Pubdate: Sun, 25 May 2003
Source: Tampa Tribune (FL)
Copyright: 2003, The Tribune Co.
Contact: http://tampatrib.com/opinion/lettertotheeditor.htm
Website: http://www.tampatrib.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/446
Note: Limit LTEs to 150 words
Author: John Chase, Palm Harbor

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.
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MAP posted-by: Beth