There are a variety of criminal offenses which involve acting in a manner that causes others to complain. These can range from minor ones (like having an outdoor rock concert at 2am) to major ones (like assault). Murder is a special case because the victim cannot act personally as a complainant, but even there the crime usually comes to the attention of government because someone complains--there generally aren't a bunch of police officers going around looking to see if there are any murder victims about.
If someone has an outdoor rock concert at 2am and nobody in earshot feels like complaining, it's not the government's job to do anything about it.
There is also a large class of problems for which it is better in practical terms to regulate dangerous and destructive conduct before it imposes irreversible harm. Thus speeding is illegal even before there is an accident; the competence of doctors and airline pilots is regulated; you cannot store dynamite in your tool shed in the burbs; and so on.
Speeding is illegal because speeding tickets provide a means of raising revenue. Although there are some cases where speed enforcement is done to promote safety, speed limits are generally set sufficiently below the speed at which roads may safely be traversed that the only reason they are taken seriously is because of people's desire to avoid paying the state.
Reckless driving, unlike most speeding, is a crime which often does affect other people even when it does not result in an accident, because it forces others to take evasive action and interferes with the orderly flow of traffic. Although it is not in most cases practical for people to file complaints against those who cut them off in traffic, the nature of the act is such that there'd be plenty of people willing to file complaints if they could do so.
Even the mere disturbance of your enjoyment of your home is defended by regulations against your neighbors putting on a rock concert down the block.
Answered in my first point.
There is yet another class of harms in which the conduct at issue is destructive or costly to others in a way that is not fully rational or amenable to redress through damages actions or injunctive relief. What do you do for the kid who wonders why his father tells him to piss off through a cloud of smoke on many evenings? Or is glassy eyed and barely responsive? Or who just acts odd and has trouble working because of damage done long ago by drug use?
If the child's parents are abusive to the child, why should it matter whether it's because of illegal drugs, alcohol, or some other cause? And to contrive a system of tort law that offered an effective system of remedies -- against drug dealers and suppliers one supposes -- would still require massive help from law enforcement in order to be made effective. Why wouldn't drug dealers just operate in the shadows beyond view of the law -- just like the millions of illegal immigrants who live off the books and work for less than minimum wage?
If drugs are legal but a seller supplies tainted product, then the people who bought such product or were harmed by it could tell the police about the dealer, whereupon he could be arrested. If the people who buy from the dealer have no reason not to go to the cops, it will be very hard for a dealer to hide unless his actions produce no complaints. And if his actions produce no complaints, what's the problem?
Not only has the justice system failed, so has the legislative. Legislators, the media and educators tell us that if not for each years new laws people and society would run head long into destruction. Clinton's two terms created 3,000 new laws and regulations each year -- 24,000 new laws.
Question, how is it that the people and society didn't self-destruct prior to the 1990's or 1890's? Not to mention how it is that people and society are not now self-destructing without the new laws and regulations to come over the next five, ten, fifteen years? Apparently the above mentioned parasitical elites would have us believe that people and society are constantly on the tipping point of self destruction. In reality people and society increasingly prospered, moving away from destruction.
Virtually every person breaks the law a few times each year. If every lawbreaker, that's virtually all of society, could be apprehended next week, society would run headlong into destruction. Yet with all those lawbreakers running lose society is not in danger of self-destruction.
What about the doctor who operates with a [alcohol] buzz on? The pilot who flies that way? What about the costs for hospitalization and institutionalization of those who are schizophrenic and psychotic due to marijuana or other drugs [alcohol, caffeine, PMS]? In such cases private causes of action are a poor or useless remedy even if a solvent, deep pocket defendant is within reach.
Besides the fact that 9 of 10 juries would find that the defendant did not harm you by his act of using drugs in his home and, if the judge didn't dismiss the case as frivolous. what you're saying apparently is that the government's response to a victim is, "tough luck there buddy, you were a victim, get over it. But us government officials will spend a tom of money to convict and incarcerate the person while you get nothing. But we'll take your tax dollars and use them to convict and incarcerate they guy."
Why wouldn't drug dealers just operate in the shadows beyond view of the law
Because the person that was supposedly harmed by the act of a person across the street using or selling drugs in their home, the supposed criminal would have to be in contact with his victim, who is across the street, to cause the harm. The tort law says if you harm a person you pay restitution. The supposed victim has to prove she was harmed by the guy while he was across the street minding his own business.
Damn. You're no fun. You make way too much sense.