[Snark7]

A fascinating story, but singularly disheartening. One of the main characters regrets nothing of leading a life of crime, and the author is willing to give him the final say. This is moral laxity. He plays up the drama to the point where the story is entertainment, and therefore transmits nothing.

Let me write my own end then: some people will never regret their evil actions, even if they are caught. These people should be avoided because ruin travels closely on their heels.

[coryl]

Dealing marijuana doesn't make you an evil person. You should reconsider what you believe to be a "life of crime". He took advantage of a system that doesn't work (marijuana prohibition) and got rich for it.

Laws against marijuana don't make sense. Millions of people are incarcerated for simple possession. Prohibition simply raises the profit margins for it, pushing dealing to organized crime, and eventually violence.

Who in the story was hurt by marijuana directly? No one. No one was evil for dealing drugs, just young and stupid.

[muhfuhkuh]

The cops even were portrayed as having this same attitude. They figured those kids weren't hurting anybody and were relatively harmless small potatoes; but because they became more successful, the situation grew more and more untenable due to the higher exposure to increasingly shadier people.

[rick888]

"Laws against marijuana don't make sense. Millions of people are incarcerated for simple possession. Prohibition simply raises the profit margins for it, pushing dealing to organized crime, and eventually violence."

Millions for simple possession..really?

Unless you are dealing, most cops will not bother you. Many states now also will only slap you with a fine.

Anything illegal will have a black-market behind it. Prostitution, gambling, and even illegal fireworks. The only way to get rid of the organized crime and violence is to legalize everything that is illegal..which isn't very practical.

It's not really prohibition. It's illegal. Alcohol prohibition only lasted for 13 years. Marijuana and many other drugs have been illegal for 70+ years. Otherwise, we would say there is a prohibition on rape and murder.

[coryl]

Sorry, your points made no sense to me. Prohibition means prohibited which means illegal. Marijuana has been used throughout human history over thousands of years, and all of a sudden in 1920s its illegal. Legalizing and regulating things is actually quite practical. The government regulates tobacco, alcohol, firearms, pharmaceutical drugs, our food, the toys our children play with, etc.

You don't see organized crime killing each other over the alcohol and tobacco markets, thats because theres no profit for them, big companies scale better. Illicit drugs however, pay well.

As for the incarceration numbers: "According to the most recent figures available from the FBI, police arrested an estimated 786,545 people on marijuana charges in 2005 -- more than twice the number of Americans arrested just 12 years ago. Among those arrested, about 88 percent -- some 696,074 Americans -- were charged with possession only. The remaining 90,471 individuals were charged with "sale/manufacture," a category that includes all cultivation offenses, even those where the marijuana was being grown for personal or medical use.

These totals are the highest ever recorded by the FBI, and make up 42.6 percent of all drug arrests in the United States. Nevertheless, self-reported pot use by adults, as well as the ready availability of marijuana on the black market, remains virtually unchanged."

[weaksauce]

But they define dealing as having a smallish quantity on your person. I believe the phrase is intent to traffic.

[Snark7]

Today, in the USA, dealing marijuana is a crime. Making a (highly profitable) living off dealing marijuana is, at the very least, a "career of crime".

The individuals in this story did much more than deal in marijuana - they set up a business, made huge amounts of money, wasted it, acted irresponsibly, and were finally caught. Furthermore, they celebrated their exploits. The point isn't that dealing marijuana is crime, the point is that no light has penetrated the thick skulls of these young men. It seems to me that it is possible but unlikely that they will come to see the error of their ways.

[pyre]

I think that you should refrain from calling them "evil actions." He was just a pot dealer/smuggler that got rich, then got caught because a rival 'kingpin' decided to escalate things to the next level. If anything it was the guy that escalated things (and ended up dead) that should be pointed to as the 'evil' one as well as the guys that he hired to hit his rivals.

If they had moved into dealing harder drugs, I might agree with calling their actions 'evil,' but not much comes out of pot other than a possible psychological addition.

> One of the main characters regrets nothing of leading a life of crime, and the author is willing to give him the final say. This is moral laxity.

You're also reading an article written for Rolling Stone magazine. Have you never heard the term "Sex, Drugs and Rock'n Roll?" Is it any wonder the tone of the article? I don't turn on Fox News and expect to hear things with a liberal slant to them.

You also seem to be falling into the trap of reading an article that has a spin on it that is the opposite of your own principles and wishing the article author to write the article with a spin on it that you approve of. Shouldn't we just be looking for journalism that has no (or little) bias in it rather than arguing which is the correct bias to use?

{update} As an addendum, do you consider the people that ran illegal alcohol operations during Prohibition to be evil people? What about the people that run/ran legal alcohol operations after Prohibition? Does your definition of 'evil' come down to "what the government deems to be legal/illegal?"

[mrtron]

Ah, evil. Such an interesting concept. What is right and wrong, not only now but what will be looked upon as wrong in the future?

I would bet that pyre is right - these dealer/smugglers will not be considered evil if you look back on the situation in 100 years. Just as we do not consider someone running a speakeasy during Prohibition to be evil.

What will be considered evil is a very interesting concept. International oppression for resources, drastically different living standards based on luck and geography, over-consumption and waste?

But perhaps other items that you would not even expect. Elimination of languages and distinct cultures? Holding dolphins in captivity if we discover they are as intelligent as us but just lack the ability to use tools? The use of plastics?

Whatever the answers are - what the government deems to be legal/illegal is irrelevant when looking from that perspective.

[Snark7]

In this article, Rolling Stone abused its cultural influence by glorifying career criminals. Young people read this magazine, and the technical quality of the articles is very very high. In my opinion, if you are going to write a crime story, then you have a moral obligation to conclude that crime does not pay. The article concludes that crime is an exciting adventure! Ridiculous!

Articles like this give pundits on the right fuel for the argument that liberals lack morals.

Making millions of dollars by dealing drugs, wasting money, and buying guns to protect your illegal operations is wrong.

[pyre]

> In my opinion, if you are going to write a crime story, then you have a moral obligation to conclude that crime does not pay.

What if you are writing an article about a criminal that got away with their crime due to gaming the system? Do you have a moral obligation to lie/distort the truth to try and show your audience that "crime does not pay?" Is so, then how is that any different than rewriting the history books to suit the social agendas that you want to achieve?

[Daniel_Newby]

"In this article, Rolling Stone abused its cultural influence by glorifying career criminals."

<snort> Hunter S. Thompson.