Recently, I was speaking to my boss, who happens to be Danny Porter, the District Attorney of Gwinnett County. Over the years, I have learned to be very attentive to any conversation that I may have with him. The reasons for this are two-fold. Number 1, he is my boss and my tip for the day is to always pay attention when the boss speaks. Number 2, after having worked with this man for many years, I have learned that when he speaks about a topic, he always makes incredibly good sense.

During one of these recent conversations, we were discussing a homicide case in which drugs were involved. Granted the drugs involved were not of the exotic type or in an amount that would cause more than a blip in the paper if a death had not occurred. But, in the middle of the conversation Mr. Porter stated; "who says drugs are a victimless crime?" His comment made me begin to think about the arguments for and against the legalization of drugs in our country. The common and front line defense to the legalization proponents is that drugs are a victimless crime. After having watched victims strewn about the legal system year after year in drug cases, I am amazed that pro-legalization proponents have the nerve to use the no victim argument.

To fully realize the impact that drugs have on our society, we must look below the surface. People can become victims of crimes in many ways. Surely, the most common victim is a person whose life is directly affected based on the commission of a crime. Common situations involve the crime being committed directly toward them. But people find themselves victims of crimes without ever having been present when the actual crime occurs. A person whose loved one is killed is also a victim in that their entire being is changed based on the crime committed. This analogy is also true in drug cases. I remember many drug arrests that I was apart of whereby the children of the offenders were remanded to state custody based on their parent's incarceration. Based on the irresponsible actions of these type of offenders, are these children victims? You bet they are! Defenders of legalization issues will blame the government for causing children to be placed in foster care due to the victimless acts of their parents. Where were these child advocates when the parents were indulging in acts that they knew were criminal, whether they agree with the laws or not? The fact that one may or may not agree with a particular law should not entice a prudent person to do anything that will put their own children at risk. I would submit that these people's children are not at the top of their priority list. Victimless crimes; not hardly!

Murders occur on the streets of America everyday based on drug usage, drug transactions, and every other crime that is committed whereby illegal drugs are the nucleus of the situation. Others argue that these murders would not occur if drugs were legalized because there would be no incentive to acquire the substances illegally due to common availability under a legalization scenario. Why would we not use the same analogy to bank robberies. We would have far less people killed in the commission of a bank robbery, if people were simply able to go into a bank and request the amount necessary for their particular situation. Need some heroin? No problem. Have a nice day! Need $10,000? No problem, have a nice day! Excuse me for using a tired old cliche, but I can not resist the opportunity..."When Pigs Fly!!" Others argue that sentencing in drug cases is based on where you get caught. If that is true, uniform sentencing should be utilized so that exact punishments to exact crimes should be across the board and not discretionary. Even this argument falls short of legalization as a viable answer.

Even the most liberal cannot actually believe that by legalizing drugs we will prevent violence from occurring in our country. It is completely legal to purchase a car in our country, but the number of people who commit car-jackings continue to rise each year. Those who have no other means, will commit to violence to acquire what they want. Legalization of drugs will never solve this problem but will simply make it harder to punish those who commit these crimes.

We will probably do with this topic as we do with most issues that are controversial. We will sit back and continue to debate it until our lips as parched. In the meantime, victims will continue to pile up like the trophies on Tiger Wood's wall. Victimless crimes.........tell that to the 5 year old whose Dad was killed over $10.00 worth of crack.