The "war on drugs" is ludicrous, and everyone knows it. Seldom, however, do we have as clear evidence of its ludicrosity as that which appeared today in the Sun Sentinel.
According to a story by Sofia Santana, an "international druck trafficker" named Rinat Agaev was nabbed on Sunday trying to sell over a kilo of cocaine outside at the Galleria Mall, just outside of Macy's. Santana reports that such a quantity of cocaine would fetch anywhere between $24,000 - $35,000 on the open market.
Problem is, Rinat Agaev was selling his wares not as cocaine, but as heroin, which costs nearly three times as much.
Agaev is in a lot of trouble, but probably less than he would be if he
hadn't tried selling his dope to the DEA. The DEA will merely jail him
for a very, very long time; an actual drug dealer would have killed him
and used his obviously outsized nuts as paperweights. What's a little
crazy about Agaev's future, when you think about it, is that he is going
to be in no less trouble than he would be if he hadn't tried scheming
some entrepreneurial horse trader out of $50,000. The American judicial
system will hate that he possessed cocaine, but will not care at all
that he's probably a thief and a liar. Wouldn't it be a better world if
we penalized bad drug dealers more severely than good ones? If doing so
didn't lead to a decrease in drug use generally, it might at least be a
bulwark against even more needless markups at the Galleria.
Follow The Juice on Twitter: @TheJuiceBPB.