JBTs, No-Knock, Drugs, A Rant

[Art Eatman]

I've read a lot of threads and posts in the last six years, at TFL and here, on the subject of forms of searches and the behavior of police. I've also run across websites listing those who've been abused by mistakes on the part of LEOs.

What got me to thinking about the total package of all this stuff was a cite in the No-Knock thread that in some two years in NYC, over 12,000 drug-search warrants were issued. 12,000! Warrants!

My little mind working as it does, I can't help but tie this to the comment in Rand's "Atlas Shrugged" about passing so many laws that nobody can remain totally law-abiding.

I also factor in the commentary in the LA Times in 1973 which spoke to the cost of and the effectiveness of the anti-drug efforts. It was obvious at that time that the "War" was already lost.

This is 2004. If my basic arithmetic is anywhere near righteous, that's 31 years. Seems to me that as a society we're slow learners.

Humans are fallible. Write that down. We're all given to the occasional screwup. You. Me. Yo' momma. Even my Grammaw.

So what we've done to ourselves over the last forty-some years is create a package-deal of money, ideology and law which turns $20/ton cattle fodder into $500/lb "controlled substance" and seeks to put folks in jail for observing economic opportunity in true capitalistic fshion.

(Ironic interjection: The British government once-upon-a-time sold opium to China, and required by force of arms that it be bought.)

Anyhow, we've elected people into positions of political power who've passed laws. We've paid taxes to hire people to enforce these laws. The laws and the punishments have become ever more Draconian--ever harsher. The balance of profits on the one hand versus the punishments on the other have created an amorphous group of people who are willing to be violent in order to avoid the punishments.

So we have good guys with guns going after bad guys with guns, and very few seem to believe that the good guys can ever goof. To a great extent, not even the good guys recognize that Murphy's Law never takes a vacation.

I feel like I'm caught in the middle of a giant cluster-whatsit. I'm basically pro-LEO, but at the same time I despise arrogance, self-righteousness and knowitallitis.

Now, I'm on the edge of gettin' old. Me'n' Mr. Keith: "Hell, I Was There." I'm not much on the old Blame Game, but it sorta chaps my tail that the people WE have elected mostly seemed to have gotten going on all these anti-drug laws on account of a bunch of Hippies were having too much fun. And it's this myriad of laws that our good guys are supposed to enforce.

Ya see, I remember when "doing drugs" wasn't real common, back when few folks gave a hoot one way or the other. The more the laws got written, the more interest was created in the media, and the more drugs were brought in and sold. Which escalated into today's gigantic Bad Circus of DrugLords and DEA and all that flailing, thrashing and corruption*.

Sorry for the length. I just get tired of sloganeering from either side of the arguments about laws and law enforcemnt. And I get tired of people looking at some tiny portion of a very large picture.

Art

* A neighboring-county sheriff, once head of an anti-drug task force, is doing life without parole for his part in smuggling of one metric ton of pure cocaine.

 

[Desertdog]

Anyhow, we've elected people into positions of political power who've passed laws.

IMHO this is the big problem. We call them lawmakers and they THINK that if they are not passing laws, they are not doing their jobs.

They need to rethink their job and decide they are to abide by the Constitution of the United States of America. That should change a lot of whats's going on in Washington.

 

[DMF]

Interesting post Art. I see some of your frustration. However, I don't think that drug laws are a "self licking lollipop." The increase in the laws, IMHO, did not cause an increase in demand, but I suspect we will probably never agree about that.

However, whether you or I agree on what is going on with drug laws in that respect, there is a problem in this country with the cultural attitude toward drugs. Many want to compare drug laws to prohibition and say it's all a waste. The problem being, before prohibition was put in place alcohol was widely accepted in our culture, but a vocal minority was able to force alcohol prohibition down our throats. In contrast we now have a vocal minority trying to push drug legalization, starting with marijuana.

Drug use, even cannabis, has never enjoyed widespread cultural support. In fact even now, surveys show that when polling people about legalizing marijuana approx. 80% are for it. However, surveys asking people, if MJ were legal would you want your kids to try it, about 80% are strongly against their kids using it. The same folks that would give their 10 year old a sip of beer, would never give their 18 year old a hit off a joint. So it's not just the politicians, our culture is not really as tolerant of drug use, even MJ, as many would want us to believe.

