sf wrote:

> On Sat, 26 Jul 2008 23:46:21 GMT, Orlando Enrique Fiol
> > wrote:
>
> People in America are not that poor. Drugs are at the root of the
> problem, not poverty. Drug dealers don't barter, they deal in cold
> cash. People steal to get money to buy drugs.

It is a matter of choices and drugs are a choice, or start off as a choice. While there may be
increased use if they were to be legalized and addiction treated as a disease instead of as a crime.
Criminalization has done little more than to drive up the price of drugs and the high prices make it a
prime market for criminal elements. When I was at university back in the early 70s I did a paper on
heroin addiction. It had been legal in the UK and it cost the government about 4o cents per day to
supply heroin to registered drug addicts. At the same time, it was costing junkies in NY something like
$300. They had to turn enough tricks or steal enough stuff to fence for $300. There were fewer illegal
sources in the UK because it just wasn't worth the risk if their customers could get it free from
government sources.
..


> If they receive
> welfare, their priority is drugs not food. Even so, stealing food
> isn't a necessity here in America. All they need to do is show up at
> a soup kitchen and they are fed. There is NO valid excuse to steal
> food in this day and age.

Shop lifters usually don't steal out of need. They do it for excitement. Most shoplifters who get
caught have the money to buy what they stole.