point likefish is trying to make (tell me if I'm wrong... ) is that it's very easy to be all understanding about the causes of dealing and everything else as long as it's some other poor sod who has to put up with the consequences.

Someone or other mentioned up thread living in the same street as a crackhouse for eight months until the police closed it down. Now imagine you live in the same street as a crackhouse and have done for a long while, the police aren't interested in closing it down (it's contained after all and the dealers give them information or whatever other crappy reason they trot out) and you don't have the option to move. Tell me you'd still feel so concerned about people being mean to the crack dealers then...

 

[butchersapron]

There's two things here really - the wider question, and the immediate problem. Things that deal with the first don't really deal with the second. And the first must get dealt with as a priority to sort out the longer term issues - and they'll only get sorted if communities can see that the two are connected, which involves making real progress on their immediate needs and their direct involvement and input in the issue. And that means communities developing policies based on their own self-identified needs, not those of the police or the state. There's no shortcut. It may not be 'nice', but it's the shitty situation we've been put in as part of deliberate national and local state policy.

 

[bristol_citizen]

There's two things here really - the wider question, and the immediate problem. Things that deal with the first don't really deal with the second. And the first must get dealt with as a priority to sort out the longer term issues - and they'll only get sorted if communities can see that the two are connected, which involves making real progress on their immediate needs and their direct involvement and input in the issue. And that means communities developing policies based on their own self-identified needs, not those of the police or the state. There's no shortcut. It may not be 'nice', but it's the shitty situation we've been put in as part of deliberate national and local state policy.

Exactly, the current situation with drugs, dealers &c is not the result of a series of random, uncontrollable events or some kind of accident (even if that's how it's presented). It is the result of a deliberate policy over which nobody - except a few senior cops - has any control.
Before you start to look at tolerance and regulation, you first need to control the current policy.

 

[Blagsta]

Think the point likefish is trying to make (tell me if I'm wrong... ) is that it's very easy to be all understanding about the causes of dealing and everything else as long as it's some other poor sod who has to put up with the consequences.

Someone or other mentioned up thread living in the same street as a crackhouse for eight months until the police closed it down. Now imagine you live in the same street as a crackhouse and have done for a long while, the police aren't interested in closing it down (it's contained after all and the dealers give them information or whatever other crappy reason they trot out) and you don't have the option to move. Tell me you'd still feel so concerned about people being mean to the crack dealers then...

However, deciding that crack users and dealers are all scum who need to be washed off our streets in some kind of Travis Bickle type scenario just leads to unhelpful attititudes and lack of empathy and understanding. Drug users are often desperately damaged people who need help not dismissing as "scum".

 

[Blagsta]

There's two things here really - the wider question, and the immediate problem. Things that deal with the first don't really deal with the second. And the first must get dealt with as a priority to sort out the longer term issues - and they'll only get sorted if communities can see that the two are connected, which involves making real progress on their immediate needs and their direct involvement and input in the issue. And that means communities developing policies based on their own self-identified needs, not those of the police or the state. There's no shortcut. It may not be 'nice', but it's the shitty situation we've been put in as part of deliberate national and local state policy.

I agree, but identifying all users and dealers as "scum" is not the way to go.

 

[Sue]

However, deciding that crack users and dealers are all scum who need to be washed off our streets in some kind of Travis Bickle type scenario just leads to unhelpful attititudes and lack of empathy and understanding. Drug users are often desperately damaged people who need help not dismissing as "scum".

Erm...didn't dismiss anyone as scum. And of course I agree users should be given help and support and everything else. But at the same point there has to be a realisation that what some people have to put up with from crack dealers is completely unacceptable and needs to be tackled as a matter of priority.

 

[likesfish]

Expecting a community to tolerate the antics of dealers and there customers because there "damaged and need care and support " is frankly condesending middle class bollocks.
crack addicts are people I'll grant you that, but while there addicted to crack you can't expect them to behave in any resonable manner to anyone who isn't giving them money or drugs and even then thats not a given. Thats an addict there just a human black hole constantly on the take with absolutley no concept of consequences.
A crack dealer is scum he made a choice to sell crack fuck him

 

[William of Walworth]

Expecting a community to tolerate the antics of dealers and there customers because there "damaged and need care and support " is frankly condesending middle class bollocks.

That almost no-one, except in the ridiculous fantasy-minds of kneejerk 'liberal' haters, has ever in real life advocated.

Will catch up with this thread properly later -- was last on a few pages ago -- but I'm fucked off to the back teeth with this fantasy-notion that there is ANYONE (sane) actively advocating toleration (or even, in the 'mind' of posterseveralnumbers, encouragement x 1000 ) of antisocial criminal drugdealing on the grounds that said crims 'have troubled backgrounds' or whatever.

