Re:Email addresses are not good 'permanent' identifiers for ...
by talldatethrow on Sunday December 31, 2023 @04:41PM
(#38827745)
Oh yes, you often hear about small time drug dealers taking the person who wronged them to small claims court for other matters.
Re:Email addresses are not good 'permanent' identifiers for ...
by AnthonyMouse on Sunday December 31, 2023 @04:47PM
(#38827794)
About as often as you hear about it for anyone else.
It's called bargaining in the shadow of the law. If you have the ability to take someone to court, they know that too, and know you'd win, so they're willing to settle up with you peacefully rather than both of you incurring the costs of going to court.
When a small time drug dealer's car needs service covered under warranty, they don't go in and threaten the dealership with violence, they drop off the car and expect the dealership to honor the contract. Which the dealership does in the same way as they do for anyone else, because the dealership doesn't know anything about their extracurricular criminal activity and can't use it to renege on their obligations by threatening to turn them in to the police.
All of this is caused by the drugs being illegal, which prevents them from seeking justice in the usual way if someone steals from them or rips them off etc.
If you were to legalize drugs and release them, they would no longer have any incentive to resort to violence.
And the same logic applies to people in other situations. If you regularly get shaken down by two bit thugs and the police do nothing no matter how many times you report it, you're likely to eventually take matters into your own hands, even though that isn't exactly legal. So should the police use any excuse they can to arrest you, for the situation they caused, because people in that situation are disposed to commit a violent crime the state can't even prove?