Detroit mayoral candidate wants to legalize drugs and prostitution to get city out of debt

[apples and oranges]

Could Detroit be the new Amsterdam -- a city where prostitution and marijuana are both legalized to help attract young people and turn the troubled city’s prospects around?

Why not, barrister and occasional mayoral candidate Geoffrey Fieger said during a taping of “Michigan Matters” on what he would do if he walked in Detroit Mayor Dave Bing’s shoes and tried to address the city’s woes.

“I could turn it around in five minutes,” Fieger said.

“I’d shovel the snow and I’d clean the streets and parks. Then, I’d tell the police department to leave marijuana alone and don’t spend one dime trying to enforce marijuana laws. I also would not enforce prostitution laws and I’d make us the new Amsterdam.”

“We would attract young people,” Fieger said. “You make Detroit a fun city. A place they want to live and they would flock here.”

http://www.freep.com/article/20110415/COL24/110415011/1008/news06/Carol-Cain-Prostitution-pot-legalization-could-make-Detroit-attractive-Fieger-says

Would anyone consider moving there if he won?

[Forkboy]

1. Worked for me.

[joeybee12]

11. Yeah, but you hate to travel...nt

[Rage for Order]

2. I wouldn't move there but I would certainly consider visiting!

:)

[apples and oranges]

4. maybe an annual pot festival to boost tourism?

[provis99]

6. frankly, I think that would work.

Nevada got people to come out to a bone dry desert to gamble. Detroit could become the pot paradise of America!

[Motown_Johnny]

7. Hash Bash

been doing it for decades

[Renew Deal]

3. What could possibly go wrong?

:yoiks:

[Motown_Johnny]

5. I already live here

and I can agree with the stance on marijuana. Most everyone I know who smokes already has their medical marijuana card anyways.

I can't agree with his stance on prostitution. IMO The exploitation of vulnerable young women (and men) outweighs any possible benefits.

Windsor already has legal prostitution in the form of legal escort services. If someone really needs a sex worker they can cross into Canada.

[demmiblue]

8. I agree.

"IMO The exploitation of vulnerable young women (and men) outweighs any possible benefits." Especially in a city that has huge high school dropout and unemployment levels. Frankly, I am a little surprised at Fieger's words.

[Zookeeper]

14. Ditto. n/t

[Rex]

9. You know when real life imitates the movie RoboCop...well the End is Neigh.

So who wants to buy Detroit!? GE? Someone needs to step up so we can have some new RC movies!

[Zookeeper]

15. Did you know that Houston was used as a stand-in for...

Detroit in that movie?

[Manifestor_of_Light]

19. Robocop II

They used the Wortham Center (opera house) with the arch over the door as City Hall. They drove off to the right on Smith St. next to the concrete fort (Alley Theater).

The inside of city hall was the inside of the George R. Brown Convention Center.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

23. Thanks for mentioning the Lotus Sutra

And Shakyamuni and Nicheren Daishonen.

Kwan Yin, The Green, White and Red Taras.

i used to go to a Mahayana temple dedicated to Kwan Yin.

Unfortunately I now live in the boonies where people have six foot tall instruments of torture used by the Romans in their yards to show everyone their faith. With xmas lights as well. Yuck.

I don't think the Abrahamic religions are adequate to deal with the 21st century. They are too primitive and superstitious. I would make an exception for Reform Jews who seem to be more practical & progressive than other branches.

[JVS]

10. Vegas is going to shit bricks!

[walldude]

12. He's right.

I hope he gets the chance to prove it.

[blondeatlast]

13. As long as both are well-regulated and taxed, I'm good with it.

[exboyfil]

16. From the Godfather

Zaluchi-

"I also don't believe in drugs. For years I paid my people extra so they wouldn't do that kind of business. Somebody comes to them and says, "I have powders; if you put up three, four thousand dollar investment, we can make fifty thousand distributing." So they can't resist. I want to control it as a business, to keep it respectable. I don't want it near schools! I don't want it sold to children! That's an infamia. In my city, we would keep the traffic in the dark people, the coloreds. They're animals anyway, so let them lose their souls."

Not that this is my sentiment, but an argument can be made that so long as it is kept in Detroit with a high minority population, everyone else is ok with it. It was not too long ago that we had conspiracy theories that the CIA was wronging drugs so that the drugs would get into the minority neighborhoods.

I personally think that both should be legalized. What an 18 year does with his/her body should be their own business. Same said for two consenting adults and what they do with their bodies and their own business relationships.