Have any of you anywhere, honestly met, in real life, a single person who advocates that criminal crack dealers should be left alone? HONESTLY, now? Of course you haven't.

Some elements of the 'left' are almost as reactionary as Littlejohnesque Daily Mail headlines, with their ridiculous smears about 'middle class liberals' caring more about the criminals than about their victims .... often because some people want to concentrate on what, in pragmatic reality, may work -- how to attack causes of as well as (NOT instead of ) symptoms of crime, etc.

This style of 'middle class "liberals" are all soft on criminals' thinking is pure and utter pernicious bollocks. One of the worst lying legacies of a certain former/banned poster's LIES about 'Guardian reading Urbanite liberals' being 'soft' on law and order/crime and punishment related issues -- reactionary, needlessly polarising rubbish.

And I live on a fucking council estate, before you all start.

 

[likesfish]

apart from blagsta that is

 

[butchersapron]

I agree, but identifying all users and dealers as "scum" is not the way to go.

I agree, it's potentially counterproductive (and i guess that i should have read the whole thread first, as my comments seem as if they're replying to other points raised rather than trying to just clear some starting ground).

 

[William of Walworth]

apart from blagsta that is

I suggest you listen properly to what he may have to say (will check for his posts earlier in this thread soon).

He has plenty of (professional) knowledge generally, about drugs and why people take them and about all the crime/criminals and violence and antisocial stuff associated.

Write him off as a middle class soft on crime type at your peril, if you want constructive, workable solutions.

 

[poster342002]

.

 

[likesfish]

The war on drugs has failed totally but nobody inpower wants to admit this.
rehab usually take about on average 3 or 4 attempts before it works but funding allows one shot .
the drug treatment orders can be really effective if the addict was at the stage contemplation stage otherwise there probably a waste of time.

 

[Jo/Joe]

Hmm, there are more than two sides here. Mindless tolerance and vigilantism aren't the only options, they're just the polar extremes. I'd have thought that it was obvious that causes should be addressed over the long term, whilst preventing the harm to other members of society took place in the short term.

 

[Blagsta]

Erm...didn't dismiss anyone as scum. And of course I agree users should be given help and support and everything else. But at the same point there has to be a realisation that what some people have to put up with from crack dealers is completely unacceptable and needs to be tackled as a matter of priority.

no, you may not have referred to anyone as scum, but others on here have

 

[Blagsta]

Expecting a community to tolerate the antics of dealers and there customers because there "damaged and need care and support " is frankly condesending middle class bollocks.
crack addicts are people I'll grant you that, but while there addicted to crack you can't expect them to behave in any resonable manner to anyone who isn't giving them money or drugs and even then thats not a given. Thats an addict there just a human black hole constantly on the take with absolutley no concept of consequences.
A crack dealer is scum he made a choice to sell crack fuck him

IME, people who come out with crap like this are in fact middle class wankers who actually have no idea about the realities of drugs, why people take drugs and the damge they cause.

 

[butchersapron]

Hmm, there are more than two sides here. Mindless tolerance and vigilantism aren't the only options, they're just the polar extremes. I'd have thought that it was obvious that causes should be addressed over the long term, whilst preventing the harm to other members of society took place in the short term.

Who should do that though jo?

 

[Chuck Wilson]

I quite agree that calling people names like scum does nothing to actually bring them to account to become part of the community, however I can fully understand the frustrations those who live near crack houses or near heroin using offenders have.

The fact that over half arrested for aquisative crime in the testing on carge pilot areas test postive for class shows the link between crime and class A. It will be interesting as these schemes are extended to testing on arrest what the % is then.

For thoughtful articles on drug dealing and working calss areas there is one on the national iWCA site and a good discussion based around Dublin on the Urban P&P.

 

[Blagsta]

OK, what do people on here think of the current push for service user groups, forums like the London Drug User's Forum and service user councils that meet with the DAATs? A step in the right direction? Co-option by the state? or something in between/more complex?

 

[likesfish]

got to be useful although somebodys whose together enough to get to a users group meeting is unlikely to be one of the chaotic users making everybodys life a misery .
living in a council estate in brighton and ex hostel worker (although I'm off to my weekend place in the cotswolds you tit blagsta) as i'm sooooooooo middle class

 

[Blagsta]

its just ime, people who don't give a fuck about people being damaged by society and claim to be acting in the interests of "the working class" tend to be middle class wankers playing at being class warriors