TCG Makes National News

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/05/26/tonga-crips-gang-utah/9463661/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;



I had some friends in TCG growing up in southern California. It seemed like more of a social thing than anything else. There were a couple of guys selling weed but not really anything to get worked up about other than a couple fights.



Sounds like it's the same thing in Utah but the cops don't have anything better to do.

Gangs in Utah are a lot more than just cops not having anything better to do. There are some serious problems with Islanders and gangs in Utah, especially West Valley.

jvquarterback wrote:

Sounds like it's the same thing in Utah but the cops don't have anything better to do.

Wow. With all due respect, that is an incredibly naive and ignorant comment. For a number of years I worked a gang unit in So. Calif - and had a lot of dealings with Crip gangs. To post your comment, you have no idea how violent they are. The assaults, drive by shootings, rapes, planned murders, spontaneous murders, burglaries, robberies, etc. All supported by aggressive drug trafficking and intimidation through violence. The Crips, and other gangs, leave a devastating path of victims in their wake. These gangs are violent predators. Your comment is way out in left field.

Ddawg wrote:

Sounds like it's the same thing in Utah but the cops don't have anything better to do.

Wow. With all due respect, that is an incredibly naive and ignorant comment. For a number of years I worked a gang unit in So. Calif - and had a lot of dealings with Crip gangs. To post your comment, you have no idea how violent they are. The assaults, drive by shootings, rapes, planned murders, spontaneous murders, burglaries, robberies, etc. All supported by aggressive drug trafficking and intimidation through violence. The Crips, and other gangs, leave a devastating path of victims in their wake. These gangs are violent predators. Your comment is way out in left field.

Not naive. I had friends with no violent offenses put away for many years. Drug laws and sentencing requirements in our country are what are naive and misguided. Without them there would be far less violence.



I think I worded my initial post more aggressively than I should have and aimed my criticism at the wrong people. The Utah and federal prosecutors and law makers are a big part of the problem. There is nothing in the constitution about drugs (or murder, rape or robbery for that matter). Their regulation and punishment are left for the states to determine (and reap the whirlwind when they make poor decisions regarding prosecuting them).

If you don't think drug are a violent crime you not only naieve, you are misguided as well.

jvquarterback wrote:

jvquarterback wrote:

Sounds like it's the same thing in Utah but the cops don't have anything better to do.

Wow. With all due respect, that is an incredibly naive and ignorant comment. For a number of years I worked a gang unit in So. Calif - and had a lot of dealings with Crip gangs. To post your comment, you have no idea how violent they are. The assaults, drive by shootings, rapes, planned murders, spontaneous murders, burglaries, robberies, etc. All supported by aggressive drug trafficking and intimidation through violence. The Crips, and other gangs, leave a devastating path of victims in their wake. These gangs are violent predators. Your comment is way out in left field.

Not naive. I had friends with no violent offenses put away for many years. Drug laws and sentencing requirements in our country are what are naive and misguided. Without them there would be far less violence.



I think I worded my initial post more aggressively than I should have and aimed my criticism at the wrong people. The Utah and federal prosecutors and law makers are a big part of the problem. There is nothing in the constitution about drugs (or murder, rape or robbery for that matter). Their regulation and punishment are left for the states to determine (and reap the whirlwind when they make poor decisions regarding prosecuting them).

Your comment is naive. Because you have a couple of friends that dealt drugs, were not violent, got caught dealing drugs and sent to jail/prison - that does not make you an expert on the drug world and the incredible violence that is imbedded in it.



Dealing drugs is not a victimless, or non-violent crime. Neither your friends nor you have any idea about the violence that was behind bringing those drugs to market. Where they were manufactured or grown, the trail of dead bodies involved in growing, processing, packaging, shipping and smuggling those drug into this country, the violence involved in shipping those drugs from the point of import to the final point of sale. Not to mention what the drugggies who are the ends users - the crimes they commit to get the money to buy the drugs from your friends.



The end user are not all job holding, responsible, well off users. They commit car burglaries, home burglaries, home invasions, car-jackings, business robberies, personal assaults and robberies to get the money to support their drug habit. So, perhaps your 2 friends were non-violent drug dealers, but the people they supplied committed all kinds of crime to support their habit.



I know precisely what I am talking about. I have seen hundreds of cases first hand. I have had a partner shot by your non-violent drug dealers. I have personally been shot at and on many occasions was involved in hand to hand fights with "non-violent" drug dealers. I've literally been fighting for my life at 2 am with a drug dealer trying to rip my weapon out of my holster so he could shoot me with my own gun. Luckily, I won that fight, and that "non-violent" drug dealer went to prison. The non-violent drug world you imagine does not exist.

Ddawg wrote:

Ddawg wrote:

Sounds like it's the same thing in Utah but the cops don't have anything better to do.