A 15 year old can get a condom without parental permission/notification, but an 18 year cannot engage in a contract between himself/herself and his/her customer???? Does not seem logical to me.

[girl gone mad]

21. Why not legalize slavery, too?

I'm sure you can get a desperate person to consent to working for less than minimum wage, work overtime for no extra pay, or toil away in unsafe conditions.

Hey, as long as they're 18 and willing, why should the state bother to try and protect them from exploitation?

[demmiblue]

24. That is pretty much what it comes down to. Sickening. n/t

[JackRiddler]

25. Prohibition has been a war on black people, first, second and last.

"Drugs" indeed. He's talking about weed, actually, and of course he's right. There are people in prison for marijuana. For marijuana. In this heavily alcoholic country. And most of those people in prison are black men. There is a drug business because there is a war on drugs. There is high profit in it and people sell themselves to get drugs because there is a war on drugs. Legalize marijuana, decriminalize the rest, offer treatment and let people be free. This madness is what fills the prisons, employs the cops, justifies the surveillance state, brings profit to local lords and hyperprofit to money launderers, who are your local banks. (Wachovia was a very big one, does anyone care?) That's why there's a "war on drugs." It is an abomination.

Read the history, like the great book by Dan Russell, Drug War. From its beginnings in the early 20th C., prohibition and racism and the crackdowns on labor all went hand in hand.

Legalizing prostitution, not quite the same. Don't like it as an industry. Needs strict regulation, checkups, guaranteed HIGH minimum payments, strict zoning. Still don't like it as an industry. Terrible exploitation of women.

What is certain is that making it criminal makes it worse. You can keep your clean consciences, those of you who know it is a terrible exploitation, and say it won't be condoned, no society should allow it. You can keep your clean consciences. But all that means is that it happens anyway, and gangsters control it, and for the women trapped in it, it is worse.

[exboyfil]

27. I am all on board with legalization and

letting any inmates convicted of solely drug offenses out of the penal system. I would even go with expunging any possession and any low level dealing from records.

I would never go to a prostitute (actually I am strongly against sex outside marriage), but I also think that women (and men) have a right to engage in commerce even with their bodies. Reasonable regulations like what are found in any industry should be enforced.

In a society which values the concept of free love without restrictions - why shouldn't women (and men) make a profit from it as well. At the end of the day it is only a matter of degree from keeping a mistress in comfort versus paying an anonymous person for sex. Actually some feminists even argue that marriage is just a form of prostitution. I don't tend to agree with them but the case is out there. To be even cruder (as was presented in an episode of Law and Order) why not bypass the dance, the movie, and the dinner and go straight to the sex.

[bluestate10]

18. I agree.

If both are regulated and taxed appropriately, the candidate's plan will work.

[KamaAina]

17. He doesn't even live in the D

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geoffrey_Fieger#Personal

Fieger is the older brother of the late Doug Fieger, lead vocalist of the late-'70s/early-'80s rock group The Knack, best known for their hit song "My Sharona" in 1979. Fieger and his wife, Kathleen ("Keenie"), have several children and live in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan.

But wait! There's more!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geoffrey_Fieger#Other_activities

In 1998 Fieger ran unsuccessfully as the Democratic nominee for governor of Michigan. During the campaign Fieger made several inflammatory and controversial comments and statements, including

an assertion that his opponent John Engler was the product of barnyard miscegenation;

a claim that "rabbis are closer to Nazis than they think."

a radio appearance characterizing Michigan appellate judges as "jackasses" for overturning a 15 million dollar medical malpractice judgment he had won. (A lower court reprimand based on these comments was eventually upheld by the Michigan Supreme Court.)

Hoo boy. :scared:

[etherealtruth]

20. Feiger is an idiot

It is important to note that even stopped clocks are right twice a day ...

"John Engler was the product of barnyard miscegenation" no truer statement has ever been made about our former governor.

The Detroit police have so much to do ... they need to not worry about enforcing marijuana laws.

[Festivito]

29. Hold on there.... Same for Dave Bing.

And, I guess it's easy to make fun of anyone who is more fun than a bag of manure.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

22. That is some out of the box thinking...

[JackRiddler]

26. btw, I'm sure many young people are considering moving to a city 1/4 empty with $5000 houses.

[bluestate10]

28. Cheap real estate is one powerful leg for incubating businesses.

The challenge of Detroit is to make part of thinly populated parts of town into business enterprise zones. Give imaginative your people homes remade into shops where business can grow.