War on Drugs gone awry in another case

[bongaroo]

Anyone else see this?

http://abcnews.go.com/video/playerIndex?id=5454035

The reporter really makes the police cheif look like a fool and face some questions that he was obviously unprepared to answer.  This ranks right up there with the ninja police forces striking at night breaking down doors and complaining when they get shot at.

Sad stuff.

[crockett]

A quarter pound of pot and 6 pills was enough to claim it was a drug house. I've never touched drugs in my life, but that's absolutely ridiculous, to treat her like she was a big dealer.

[bongaroo]

I can't believe the way the police chief has handled it.  What a bastard.

[lowZX14]

That's absolutely insane.  Bong, I wonder how ole Sheriff Harrison down there in Wake Co. would handle it.

[bongaroo]

Hmm...Well this guy is the sheriff:

[url]http://rtpnet.org/~wcso/sheriff.html[url]

You could ask him if he'd put a 23 year old girl with no training into a bust situation that was to include a firearm and 10's of thousands of dollars in money and drugs.  I'm pretty sure he'd say no.

[crockett]

You know the really screwed up part about this is, the only reason we even hear about it is because it's a young white female college student. If this was a minority or even a white male you would have never heard about it.

[bongaroo]

Well I don't know about that.  I keep an eye on this website.  Looks color-blind to me.

http://blogs.salon.com/0002762/stories/2003/08/17/drugWarVictims.html

[crockett]

Well I don't know about that.  I keep an eye on this website.  Looks color-blind to me.

http://blogs.salon.com/0002762/stories/2003/08/17/drugWarVictims.html

Yea I'm talking about on national media.

[Vudak]

You know the really screwed up part about this is, the only reason we even hear about it is because it's a young white female college student. If this was a minority or even a white male you would have never heard about it.

Well, if it was a police officer that died in the drug bust, we'd hear about how heroic they were.

Maybe that's true, but the hero died for nothing.  Not a single thing changed for the better, whatsoever, by their death.  And the same goes for this poor girl.

But, hey, as long as we insist on repeatedly bashing our heads against a brick wall to try and get to the other side, we're going to have to deal with a few cracked skulls...  What do people expect?

[bongaroo]

Go read these stories:

http://blogs.salon.com/0002762/stories/2003/08/17/drugWarVictims.html

A few are of police officers who needlessly lost their lives in botched "no-knock" raids.  None of those victims had to die.  Our laws need to change.  Here's a pretty good speech to read if you have the time:

http://www.theadvocates.org/library/casualties-of-war.html

[nirvana]

Don't have drugs, don't have problems.  Simple solution.

[bongaroo]

Not really.  You'll never eliminate them.

[nirvana]

...That was meant as in you personally don't have them, or anyone in your household for that matter.  I could tell you stories from the Caribbean about drug busts but you might go into hysterics.

[eagl]

The only way to eliminate drug abuse is to simply kill everyone found with illegal drugs in their possession, right there on the spot.  Where is Judge Dredd when we need him?

I think this is one of the few cases where the middle-ground approach simply won't work.  People are effing stupid when it comes to drug use, and the approach being used just doesn't account for the fact that you can't take a middle-ground approach.  And simply executing everyone found with drugs is probably not going to be an acceptable solution, so maybe the other approach ought to be tried.

The middle ground "war on drugs" approach has utterly failed, in my opinion.  And along the way, it's created a massive global economy and put an awful lot of money in the hands of some really bad people.  Make it legal, and tax the hell out of it.  That way the US govt gets the money, not the drug growers, smugglers, distributors, or dealers.  Take some of that drug tax money and use it for community-based rehab centers so when people (who are effing stupid, remember?) who take drugs inevitably decide it was a dumb thing to do or don't try to quit before it ruins their health and lives, they have a place to turn for help and rehabilitation.

Legalize and tax.  Even heavily taxed, the stuff will still be fairly cheap and easy to get.  That also means reduced crime from junkies looking for enough cash for their next hit.  I don't care how badly a junkie ruins his health, as long as he doesn't rob my house to get cash for his next hit.

[Leslie]

The girl's parents should have talked with the Police and told them,  you know what happens to informants.  If my daughter has to go to jail that's the way it is, but you are not going to jeopardize my daughter's life under any circumstances.



Les