Originally Posted by
clasher
I'd much rather have graffiti and petty crime than a police state. Property crimes are much easier to solve than drug and gang violence like Colombia, and the best solutions don't even have to involve guns or the police.
Mandatory licensing will likely just cause a decrease in cycling and kill any possibility of it being a cash-cow for MTL... just like mandatory helmet laws kill cycling.
I`m guessing you`ve never been to Colombia. Its not a police state and I actually felt safer there then the times I visited New York City in the USA. Television tends to exaggurate reality to the point that the `news` seldom reflects the truth.
The truth is that where I live in Montreal Quebec we also have bikers and police in a war over drug distribution and that doesn`t mean I live in a police state either. The truth is that the whole time I was in Colombia I never smelt grass being smoked in the streets or any obvious evidence of drug abuse. In Montreal on the other hand its a common occurrance.
So actually if there`s a drug problem its in the USA and Canada where the users are. And since its illegal - people selling to these `users` in any country are referred to as criminals. Actually the main government approved export coming out of Colombia is tropical flowers - which is a larger export than coffee.
I respect your views on helmets, but have also not seen any indications that manditory seatbelts and airbags discouraged people from buying cars. The price of gas and increased unemployment did.