Wow. With all due respect, that is an incredibly naive and ignorant comment. For a number of years I worked a gang unit in So. Calif - and had a lot of dealings with Crip gangs. To post your comment, you have no idea how violent they are. The assaults, drive by shootings, rapes, planned murders, spontaneous murders, burglaries, robberies, etc. All supported by aggressive drug trafficking and intimidation through violence. The Crips, and other gangs, leave a devastating path of victims in their wake. These gangs are violent predators. Your comment is way out in left field.

Not naive. I had friends with no violent offenses put away for many years. Drug laws and sentencing requirements in our country are what are naive and misguided. Without them there would be far less violence.



I think I worded my initial post more aggressively than I should have and aimed my criticism at the wrong people. The Utah and federal prosecutors and law makers are a big part of the problem. There is nothing in the constitution about drugs (or murder, rape or robbery for that matter). Their regulation and punishment are left for the states to determine (and reap the whirlwind when they make poor decisions regarding prosecuting them).

Your comment is naive. Because you have a couple of friends that dealt drugs, were not violent, got caught dealing drugs and sent to jail/prison - that does not make you an expert on the drug world and the incredible violence that is imbedded in it.



Dealing drugs is not a victimless, or non-violent crime. Neither your friends nor you have any idea about the violence that was behind bringing those drugs to market. Where they were manufactured or grown, the trail of dead bodies involved in growing, processing, packaging, shipping and smuggling those drug into this country, the violence involved in shipping those drugs from the point of import to the final point of sale. Not to mention what the drugggies who are the ends users - the crimes they commit to get the money to buy the drugs from your friends.



The end user are not all job holding, responsible, well off users. They commit car burglaries, home burglaries, home invasions, car-jackings, business robberies, personal assaults and robberies to get the money to support their drug habit. So, perhaps your 2 friends were non-violent drug dealers, but the people they supplied committed all kinds of crime to support their habit.



I know precisely what I am talking about. I have seen hundreds of cases first hand. I have had a partner shot by your non-violent drug dealers. I have personally been shot at and on many occasions was involved in hand to hand fights with "non-violent" drug dealers. I've literally been fighting for my life at 2 am with a drug dealer trying to rip my weapon out of my holster so he could shoot me with my own gun. Luckily, I won that fight, and that "non-violent" drug dealer went to prison. The non-violent drug world you imagine does not exist.

The laws you enforce are the problem. You are getting in fights and shot at for no good reason. It isn't like people are out there killing others over alcohol sales.



I'll tell you where my expertise is though. I see cancer patients who can't afford pain medications that should cost 2 cents a pill, but instead cost $5/pill on the black market or even more through legal drug dealing pharmacies. I've had patients commit suicide because some lame lawyer somewhere thought it would be a good idea to make their preferred pain medication harder to come by.



You want violence. Everyone who combined together (from the person who wrote the law to the person who enforced it) to prevent my patient from getting what should be an incredibly inexpensive medication did violence to her.



These drugs would cost less than a pack of M&Ms if they were legally available on the free market. No one robs some one else for penny candy and no one would rob anyone else for heroin, morphine, cocaine or any other drug if it weren't for laws inflate the value of those drugs.

Oh and by the way, my comments are not naive with respect to drug dealers. It is, in fact, my profession. I am a drug dealer. I just happen to be on a government sanctioned list of drug dealers. And I'm not violent and neither are the people I deal drugs to.



My friends, unfortunately, made the mistake of dealing drugs 15 years sooner than I did without a government license.

jvquarterback wrote:
Oh and by the way, my comments are not naive with respect to drug dealers. It is, in fact, my profession. I am a drug dealer. I just happen to be on a government sanctioned list of drug dealers. And I'm not violent and neither are the people I deal drugs to.



My friends, unfortunately, made the mistake of dealing drugs 15 years sooner than I did without a government license.

That's great. You are naive and simplistic in your view.

Ddawg wrote:

Oh and by the way, my comments are not naive with respect to drug dealers. It is, in fact, my profession. I am a drug dealer. I just happen to be on a government sanctioned list of drug dealers. And I'm not violent and neither are the people I deal drugs to.



My friends, unfortunately, made the mistake of dealing drugs 20 years sooner than I did without a government license.

That's great. You are naive and simplistic in your view.

Is it worse to give the simple answer to an easy question or come up with some mad, convoluted, circular argument in favor of some complex (and wrong) answer?



Oh and BTW thanks for being on the enforcement arm of the cartel the "legal" drug dealers have established. It helps to know we have folks so devoted to that mad, convoluted, circular answer.



Because without your help we couldn't keep patients, who know their bodies far better than any doctor, from being able to prescribe themselves their own pain medication (even if every medical study ever done shows those patients are far better at controlling their pain than the government licensed drug dealers doctors and pharmicists).