As long as parents fear that smoking pot might lead to harder drugs, they will continue to support keeping it illegal. Those are the voters that are pushing the politicians to keep the drug laws on the books. Even if you could convince everyone that MJ should be as easy to get as cigarettes and beer, you will never get the majority of folks to tolerate meth, coke, heroin, etc., and they will want vigorous enforcement of the laws surrounding those drugs.

We can debate forever, whether enforcement of various drug laws is the correct solution. But drug laws, and their enforcement, will always be part of the debate as long as so many in our culture have the attitude that. "it's OK for me to do it, because I can control it, but the other guys too are irresponsible, and I don't think my children should ever do it." Our society, collectively has a schizophrenic approach to the whole debate.

Just my 2 cents. YMMV.

 

[NMshooter]

The majority of voters LIKE the current situation. The major argument between "Liberals" and "Conservatives" is who gets to swing the bat at whom. As more people get burned playing with fire more will realise it is not nice to burn others. The phrase "Can't we all just get along?" cuts to the heart of the problem. Things will improve when folks stop trying to force others to live any particular way. People, being very stubborn, generally take a long time with much stumbling and pain before they really learn the important lessons. Myself included.

 

[13A]

The best editorial cartoon I have ever seen on this subject had a donkey and an elephant chopping down a tree. The donkey had an ax labled "war on guns". The elephant had an ax labled "war on drugs". The tree they were chopping down was labled "the bill of rights".

That's it in a nutshell.

 

[JohnBT]

"Even if you could convince everyone that MJ should be as easy to get as cigarettes and beer"

Got news for you.

It's easier to get MJ than smokes and brew - they don't have to get it from stores, etc. Any school for instance has numerous suppliers. Or they can hit one of many street corners. Heck, over 30 years ago there was a young kid busted for selling heroin in front of an ELEMENTARY school approximately 15 miles north of D.C. in a ritzy part of Montgomery County, MD.

Grocery stores, liquor stores, convenience stores, etc. would at least provide some control over sales (like they do with ETOH and cigs) and we wouldn't have gangs fighting over dealing territories and the grossly inflated profits that come to the successful dealer.

The government has created a monopoly and now we're paying to fight the gangs who run it. Smart. The inflated drug prices also force the consumers to steal in the case of crack and the other expensive drugs such as oxycodone/oxycontin.

My dad pretty much agrees with the above and he is 82, a former state trooper who spent 4 years and 29 days in the AAF in WWII (mostly between New Guinea and the Philippines.) And no, he ain't been smoking no wacky weed or snorting that Columbian marching powder stuff.

Heck, I learned some of this stuff working in a VA Hospital in-patient drug and alcohol unit in 1974.

John (aka JBT)

 

[Art Eatman]

My problem isn't with a negative attitude against what are called illegal drugs. It's the way we've gone about dealing with them.

Consider the methodology of many Communist-inspired insurrections: Do violence to the establishment's infrastructure, which induces ever-harsher laws. The laws themselves impact the "sheeple" and arouse resentment against the establishment. This escalates in parallel with a propaganda campaign against the "evil establishment".

There are parallels to this when you consider the rhetoric and laws involved in our present War on Terror...

Ever-harsher laws and penalties do not reduce the drug problem. If they did, we wouldn't still be stuck on the 10% interdiction rate of the last forty-some years. If somebody believes they're at all successful, explain to me why the street price of a gram of cocaine is roughly the same now as 20 years ago? Compare with the last 20 years of change in the price of houses and cars.

So: Many have found that moderate use of some drugs is in no way any more harmful to them than smoking cigarettes or drinking alcohol. They thus do not believe the rhetoric which (mostly) states that ANY use is "abuse".

We thus have an increasing number of people who do not believe the public statements of our government.

I've longheld that most folks' involvement with government involves minor traffic citations. Unjust "speed trap" behavior breeds discontent and disrespect for traffic laws. IMO, this spills over into a certain amount of contempt for all law. I believe that this sort of thought pattern is resulting from the War on Drugs.

And that's part of why I say something different needs to be brought into the methodology of our efforts. The laws need to be changed, somehow. The need for "dynamic entry" somehow needs to be removed from the law-enforcement equation, as much as feasible. The spending of billions of dollars to no real avail just bugs the heck out of me. We need to get away from such notions as "arrest the money"...

