CONSENSUAL CRIMES

Regarding "Toward Safer Streets In East Tampa" (Our Opinion, May 22):

Here we go again: Another drive to drive out consensual crime, reported in
detail in The Tampa Tribune lately. Its success will be short-lived, but
there is a permanent solution.

Consider bolita. When I started to read the Tribune in the late 1940s,
bolita was everywhere. Almost every week there were arrests, prosecutions
and some violence, albeit no match to the ferocity of today's war on drugs.
Now the only place I read about bolita is in Leland Hawes' columns. We
finally won the war on bolita? No. We took its profit out. Then bolita
dried up. Most gambling today is legal, with problems caused largely by
dishonest advertising, but there is still less societal damage than by
illegal gambling 50 years ago.

Also consider Pennsylvania's action in 1933 to end the corruption and
violence of alcohol prohibition. After the 21st Amendment was ratified to
end national prohibition, Pennsylvania instituted strict regulation of
alcohol: state employees selling state-owned liquor in state-owned liquor
stores. The state underpriced the street market, so it shrank rapidly, and
law enforcement cleaned up the rest. Drinking, like gambling, still causes
problems, but far fewer than it did during Prohibition.

The way to make Tampa's streets safe permanently is to legalize and
regulate consensual crimes. It worked against numbers runners and
bootleggers and will work against hookers and drug dealers.