Blue Mass Group

Reality-based commentary on politics.

Tim Cahill is shocked! shocked! to discover gambling in these establishments!

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WBZ reports that lots of bars in Massachusetts have gambling machines that are being run like mini-casinos, cash payouts and all.  WBZ’s I-Team followed around undercover agents working out of the Treasurer’s office (grainy video footage and all) as they played the machines and got handed wads of cash when they won.

Now, these bars obviously should not be running illegal gambling operations.  But I enjoyed this part of the story — I’ve edited it just a little bit to make a point.  (The struck-out text is in the original story; the underlined bits are my additions.)

This isn’t just about a small businessman trying to make some extra cash. It’s big money.

Investigators say one bar crack house can make $10,000 a week under the table, and they say the slot machine drug suppliers could be tied to something bigger.

Shortsleeve asked Cahill, “Is it primarily orchestrated by organized crime?”

Cahill responded, “We don’t know that, but it appears to be, and there usually historically has been.”

LEGALIZE SLOT MACHINES DRUGS?

This raid by State agents comes the same week Treasurer Cahill has suggested slot machines drugs should be legalized in this State. Cahill says the problem with illegal gaming drug use is huge. But he reasons if the state regulates it, cities and towns will make millions. And he says the gambler drug user will have a lot better odds quality product while playing shooting up in a safe environment.

No, no, settle down.  Tim Cahill is not arguing in favor of legalizing drugs.  He is, as we know, arguing in favor of legalizing slot machines.  But his argument seems to me indistinguishable from the arguments in favor of legalizing all drugs (not just marijuana).  Legalize it, regulate it, and tax it, say the pro-drug-legalization folks — it’s safer for the users, the state gets tax benefits, and you cut out the criminals who at the moment control a very lucrative market.

That is not a crazy argument.  But Cahill needs to be aware of the can of worms he appears unwittingly to be opening, and he needs to be ready to explain why his argument on slots doesn’t work just as well for drugs.

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Comments

  1. David, this is reductio ad absurdum, and anyone can play.

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    p>

    Reforms are vital and therefore central to our plan.  But we cannot secure our economic future and the public’s safety on the roads, rails and bridges rickshaws with reforms alone.  So, our Plan calls for a 19-cent increase in the gas tax sales tax on sneakers.  The average driver runner would pay the equivalent of about one large cup of coffee a week, less than $8 per month.  And by restricting the gas tax sales tax on sneakers to the transportation fund, taxpayers will be assured that their money is dedicated exclusively to transportation projects better rickshaws.

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    p>Why would Deval start this discussion, where he will have to explain why not to hugely raise taxes on [insert issue here]??  It’s all from this speech!

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    p>It’s sad that as soon as the Globe rumored Tim Cahill to be considering running for governor, the quality of criticism of him in many corners of the Mass. blogosphere has cratered.

    • Sabutai, don’t you find the timing of this publicized raid even a tad bit suspect?

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      p>Cahill announces his slots plan, then days later WBZ is allowed to follow his investigators around as they make illegal gambling busts … and then Cahill argues that we should legalize slots because there is so much illegal gambling taking place.

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      p>It doesn’t take a genius to figure this one out.

    • No one is talking about rickshaws.  A lot of people talk about legalizing drugs, giving exactly the arguments I made in the post.

      • But it remains reducto ad absurdum.  Perhaps I should have gone for wiretapping or torture, two policies that are also held by a vocal minority in our political community.

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        p>That was the point: this “logical” technique is clunky and unhelpful….unless you like what it purports to show.

  2. Has anybody asked Cahill why they haven’t cracked down on these places before this?  Or will they maintain that they have been all along, they just cannot keep up?  It would be interesting to get a list of the illegal gambling locations  that Cahill’s crew has cracked down on for the past year.  Maybe a public records request is in order.  (Isn’t this really a picture of incompetency?)  

    • … in the olden days, when people would complain about the numerous bookie joints, the mob would open new bookie joints in the same neighborhood.  Often next door to the old bookie joints.  The new bookie joints would be filled with the proper paraphernalia for a bookie joint and street people (called bums in those days) would populate the building.  Then the Staties would raid the new bookie joint.  Lots of street people arrested!  Big press!  All the law enforcement folks and politicians would get their faces in the papers and on the new televisions.  (“We’ve turned a corner and let mobsters know that this activity will not be tolerated…yada, yada, yada…”)

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      p>The old bookie joints would be untouched.  

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      p>This passed for change.

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      p>Nowadays, if I were a mobster, I’d sacrifice some of my gambling shops for a piece of statewide action.  I’d wager (brrr!), if you will, that a piece of state action will be bigger than a few bars. (Does anyone believe that the police don’t know where the gambling is going on?)

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      p>But, I’m being cynical.  That type of stuff wouldn’t happen in this state.

  3. There are many differences between drug use and gambling. Among others: (1) drug use is distributed among many small establishments (called bars, in the case of alcohol) rather than, generally speaking and this example notwithstanding, centralized in large establishments like a casino or the “warehouselike structures” Secretary Cahill has proposed, and (2) criminalization of drug use has filled our prisons with nonviolent offers, helped make the U.S. the least free nation in the world in terms of the number of people and fraction of the population incarcerated, and created an enormous and unproductive drain on our resources. Gambling is nowhere close.

    • As to point (1), you can’t compare legal gambling (i.e., casinos or slot parlors) to illegal drug use.  The reason “this example” — the bars that got busted for running illegal slots — looks a lot like drug dealing is precisely because the gambling is illegal, and therefore doesn’t lend itself to large establishments.  And as to point (2), what’s your point?  If you’re saying that decriminalizing drugs would keep us from imprisoning nonviolent offenders, etc., of course that’s true.  Same’s true for gambling — if anyone goes to prison as a result of these raids, they will be nonviolent offenders too.  If you’re saying that society sees illegal drug use as a more serious crime than illegal gambling, I agree, but so what?

      • only outlaws will have slot machines?

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        p>Carey’s spot on about Cahill’s ham-handed (or ham-toed)testing of the water, this was a pre-campaign stunt.

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        p>Stylistic quibble: the strikethrough should have gone through the drug words, not the gambling words.

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