In passing, I'd bet that those parents against the use of drugs by their children are also against their children smoking or drinking...I would be, and I smoke and drink and did some experimental usage of Bad Stuff, decades ago, and decided BS wasn't for me. For my son, when he became of age, the decisions were his. I musta done good; he doesn't do drugs or smoke or use more than just a minor amount of bad language. But, wow, can that kid put away the beer!

Arrggghhh. Enough soapbox.

Art

 

[R.H. Lee]

I don't know how to measure any success or failure of the "War on Drugs".
I'll be one of the first to acknowledge that excessive drug usage has a corrosive, debilitating effect on any society. We as a nation are using so many legal prescription drugs-to a deleterious effect, IMO-as to make marijuana use a moot point.

In my opinion, marijuana is a "gateway drug" only because it is illegal. (No, I don't smoke pot, nor do I use any mind altering, mood affecting chemicals, not even alcolhol). Law enforcement resources would be better used concentrating on violent, predatory criminals rather than some potsmokers.

The "dynamic entry no-knock warrant" thing seems to be getting outta control. We're hearing more stories of cops killing unarmed occupants, and subjects inside the houses killing cops. Stop the madness. I know every PD likes to have an elite "team" to do the dynamic entry thing, but really, how often is it just an ego trip for everyone involved?

 

[mpthole]

13A: Here you go...

Art: Excellent posts. Ayn Rand was right.

 

[TallPine]

That cartoon could be entitled "Dueling Axis" instead.




BTW, thanks Art. You pretty much sum up my feelings exactly. But nobody listens to me ... if I posted that, I would be immediately labeled a "low-life druggie who just wants to grow his own weed." God knows I have enough weeds to worry about already: spotted knapweed, field bindweed, Canadian thistle, etc ....

 

[Bruce H]

Wonder how serious the war on drugs would be fought without the asset forfiture act? Legalize them, tax them, and treat them like any other consumer good. Since they can cause imparment the under influence rules apply.

 

[sendec]

It's not a new problem, nor American

People worldwide have used drugs recreationally and medicinally since the first Neanderthal got a buzz eating betel nuts. My main concern is that people use the term "drugs" to represent such a broad spectrum of substances and effects that it leads to over-broad generalizations, both legally and socially. Furthermore. drug related criminal activity varies so widely that there cannot be a standardized LE, legislative or judicial response. Of course, a criminal justice "system" is'nt really designed for flexibility.

Asset forfeiture is relatively new. If it went away I doubt you'd see much change in enforcement actions. Like no-knocks, it gets far more attention than actual use. There have been abuses fer shur no doubt, but there are so many checks and balances agencies are'nt committing the robberies they are frequently accused of.

 

[Standing Wolf]

Seems to me that as a society we're slow learners.

Yep. My parents were old enough to remember some of prohibition's numerous failures, but convinced themselves the war against some drugs was a worthy cause.

As far as I'm concerned, it's nobody's business what people smoke, as long as they're not toking and driving, and I have a hunch the founding fathers would have felt the same way.

 

[sendec]

Legalizing marijuana's one thing, but do we really want to pick up PCP at the package store? Watch our daughters leave on dates when Rohypnol is open market? Have two athletic programs, one with'roids and the other without?

I don't think a blanket "yeah or nay" will work. Prohibition failed for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that while alcohol is dangerous, it isn't THAT dangerous.

 

[trapperjohn]

I have grown increasingly sceptical of the war on drugs in the last several years. A large percent of our prison population is there because of it, a large part of violence is tied too it, and a lot of money is spent executing it.
Making drugs illegal is a relatively recent phenomena. in the 19th century we had such harsh drugs as opium, cocain, heroin etc. They were not illegal and did nto cause widespread problems.
anymore, i am of the mind to say lets just legalize them and if someone is dumb enough to use them thats his tough luck. If they were legalized it would kill the black market for drugs that we do have.

 

[AZRickD]

DMF: "The increase in the laws, IMHO, did not cause an increase in demand, but I suspect we will probably never agree about that."

The argument is not that increase in laws (and the later increase in enforcement) drove up the demand. The argument is that it drove up the price, thus making it profitable.

Same thing happened with Alcohol Prohibition along with increases in crime, formation of a powerful criminal class, corruption in the police and other officials, and a decrease in rights (the first federal gun infringement laws).

