Not arresting them because it might lead to murder, arresting them for drugs after it has lead to constant murders in certain neighborhoods. It's not precrime after the crimes have been committed. That is called good police work.
If we believe the claim that there are drug dealers in every neighborhood at the same rate, despite that being a false assumption based on rates of usage in various populations, then it would make sense to target the neighborhoods were violent crime is a problem and ignore the ones where it is not.
It's not harmful to sell an addict drugs, it is harmful to sell anyone random unknown, unlabeled, inconsistent and deadly substances intended for human injection.
As a drug user I am sure if you had a choice between buying your drugs at 7-11 or behind it, and the prices were similar, you would buy the labeled, clean and consistent product in the 7-11.
If 7-11 sold you a slim jim and it had botulism in it and you died wouldn't it be their fault to some degree?
Then how is a drug dealer selling you baby laxative and fentanyl and calling it heroin not putting them at fault to some degree when you die?
you do raise some fair points at the end there, in those extreme cases I guess there must be some type of responsibility for their product. But I think we both agree that the ultimate long-term solution is to legalize drugs and bring them onto the legal market instead of throwing more people in cages.
Indeed, we need to free up space for cyber criminals.