SAME STORY

WITH ALL DUE RESPECT to Chief Wayne Tucker and the fine officers of
Oakland Police Department, there is no reason to think that these
arrests will reduce violence in Oakland. In fact, they will increase
violence.

The reason is simple: demand for heroin will remain strong because
addicts cannot simply decide to stop using. Which means that the lower
level dealers (who were not arrested) are even now working hard to
re-establish distribution.

Those dealers are now in competition with each other for who will
control that lucrative trade. And that competition will not be
peaceful - they will shoot it out in the streets.

Thus, we can look for this same story again in another two years -
just as we read it two years ago, and two years before that.

The only solution to heroin-related violence is to eliminate the
profit motive by controlling and regulating the supply of heroin to
addicts.

James Anthony

Oakland