Transient Meth Head Rakes In $95,000 By Stealing Copper to Support $100-a-Day Meth Habit

Phoenix New Times ^ | Thu., Aug. 4 2011 | James King

[ansel12]

I’m not a 100% sure of the law, I haven’t been to the very biggest yards for a couple of years, but the couple of times in recent years when I have inquired about the price of some of the material at some of the more local yards, I have been told that they can longer sell items.

[MaxMax]

IMO it would be hard to prove since scrap is often crushed or shredded
the same day.

[familyop]

"You are exactly correct...the scrapyard owner knows the difference between a construction crew that comes in with the extras from a construction site and someone that just cut the insides out of some stolen AC units."

Sure. Then a property owner who strips an old travel trailer to get rid of it goes to the scrapper with various copper parts cut out of the old trailer. People without a lot hands-on experience in various kinds of technical work (and not only one kind) shouldn't have anything to say on the matter.

It's people like that, who are much to blame for the default process that is about to shut them down. Maybe we need the default that's ahead of us. There are too many frivolous laws, too many busybodies and way too many crooks and local government employees pushing empty wishes for the dead real estate market and other nonproductive pursuits.

[TexasTransplant]

Lots of desert around Phoenix ... sss

TT

[familyop]

"Liberals love the WOD as well."

A faction of liberals are the only people complaining about it. It's not a "war on drugs" anyway (exaggerated metaphor). If there were a war on drugs (assume open season, free fire zone), all of the dealers would be dead.

"If his drugs were cheap, he likely would destroy himself with far less collateral damage to others."

That's liberal illogic. Poverty does not turn people into criminals, and the price of meth didn't make him steal. Legalizing meth wouldn't make it any cheaper, either. The price and costs of medicinal marijuana is far higher than illegal marijuana. We see in practice, that the harder the vice, the higher the taxes, etc. That's the way socialist government works for its doper contingent.

[familyop]

Correction: the price of medicinal marijuana is far higher than illegal marijuana. That doesn’t make the addicts steal more, either, BTW, but it doesn’t solve any of the problems from illegal use.

[marktwain]

That's liberal illogic. Poverty does not turn people into criminals, and the price of meth didn't make him steal. Legalizing meth wouldn't make it any cheaper, either. The price and costs of medicinal marijuana is far higher than illegal marijuana. We see in practice, that the harder the vice, the higher the taxes, etc. That's the way socialist government works for its doper contingent.

I guess that is why we see so many people stealing $95,000 in copper in order to stay drunk.

While it is true that poverty does not turn people into criminals, addiction does make people desperate.

To claim that legalizing drugs would cause the price to rise requires us to believe that the price of regulation, business permits, socialist insecurity, taxes, zoning ordinances, and all the other costs the nanny state has put on us would be greater than the costs of evading the police and criminal justice system.... Maybe you have a point.

[familyop]

"I guess that is why we see so many people stealing $95,000 in copper in order to stay drunk."

That's a good point. Thieves who do meth steal more than thieves who are alcoholics. And thieves whose only vice is cigarettes might, on average, steal less. But y'know, it's all slavery. I stopped smoking to get free from the company store while leaving the plantation. [...building a self-sufficient place with only my own hard labor with an intent to cut costs and starve the beast--independent energy systems, food production, all.]

I'll grant this, too. Legalizing expensive stupid-making drugs would serve me and my kind at this point in the process of the default ahead. It's mainly the brats of rich folks with social degrees, socialist government incomes and of treasonous globalists, who stand to lose from the vices and allow for even more future clients/customers for my hard working, technically inclined kids (see western operations in Czechoslovakia from the late '70s on, nonpolitical politics, etc.). Add another dose of anarchy, and we win ("unexpected").

Rough times make us stronger, and our kids, wiser. Let the pampered and nonproductive complete their decline. Free constitutional technocracy.

[familyop]

Stopped smoking cigarettes, that is. Weed is so...’70s Baby Boomer and even more enslaving.

[marktwain]

Thieves who do meth steal more than thieves who are alcoholics.

Just to be contrarian... Are not meth heads generally a lot more energetic than alcoholics?

[familyop]

Generally? I’m not sure. But they certainly are at times during the day, on some days. During other times, they’re lethargic and in hiding. Many of the IV users try to drink off the paranoia/anxiety, until they pass out.

[golux]

Thanks for the post, Tabasco!

[Smokin' Joe]

...everybody selling is a bit grungy if only from loading up the metal, and that is the demographic most likely to be hooked on drugs.

Yep, regular cocaine yuppies, every one. How about Ecsatcy ravers? Pot smoking professors?

Don't confuse honest dirt with the maliaise of drug abuse. Some jobs you just get dirty doing, and that doesn't mean they aren't honest nor that they don't pay well.

Around these parts the guy who walked in covered with mud and crap looking 'grungy' just might be a millionaire on his way home from the cattle auction or own an oilfield service company.

[discostu]

Even if the centers in Phoenix do that there’s 27 of them (most of them in a 10 square mile chunk), and he had an accomplice. Doing a half way decent job of using both people and all the scrap yards there’s no reason why one of them would have gotten more than $2500 from any one center so far this year. Not an amount that would ring any alarms.

[discostu]

His picture is in the story, does he look like he’s got doper dirt? And remember what he was doing is the kind of job (when done legally) that just gets dirty doing.

[Smokin' Joe]

"Doper dirt"? Actually, he looks cleaner from that pick than most of the Meth heads I have seen, his complexion isn't shot, no scabs, just a thin beard in places, but a beard, not just a lack of shaving.

If someone came in to sell scrap, how would you know (assuming an appropriate amount of loading/unloading dirt--not necessarily seen in a head shot, provided it wasn't loaded last night and brought in early in the morning) that they were either a thief, or, barring some quirky behaviour, a Meth head?

My point in general is that I have probably met more thieves wearing suits than blue jeans, and being merely dirty from working doesn't mean one is more or less likely to be of a larcenous nature, any more than being 'poor' is an indicator in and of itself.

[discostu]

Well you did point out dope fiends tend to be a different dirty than working stiffs.

You and I are on the same point. Unless you’re seeing the guy all time you don’t know if he’s with a legit construction crew getting copper through demos, down on his honest guy tearing apart his own stuff, or a methhead raiding every window AC he can get his hands on. That’s why I’ve been making fun of the people saying the scrap yards are culpable.

[jmacusa]

Jeez! Think how much this guy could make installing the wire.

[GOPJ]

If someone came in to sell scrap, how would you know (assuming an appropriate amount of loading/unloading dirt--not necessarily seen in a head shot, provided it wasn't loaded last night and brought in early in the morning) that they were either a thief, or, barring some quirky behaviour, a Meth head?

My point in general is that I have probably met more thieves wearing suits than blue jeans, and being merely dirty from working doesn't mean one is more or less likely to be of a larcenous nature, any more than being 'poor' is an indicator in and of itself.

You're right - I like the way you think.

[GladesGuru]

I was raised in the scrap metal business. We had both iron and non-ferrous yards. Dad made his way from a horse & wagon to those yards by using Toledo PrintWeigh sacles when the industry was using balance beam type scales (home habitat of the scale master’s thumb).

Honesty in the industry was such that Dad’s approach was so different that he did well.

Yeah, they do buy lots of ‘debatable’ stuff. Clearly hot, no. ‘Debatable’, yes.