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TFA talks a lot about corruption and it's way worse than people think. Not that long in Belgium, in the port of Antwerp ("Anvers" in french), non-corrupt emplo
by TacticalCoder 3y ago
TFA talks a lot about corruption and it's way worse than people think.
Not that long in Belgium, in the port of Antwerp ("Anvers" in french), non-corrupt employees found a container with cocaine.
Before the authorities came to seize the shipment, corrupt cops tried to bribe the port custom employees to gain temporary access to the container (basically to steal part of the shipment before it'd be officially weighted).
I pity these people: when shipment go undetected, it's their fault. Then criminals try to bribe them. Then corrupt cops try to bribe them.
It's a sad state of affair.
Whether cocaine should be legal or not is another topic but it's not legal and there are killings related to cocaine traffic in Europe: consumers of cocaine have their share of responsibility too.
- dylan604 3y ago>consumers of cocaine have their share of responsibility too. consumers of any product. consumers of chocolate are responsible for... consumers of electronics are responsible for... consumers of cotton are responsible for... there's only so many options consumers really have. there are somethings you cannot vote with your wallet. blaming addicts teeters precariously towards victim blaming.
- 11235813213455 3y agototally right, consuming is polluting, which is a big responsibility nowadays for the environment So the best is to minimize consumption, and obviously things like drugs, travel, and many things are not essential products
- para_parolu 3y agoAnd having children
- JumpinJack_Cash 3y ago"You'll own nothing and you'll be happy eating bugs"
- 11235813213455 3y agoI already eat bug from a lot of foraging and fruit market waste, not very intentionally, but they are there and they eat the same thing, so can't be bad, extra proteins actually
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- Scoundreller 3y agoNo need to minimize consumption for cocaine, ~90% of the resources used are in the distribution. If legalized, the cost of distribution would crater to that of other products, just a few dollars per kg.
- 11235813213455 3y agoit costs pollution to grow, transport, stock, plastic-wrap, etc.. it's like saying: "it doesn't cost pollution to buy those avocadoes grown in another continent since they're already there", it's true immediately (above all if very ripe), but in the mid-long term, reducing consumption reduces production & pollution (at all level of the chain)
- Scoundreller 3y agoSure there are some essential production and distribution costs, but let's remember that cocaine is a minimally processed leaf extract. You can industrialize its production and get close to sugar level production pricing and distribution. Sugar sourced from Brazil hits my Toronto supermarket shelf bagged at CAD$1.50/kg at 99.9% purity, including retailer markup. Which is like 1/50000th the retail price of cocaine. Even if it costs 10x as much due to lower volume/weaker extracts/slower growth/additional processing, you're talking a 99.9something% reduction in resource expenditure per dose. Price of something is a good representation of the resources destroyed ("costs") in its production.
- fsociety 3y agoMinimally processed leaf extract? You make it sound like extracting cocaine is the equivalent to making sugar.
- OfSanguineFire 3y agoMost sugar today comes from beets and is extracted through an industrial process. Drug cartels rely on things like gasoline because they are commonly available, but if there were not criminal sanctions on the process, then it’s possible some higher-quality means of extraction would be employed.
- dbsmith83 3y agoRight, let's just sit around in our tents in the dark and try not to move or speak unless absolutely necessary. Moving is not always essential, and has a caloric cost, which means food consumption. Are you sure being on this site right now is actually necessary? In fact, why bother being alive at all? Yeah, have fun with that. I'm going to enjoy my life!
- beAbU 3y agoTents are made from nylon, and nylon is made from fossil fuels!
- Borg3 3y agoHumanity can have just 2 modes of operation (3th one is fake path). 1) is to consume less and less, so we end up like living in tents in dark with population 10B and more.. 2) Smart-manage population growth and cut bullshit jobs, so we end up with 200M-300M people living good live. The choise is yours. I personally would go with (2) option, but its just me. Before anyone hit the downvote button, think about it in math. You only have limited amount of resources and energy. How you distribute it, is up to you.
- kortilla 3y agoThis is bullshit. Many cocaine users are not addicts but are just people with money partying. They are not victims and even the addicts are not absolved of responsibility for their actions. If an alcoholic drives drunk and kills someone, they don’t get an exemption. If you buy cocaine from dealers known to be violent, you don’t get an exemption either. More generally, if you buy cocaine that comes from a violent cartel (most of it), you’re supporting the cartel. It’s a party drug, you have a choice. Check yourself into rehab if you don’t.
- Scoundreller 3y agoI'm sure most buyers would looooooove to buy organic artisanal cocaine direct from the farmer shipped by DHL. But various governments make that impossible, so I'd pin the blame solely on governments.
- dylan604 3y agoGives a new meaning to farm to table
- Ckirby 3y ago[flagged]
- DontchaKnowit 3y agoWell fuck you, cause you are supporting violence just to selfishly feed your drug habit.
- Ckirby 3y agoYou are part of the problem, I've seen your idiotic comments about drugs being caustic and your other comments defending creationism I don't know what to make of you, you are either 12 years old, east Asian, or mentally ill
- 3y ago
- fragmede 3y agoSo what you're saying is we need free trade, ethical cocaine (along with coffee, electronics, and cotton).