See the parallels to the War on Some-Drugs?

It costs $80-billion dollars per year to removed 5-7% of drugs from getting into the American supply.

Anyone who calls this a success is a moron. I call it job security.

Rick

 

[DMF]

Well Rick I'm not sure where you get your figures, but here is the real deal.

http://www.dea.gov/demand/speakout/05so.htm

Costs to the Taxpayer

The claim that money allegedly saved from giving up on the drug problem could be better spent on education and social problems is readily disputed. When compared to the amount of funding that is spent on other national priorities, federal drug control spending is minimal. For example, in 2002, the amount of money spent by the federal government on drug control was less than $19 billion in its entirety. And unlike critics of American drug policy would have you believe, all of those funds did not go to enforcement policy only. Those funds were used for treatment, education and prevention, as well as enforcement. Within that budget, the amount of money Congress appropriated for the Drug Enforcement Administration was roughly $1.6 billion, a sum that the Defense Department runs through about every day-and-a-half or two days.

In FY 2002, the federal drug budget is $18.8 billion. One-third of that budget is invested in demand reduction: prevention and treatment efforts. This fiscal year, we have budgeted more than $3 billion for drug abuse treatment, a 27% increase over 1999.

By contrast, our country spent about $650 billion, in total, in 2000 on our nation’s educational system. And most of us would agree that it was money well spent, even if our educational system isn’t perfect. Education is a long-term social concern, with new problems that arise with every new generation. The same can be said of drug abuse and addiction. Yet nobody suggests that we should give up on our children’s education. Why, then, would we give up on helping to keep them off drugs and out of addiction?

As for me I did very little drug work at my last agency, and will do almost none at my new agency. So I'm not really worried about job security.

 

[hammer4nc]

Drug use, even cannabis, has never enjoyed widespread cultural support. In fact even now, surveys show that when polling people about legalizing marijuana approx. 80% are for it. However, surveys asking people, if MJ were legal would you want your kids to try it, about 80% are strongly against their kids using it.

Don't disagree with either of these statements. However, they're not inconsistent, or even really logically connected. I.e., many folks favor legalization to eliminate the collateral damage to society caused by the war on drugs...while at the same time having no interest in using drugs themselves; or favoring use by their own kids.

Some soldiers in the drug war use cite methamphetamine as a scourge that could never be legalized without destroying society. I assert that if drugs were decriminalized, the nastier/most harmful examples (such as meth) would have no reason to exist at all; would cease to exist. Those seeking high would have many more benign choices. Welcome anyone to rebut this thesis.

I don't have expert knowledge, someone has cited euro countries where some drugs have been legalized...and asserted that the experiment failed. (More discussion here please?) The picture I envision, if drugs were legalized, is of "opium dens" where that segment of society prone to addiction would waste their lives; but off in the fringes of society. Not good, to be sure, but this "disease" is less harmful to society overall IMO, than the "cure"...our current status quo, the war on drugs.

Is anyone willing to argue that in the big picture (all factors pro and con), that decriminalization would be more harmful to society?

 

[spartacus2002]

When I was in law school I had an epiphany in my criminal procedure I class (pretrial procedure). All the cases where the Supreme Court poked holes in the 4th Amendment were drug cases.

Prohibition II (aka The War On Drugs) is a case of the cure is worse than the disease. All the so-called "gains" in reducing drug use by some people have been at the expense of everyone's rights against overzealous government agents.

Oh, and anybody who wants marijuana, coke, acid, meth, PCP, etc., can get them.

I'd rather have Anheuser-Busch or Pfizer in charge of quality control for coke and Ecstasy than some back-alley loser. Make it illegal for folks under 18 to have them, and 7-11 won't sell to them. You don't want your kids to use them, fine, educate them why it's a bad idea. Oh, and if you decriminalize them, you also deglamorize them to teens to a large extent.

 

[AZRickD]

Well Rick I'm not sure where you get your figures,

I take it your not counting places like Columbia and Peru?

By contrast, our country spent about $650 billion, in total, in 2000 on our nation’s educational system. And most of us would agree that it was money well spent,

You're kidding, right?

Rick

 

[Jeff]

I believe the net effect of decriminalizing all recreational drugs would be negative. No doubt.

