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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: LindyBill who wrote (95516)	1/16/2005 8:46:15 PM
From: Ilaine	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 793570

Inner city intimidation of crime witnesses is getting more attention in the media these days -- last night on NPR, an interview with a nun who lives across the street from the burned-out former residence of a family of seven who were murdered in their sleep in retaliation for taking action against drug dealers in Baltimore. A prosecutor was interviewed who described the terror exhibited by a young woman on the witness stand who was so frightened that her teeth chattered, and her whole body shook, and by the end of her 20 minute turn on the witness stand, her face had swollen up like a balloon (something I'd never heard of before! Stress hormones gone haywire, I guess.) I was wondering what legalizing drugs would do -- worst case is what we saw in this last season of "The Wire." Open air drug markets, public prostitution, junkies of all ages staggering down the streets or on the nod in alleys, pickpockets, muggers, children wandering unattended, fathers blowing their paychecks on cheap tricks and cheap fixes. Not so hard to imagine, that's the way Hogarth depicted 18th century London in the heyday of gin, which continued all the way through the Victorian era and culminated with Jack the Ripper. Why then? Why now? Is the solution libertarianism, or zero tolerance?