<p>"The image of a drug dealer driving a Mercedes is a Hollywood favorite, so maybe it’s not surprising that the African-American preacher, speaking on a panel about how to shut down urban drug markets, went for the clich</p>
<p>According to recent info gangs are the major cause of crime in the US and dealing drugs is their number 1 source of income which is what helps attract members. Playing patty-cake with them is a losing game.</p>
<p>[FBI:</a> Burgeoning gangs behind up to 80% of U.S. crime - USATODAY.com](<a href=“http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2009-01-29-ms13_N.htm]FBI:”>http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2009-01-29-ms13_N.htm)</p>
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<p>They have the logic wrong. Most dealers at corners are just addicts themselves, moving drug around to feed their habit (men deal and do B&Es, women sell their bodies). No other jobs pay enough to cover their habits. These are entirely different people than those maintaining the system (wealthy, non-addicts much higher up in the food chain of organized crime who have no need to go into run down neighborhoods). </p>
<p>Fine to say jail or get straight. These other support systems are great and necessarily, but <em>without access to effective addiction treatment</em>, you aren’t going to fix the problem. Most regions simply will not fund the means to support that expensive but very necessary part of the solution. </p>
<p>Unless they have data showing within-person differences (note they just talk about how clean they make neighborhoods), there is no evidence it works. They just moved the problem to a different street corner; that isn’t fixing anything.</p>