Most drug arrests were for simple possession.
And, I should say, I have been the victim of both assault and robbery (separate incidents), as well as identity theft. In none of these cases were drugs an overriding factor in the crime. They were criminals who decided not to follow the general rules of society.
Do you know that for certain?
Do I know what for certain?
That most drug arrests for for simple possession? Pretty sure, yeah:
From:
https://drugpolicy.org/issues/drug-war-statisticsNumber of arrests in 2018 in the U.S. for drug law violations: 1,654,282
Number of drug arrests that were for possession only: 1,429,299That drugs weren't a factor in the crimes against myself? Again, pretty sure.
I am not a drug user myself. I have never had any in my possession. So these people weren't robbing me to "get my stash". The guy that broke in was someone I had previously met. He was not some "street junky". And when my identity was stolen, the people took out credit in my name to buy things like TVs.
I have no problem believing that the "war on drugs" is a waste of time, and that drug laws should be lightened up. But I doubt very much whether you can trace the majority of crimes like robbery or fraud to "Well, they only did it because drugs were illegal".
(For the record, in my case no arrest was ever made for any of those crimes I mentioned. In my case the police were completely useless, and its probably that way in a lot of other cases too. Again, I have absolutely no problem with police reforms... maybe if they weren't spending money enforcing drug laws they might have caught the people who committed crimes against me. But I do recognize the difference between "Lets get the police focused on stuff that matters" and "Lets abolish them".
How do most cities enforce parking violations? Is there a reason that model wouldn't work for other traffic control issues?
Well, parking violations involve vehicles that are stationary, so they're pretty easy to identify and "ticket".
Moving violations (impaired driving, dangerous driving, etc.) involve cars that are, well, moving. Kind of hard to "catch" them in that situation unless whomever is enforcing the law is in a vehicle themselves. Plus, since the charges are against the driver (rather than the car owner) you need to actually apprehend them to identify them.