But does that realization justify the government prohibiting what we can do to our own bodies? Or can we make a rational case that the incidence of violent crime (by addicts) would increase and the general quality of our communities would decrease when all drugs become decriminalized? In other words, decriminalization would lead to a greater occurrence of use/abuse of the substances, and therefore lead to a higher incidence of violent crimes and aberrant behaviors.

One thing I have NEVER seen a pro-legalization advocate say is what would happen to all of the drug dealers once the drugs became legalized. Would they all suddenly become trustworthy, contributing members of society? Perhaps become bankers and accountants?

Other avenues of crime would rise dramatically if drugs were to become legalized, since the former dealers would need to keep their high standard of living maintained, and because they are criminals. It's pretty simple.

 

[TrapperReady]

Tallpine: Shouldn't the cartoon be called "Axes of Evil"?

 

[Art Eatman]

The federal-dollar amount is, so far as I can tell, that money allocated to the direct WOD. I doubt it includes the cost of courts or prisons, nor does it include the state and local costs of "all of the above".

The best guesstimates of the total cost is somewhere around $90 to $100 billion.

Then factor in the private-sector costs, such as increased insurance premiums against burglary. Add to that the hospital costs, whether from a mugging of a little old lady or a shooting at a stop'n'rob.

I won't argue against long-term medical effects of marijuana. However, it's a tranquilizer, and smokers don't get into the bar-thirty fights commonly found on Friday/Saturday nights at the local honky-tonk.

Purely opinion, but I think I'd prefer legal pot to illegal crack.

But, regardless of everything which has been said above, the WAY we're doing the WOD is more of a war on the Bill of Rights.

The AW Ban, for instance, derives in large part from the association with drive-by shootings. These are turf-war affairs, commonly, involving the drug trade.

For those of you who at least sorta favor how we're doing things at present: Do you possibly see that harm has been done to the fundamental protections of the citizenry, the BOR, by the various laws and court decisions supporting them, which do actually reduce the rights of us all? I believe my question has nothing to do with favoring drugs, but has to do with methodology...

Art

 

[AZRickD]

Addendum before beddie-bye:

http://www.app.com/app/story/0,21625,883486,00.html

According to the Drug War Clock, maintained on the Internet by Drug Sense, the federal government spent more than $19 billion and the states more than $20 billion on the drug war in 2003 -- a total of more than $39 billion. In 1981, state and federal governments spent $15.9 billion.

The $39 billion figure does not include significant costs. According to the Bureau of Prisons, 78,501 drug offenders were confined in federal prisons in 2001 at a conservative cost of $20,000 per year each, a total annual cost of $157 million to be added to the cost of the drug war. Also add in the cost of maintaining state prisoners, which numbered 246,100 in 2001 (at $20,000 each -- $492 million); social services, such as welfare and unemployment grants; foreign aid to countries like Colombia to help fight the drug war; expensive court operations; and tax losses resulting from untaxed drug sales. Some estimates of the total cost of the war on drugs are as high as $80 billion.

Martin L. Haines, Moorestown, is a retired Superior Court judge and a former State Bar Association president.

Add this from Milton Friedman "A War We're Losing"

 

[cropcirclewalker]

Somebody who used to be famous may have said, "No problem has ever been solved by govt. They only make it worse."

Maybe it was Reagan who said, "Govt. is not the solution to the problem, it IS the problem."

Like the war on Alcohol, the war on drugs is an unmitigated failure.

Only thing is, govt. is not responsible to be productive, profitible, or efficient. They run the post office. They don't have to justify their existance. They don't have to turn a profit.

Govt. doesn't care if they are winning or losing. They don't care
how many lives they ruin,
how many people they disenfranchise,
how many little old ladies get mugged or burgled,
how many TV sets get pawned,
how many poor black children get killed in the crossfire,
how many convience stores get robbed,
how many innocents get killed because of the wrong address,
how many gazillions of bucks they waste chasing the mythical unicorn of a drug free America.

They don't care.

They probably (IMO) prefer that all of those things happen a lot. Thus more DARE, more prisons, more LEOs, more body armour (Ollie North especially likes that), more interdiction, more turf wars, more violence, more money, more money, more power, more power, and more power.

Just imagine, They declare a victory in the war on drugs and make a rapid retreat.

Who needs the DEA, half of our police forces, half of the USCG, 90% of our body armour anymore? Think about it.