- Nextgrid 3y ago> there are killings related to cocaine traffic in Europe Which is a problem created by the stupid “war on drugs”. If you make it impossible for parties to access the legal system to resolve any disputes, you’re forcing them to resolve them via extrajudicial means. You don’t generally hear about killings within the traffic of any other commodity such as vegetables or IT goods. In fact we don’t even call it “traffic” but just trade.
- ta988 3y agoThere are killings and exploitation for a lot of other things, gold, diamonds, rare earths, coffee, avocados you name it.
- ptek 3y agoAvocado farms in New Zealand get robbed when prices start approaching $8NZD a a avocado, :'(. I feel sorry for the farmers. We have no avocados on our farms.
- harry_ord 3y agoQuite a bit of olive oil recently as well https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/spanish-police-seize-74-tonnes-stolen-olives-amid-soaring-prices-2023-10-06/#:~:text=Some%206%2C000%20litres%20of%20extra,said%20spokesperson%20Laura%20Larrubia%20Nogales https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/spanish-police-seize-74....
- OfSanguineFire 3y ago> You don’t generally hear about killings within the traffic of any other commodity such as vegetables Of course you do, especially if you’re in Mexico where the cartels have now expanded beyond drugs. A web search for "mexican cartels avocados" might do you well. Another example is vanilla in Madagascar, where dozens of murders have occurred. Beyond local turf fights, Russian and Chinese organized crime has been involved in Madagascar’s spice and hardwood sectors for many years now.
- aaomidi 3y agoThe only correct solution here is to recognize cocaine is a commodity that people want, and legalizing it and funding support systems etc etc with the taxes is a great way to go.
- Ckirby 3y agoI don't care how many people die, I feel no guilt, no remorse and no pity Legalize drugs and the violence will end
- qwebfdzsh 3y agoSo all (addictive or not) prescription drugs for instance should also be available to everyone freely and without any limitations? Also unnecessary/avoidable deaths are only an issue if they are an outcome of violence or government restrictions if I understand correctly?
- Nextgrid 3y ago> all (addictive or not) prescription drugs for instance should also be available to everyone freely and without any limitations Technically we already have that with cigarettes and alcohol, so maybe it's time to drop the double-standards?
- tester756 3y agoCigarettes are really harmful, but still not as hard as drugs.
- _a_a_a_ 3y ago> Before the authorities came to seize the shipment, corrupt cops tried to bribe the port custom employees to gain temporary access to the container (basically to steal part of the shipment before it'd be officially weighted). Link please. > consumers of cocaine have their share of responsibility too Arguably the gov't does also for creating the market by outlawing the stuff. But that's never discussed by anti-drugs people (BTW I'm not pro-drugs, before you assume)
- OnlyMortal 3y agoCocaine was always easily available in Antwerp from my experience (~1995-2010). More so than weed which was always a little surprising given it’s not far to the Dutch border. Friends of mine worked at customs both for the Belgian authorities and the US ones. Antwerp did have a reputation for corruption. There’s too much money involved.
- yieldcrv 3y ago> but it's not legal and there are killings related to cocaine traffic in Europe almost like those two are related
- xenospn 3y agoCan’t corrupt cops just go in and grab whatever they want without anyone stopping them? They are corrupt and they are cops after all. Who is going to do anything about it?
- jonasdegendt 3y agoThe port would report them to the part of the police that’s not corrupt, which as a Belgian, I like to think is most of the Antwerp police. I have a hard time believing this story to be honest, most police corruption here would probably be a lot more covert, e.g. in the form of providing information or turning a blind eye at the right time. Someone else already asked for a source and it’s yet to show up.
- mptest 3y ago>Whether cocaine should be legal or not is another topic How? It should be THE topic. Fucking stop all this bullshit waste of time and money and lives trying to police what fucking adults consume in their own home. How can anyone with a brain look at all the inane war on drugs and come to any other conclusion than all drugs should be legalized? Let them buy it in a legal, controlled, licensed, tax paying store, like the adults they are. Absolutely childish and the one of the biggest most consistently stupid thing we as a society do is prohibition of drugs. How many people will die, how many billions will we waste on the "war on drugs" (read, war on minorities and the poor) before we wisen the fuck up? It is actually insane that we continue to play this ridiculous game and pretend we can't ALL see what the solution is.
- Woshiwuja 3y agoIts funny because i can literally go to any shop and buy enough alchool to literally go into a coma but cant use drugs for whatever reason
- WelcomeShorty 3y agoI had the pleasure to deal with both authorities and the business side of securing platforms that handle the container checks & harbour access. The forces who are, let's call it "not happy" with any form of security (access control, logging, monitoring, malware, RATs etc.) is insane. At times I felt nearly half of all involved parties were corrupt. Top to bottom. Commercial and governmental. Sold absolutely zero solutions and decided to never again deal with the whole industry. Edit: for completeness I should add that many did not want any additional security measures since this might leave the traffickers no other choice but to get more physical.