Interesting viewpoints
I am always so amused with my fellow americans. We are the first to pick at the morality of drug trafficking, yet condone the use and selling of another drug that i am almost certain kills more americans directly/indirectly than marijuana, heroine, cocaine, or crack............alcohol. IMO just because alcohol can be bought and sold legally does not make it any more or less detrimental than other drugs.
An even more importantly--the fact of the matter is..........it's not the drugs destroying communities, it's the instability, economic strangulation, and social isolation that was there to begin with. Yes drug abuse is more common in poorer communities, but i seriously doubt drug use is. What we need to be asking ourselves is why are people abusing the drugs in these communities.
Often times i find people aren't too concerned with figuring out the why--we(myself included) would much rather play the blame game and justify why we aren't to blame ourselves. People are dying in these communities every day. Kids are being failed in the school systems. It's funny how our hearts bleed for the children in these communities.....until they turn 18. Then suddenly it becomes their fault, their problem, and their future. We say to ourselves, if "my dad could do it, why can't they". Although in many ways that point is valid, we're relying on a reality flaw. The fact of the matter is even IF everybody in the "hood" worked hard and wanted to succeed, they couldn't--the lack of resources makes that an impossibility.
As someone mentioned earlier........if there is money to be made, drugs are going to be sold--we do after all live in a capitalistic society. And although the drug dealers of Compton, Watts, and Washington Heights are perhaps a perverted version of their contempararies in corporate america, they are all striving towards the same goal--to achieve the material wealth that is so casually thrown in their faces day after day, but continually denied. We could have a debate on the morality of this issue until the end of time, but that is still not going to change things.
Pam