Yep. All the cartels' violence is because of law enforcement. They would be completely peaceful entities without government interference. And overdosing wouldn't be a problem if patients could self-prescribe either.



Yeah. I think I'll stick with the naieve argument.

jvquarterback wrote:

jvquarterback wrote:
Oh and by the way, my comments are not naive with respect to drug dealers. It is, in fact, my profession. I am a drug dealer. I just happen to be on a government sanctioned list of drug dealers. And I'm not violent and neither are the people I deal drugs to.



My friends, unfortunately, made the mistake of dealing drugs 20 years sooner than I did without a government license.

That's great. You are naive and simplistic in your view.

Is it worse to give the simple answer to an easy question or come up with some mad, convoluted, circular argument in favor of some complex (and wrong) answer?



Oh and BTW thanks for being on the enforcement arm of the cartel the "legal" drug dealers have established. It helps to know we have folks so devoted to that mad, convoluted, circular answer.



Because without your help we couldn't keep patients, who know their bodies far better than any doctor, from being able to prescribe themselves their own pain medication (even if every medical study ever done shows those patients are far better at controlling their pain than the government licensed drug dealers doctors and pharmicists).

Your post is amazingly delusional. Isn't is nice to be able to form opinions without the discomfort and pain of real world experience? Your theoretical world is splendid. Have a nice day.

SpiffCoug wrote:
Yep. All the cartels' violence is because of law enforcement. They would be completely peaceful entities without government interference. And overdosing wouldn't be a problem if patients could self-prescribe either.



Yeah. I think I'll stick with the naieve argument.

Overdosing on alcohol and the chronic effects are also damaging to individuals, families, society (I'd argue even more so than illegal drugs, especially if you consider the point of view that jvQ has brought up), would you have the USA return to prohibition?



The social stigma associated with "illegal" drugs is completely unreasonable and the lucky go dandy attitude towards "legal" drugs is equally unreasonable. I do agree that gangs are only able to thrive because we have enabled them with black market.

The argument that gangs would go away if we made all drugs legal is so naive and simplistic. Gangs don't exist because of drugs, they utilize drugs to get what they want. If they could no longer sell heroine they would find something else illegal and create a market for it. You can't legalize your way out of gang violence.



And no matter how bad you think alcohol is, you can't tell me that it's going to be worse than a society where meth and bath salts are freely available. Anyone who has seen the effects of people addicted to pain medication or hard illegal drugs knows that its a far worse addiction than all but the most raging of alcoholics.

Ddawg wrote:
Your post is amazingly delusional. Isn't is nice to be able to form opinions without the discomfort and pain of real world experience? Your theoretical world is splendid. Have a nice day.

It isn't theory. In areas where non-violent drug "crimes" are not pursued there is a decline in violence. Not only that but drug decriminalization in Portugal over the past 13 years has led to decreasing drug usage by 1/2.



I'm not saying you're any worse than I am. I'm just a low level facilitator for the cartel and you're an enforcer. We need to stop them.The best available tool to decrease drug use and it's associated violence, outside preaching the Gospel of Christ, is to decriminalize/legalize drugs.

Cops only investigate the type of dudes who try to kill each other off in federal courtrooms when they have nothing else to do, obviously.

hawkwing wrote:
The argument that gangs would go away if we made all drugs legal is so naive and simplistic.

I believe you misunderstand the word naive. Perhaps you should educate yourself on the subject.

jvquarterback wrote:

The argument that gangs would go away if we made all drugs legal is so naive and simplistic.

I believe you misunderstand the word naive. Perhaps you should educate yourself on the subject.

I was trying to be polite by implying your comments came from naivety rather than the alternatives.



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hawkwing wrote:
The argument that gangs would go away if we made all drugs legal is so naive and simplistic. Gangs don't exist because of drugs, they utilize drugs to get what they want. If they could no longer sell heroine they would find something else illegal and create a market for it. You can't legalize your way out of gang violence.



And no matter how bad you think alcohol is, you can't tell me that it's going to be worse than a society where meth and bath salts are freely available. Anyone who has seen the effects of people addicted to pain medication or hard illegal drugs knows that its a far worse addiction than all but the most raging of alcoholics.

If you're referring to my post, I didn't say they'd go away. It would just eliminate a lot of their prowess. I'm sure they'd find something in an attempt to keep their status, and maybe that would be worth prosecuting, but I think we are spinning our wheels with the war on drugs.



Meth and bath salts? Let's say they were "freely available" (they basically are already available if you know where to get them, right?) would you start using them? Would members of your ward? Would your children suddenly have an urge to experiment with them because they were legal? I seriously doubt it.



There have been numerous studies that have shown that where drugs have been decriminalized, the percentage of people using those drugs have dropped. I'd rather spend the money the US is currently spending in FIGHTING the drug war on educating the public of the dangers of the drugs mentioned here and let them make their own choices.