You make a good case that this fits within the bounds of an enemy target as far as the classic drug war goes.
I think we'd agree though that sans rundown hotel the drugs still would have been made, the people would have died, the cops would have had to arrest people.
Like it or not, the marginal people in the world need places to sleep, go to work, shout at aliens and watch law and order like everyone else. If the meth lab wasn't there then maybe the suburban rental down the street, or the dead junkie could have been in the room next to yours at the quality in that didn't have a huge warning on yelp that let you avoid it.
It's a decent part of the reason that a lot of cities have relatively well know open air drug markets in bad parts of town that don't get much static, or that the oakland pd mostly looked the other way at the large mostly illegal mega grows in the warehouse districts 10 years ago because they knew the alternative would just push them into residential neighborhoods and cause a lot more problems.
Minus the moral outrage and necessity of retribution, the guy was probably doing the rest of the hotels and the town a favor.
I mean that is unless you're arguing to generate enough new revenue so that we can spend drug war size money on top notch medical, pyschiatric, housing and supervision for a large chunk of marginalized people in this country.
I think we'd agree though that sans rundown hotel the drugs still would have been made, the people would have died, the cops would have had to arrest people.
Like it or not, the marginal people in the world need places to sleep, go to work, shout at aliens and watch law and order like everyone else. If the meth lab wasn't there then maybe the suburban rental down the street, or the dead junkie could have been in the room next to yours at the quality in that didn't have a huge warning on yelp that let you avoid it.
It's a decent part of the reason that a lot of cities have relatively well know open air drug markets in bad parts of town that don't get much static, or that the oakland pd mostly looked the other way at the large mostly illegal mega grows in the warehouse districts 10 years ago because they knew the alternative would just push them into residential neighborhoods and cause a lot more problems.
Minus the moral outrage and necessity of retribution, the guy was probably doing the rest of the hotels and the town a favor.
I mean that is unless you're arguing to generate enough new revenue so that we can spend drug war size money on top notch medical, pyschiatric, housing and supervision for a large chunk of marginalized people in this country.