steiny@scc.UUCP (Don Steiny) (01/01/70)
> > >I don't want this to sound insulting Jeff, but if you don't believe that > >drug dealing isn't a "free market", you don't seem to know much about it. > > (text saying that what we have basically is a free market in drugs...) > > This was an incredible posting. How can anyone possibly maintain that > the free market operates in the buying and selling of narcotics? > > Surely even posters out there who think drugs should be illegal will > agree that the free market doesn't apply here. Someone should explain > to the author the difference between a free market and a black one. > > --Barry Huh? I can tell Barry has a lot of experience!!:-) Here in California there is a free market in drugs. If you do not like one dealer, i.e. prices too high, low quality, whatever, you go to another. It is the only free market I know of. The drug dealers I know are honest hard working business people. Since pot is California's (and Hawaii's and Arizona's .. ) biggest cash crop (by a long shot) there is a plethora of competing dealers and manufacturers. I have read estimates that there are more that 1000 cultivators in Santa Cruz county alone. What is the difference between a free market and a black one? My understanding is that in Russia, the only free market is the black market. It is true in the U.S. the only free market in drugs is the black market the other one is highly controled. -- scc!steiny Don Steiny - Personetics @ (408) 425-0382 ihnp4!pesnta -\ 109 Torrey Pine Terr. ucbvax!twg --> scc!steiny Santa Cruz, Calif. 95060 fortune!idsvax -/
fagin@ucbvax.ARPA (Barry Steven Fagin) (03/11/85)
In article <712@ccice5.UUCP> rdz@ccice5.UUCP (Robert D. Zarcone) writes: >> >> Notice that he said "In a free market". The sale and distribution of >> drugs can hardly be thought of as "free market" conditions. Notice that >> if there *were* a free market for drugs, the price would fall so far that >> dope dealers wouldn't be making big bucks. Even drugs like nicotene and >> alcohol are heavily taxed and controlled by the big G. >> -- >> Jeff Sonntag > >I don't want this to sound insulting Jeff, but if you don't believe that >drug dealing isn't a "free market", you don't seem to know much about it. > (text saying that what we have basically is a free market in drugs...) This was an incredible posting. How can anyone possibly maintain that the free market operates in the buying and selling of narcotics? Perhaps the laws of supply and demand hold here; where there's a demand there'll be a supply. But where's the competition? Completely absent, since drug production and distribution is controlled by monopolistic organizations who use violence to keep out competitors and to gain new markets. What matters it that the risk involved may be low? As long as legitimate businesses are forbidden by law to sell narcotics, we'll never have a free market. Surely even posters out there who think drugs should be illegal will agree that the free market doesn't apply here. Someone should explain to the author the difference between a free market and a black one. --Barry -- Barry Fagin @ University of California, Berkeley