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Is Your Vagina Drug-Free? Albany's Narcs Want to Know
Here's an especially sordid and sickening example of abusive policing in the name of the drug war. A young woman driving in the wrong part of Albany gets pulled over by a special, aggressive drug enforcement squad, the Street Drug Unit. As the Albany Times-Union explains: ALBANY-- The cops in the marked patrol car had circled through West Hill a couple times keeping an eye on their female target. They were part of the Street Drug Unit, an aggressive squad assigned to help rid Albany's neighborhoods of drug dealers and addicts blamed for much of the city's problems. It was early evening and already dark when the patrol car's emergency lights flashed in the rearview mirror of Lisa Shutter's Mitsubishi sedan on Quail Street, just off Central Avenue. Police records show the officers called out a "Signal 38" to alert a dispatcher they were onto something suspicious and about to pull someone over. They would later write in a report that they had pulled her over for "failure to signal," although no ticket was issued, according to police records shared with the Times Union. The actions of police in the minutes that followed would end in controversy rather than with an arrest. They would also leave Shutter, a 28-year-old single mother from Ravena, shaken and angry after one of the officers allegedly inserted his finger into Shutter's vagina on a public street during an apparent search for drugs. When it was over, "I pulled off down the road and I just cried for probably a half hour," Shutter said. "I called my dad. ... I felt like I had been basically raped." Sounds pretty horrendous, but then, so is the response from the Albany police when Shutter filed a complaint: The incident has triggered an ongoing internal affairs investigation by the Albany Police Department. But the handling of that investigation has raised questions about whether the department has sought to cover up the incident. Shutter claims Burris Beattie, a commander in internal affairs, dissuaded her from reporting the incident to a civilian police oversight board. The board, which was formed in 2001 in response to community concerns about the handling of internal police investigations, is empowered to monitor cases involving claims of brutality and civil rights violations against any officer. "He said they (internal affairs) would do a better job," Shutter said, recounting her conversation with Beattie. "He said they would like to keep it 'internal' ... that that's how they like to handle things." Good thing they kept it aware from the civilian police review board, because it would have gotten to the bottom of things, right? Well, maybe not. It seems that the Albany board is as toothless and feckless as the rest of those organizations that are supposed to provide oversight to law enforcement: Jason S. Allen, acting chairman of Albany's Citizens' Police Review Board, did not respond to a request for comment about whether all civilian complaints against officers are forwarded to the board. Instead, someone from the review board, which maintains an office at Albany Law School, contacted the department two weeks ago and alerted them that a Times Union reporter was asking questions about their policies, according to a police department source. Let me get this straight: The civilian police review board, which is supposed to keep an eye on police misconduct, but when the board is contacted by reporters about an alleged incident, it doesn't investigate, but instead alerts the department? With review boards like thisâ¦But wait, there's more: A member of the Citizens' Police Review Board, who spoke on condition of anonymity because only the chairman is authorized to make public statements, said some members of the board have privately suspected that the department may be hiding cases of police misconduct. In other instances, the internal affairs reports are so poorly organized and investigated the board has had trouble reaching decisions and often sends them back for more investigation. The board is supposed to appoint a monitor for complaints involving civil rights violations or allegations of excessive force. "Whether the letter of the law says that this should be the process, the intent and spirit of the law mandates that, especially in cases of civil rights violations, they be submitted to us for review," the board member said. "If not this, what do we review? ... The fact they would dissuade someone from reporting an incident and say they would do the investigation better completely defeats the purpose of why we were created." One of the two officers involved, Matthew Fargione, is the son of a former Albany narc who is a long-time buddy of the chief, James Tuffey. Fargione Sr. used to be Tuffey's boss on the narc squad. The other officer was Nick Abrams. While Shutter said police internal affairs told her one of the officers had been suspended, apparently that is untrue. Here's how it went down, according to the Times-Union account: The incident unfolded just after 7 p.m. on Dec. 22. Shutter said she'd just finished some last-minute holiday shopping and became confused as she drove through West Hill looking for a friend she'd agreed to pick up that night. Shutter was behind the wheel of a friend's rented car, and said she saw the police car drive past her twice before the stop. The officer at her window grilled her about drug use and hidden crack pipes, she said. "You fit the profile," the officer said, according to Shutter. "You're a white girl in a rental car." She told the officer she had no drugs and offered to take a Breathalyzer test, but he declined to give one, she said. The officer then allegedly reached through her window and plucked Shutter's cellphone from her lap. He scrolled through the personal information in her phone, she said, asking questions about "private calls" and someone named "Mandie," whose name appeared on her contacts' list. Mandie Buxton, 28, who is Shutter's friend since childhood, was at home when her cellphone rang that night. The man calling identified himself as an Albany police officer and asked whether Shutter was supposed to be picking Buxton up that night. "I said: 'What are you talking about?' " Buxton said. "He said: 'You don't know what I'm talking about?' and then he hung up. I called right back and no one answered." Ordinarily, police need a search warrant to seize or access someone's telephone. Before it was over, Shutter was ordered to stand outside her vehicle with her hands on the trunk. One officer searched her body while a second scoured the inside of the car. They also dumped the contents of her purse and asked whether she'd spent her money on crack because her wallet was empty. Shutter said she never consented to a search of her vehicle, her telephone or her body. She said she pleaded with the officer who allegedly slid his hand down the back of her jeans, and inside her underwear, to stop. "I kept saying over and over ... 'If you have to search me, can you bring me to the precinct?' " Shutter said. A female officer was called to the scene and informed Shutter she was there to search her body, Shutter said. The female officer patted her down, lifted Shutter's sweater and felt along her bra strap, and made Shutter open her mouth and lift her tongue. No reason was given. The police found no drugs or other evidence of criminal wrongdoing before allowing Shutter back in her car. "He said 'you're lucky' ... and that I better not drive around there again," Shutter said. Shutter called Buxton and her father minutes later, crying hysterically, they said. Shutter's mother, Sherry, characterized her daughter's encounter with police as a "life-changing nightmare at the hands of an Albany police officer." "Our daughter did not deserve to be so grossly violated and I want the officers to comprehend and be held accountable for violating our child," she said. "I just keep telling her that 'you did not deserve this.'" One question: How many other women have been sexually assaulted by these criminals in blue? Another question: Is it okay for women to be digitally raped by cops if there are drugs in their vaginas? This story isn't going over too well in Albany, either. Check out the responses by Albanyites (Albanians?) at the Time-Union's blog page.
Vancouver's seventh homicide is another gang hit
"I guess it happens everywhere".That's what the neighbor of our latest gang land hit said to the BCTV reporter asking her about the shooting death of a 20 year old Asian male on Sunday,March 9,'08."Ni
If You're on the Jury in a Drug Case, Always Vote 'Not Guilty'
Having already created the greatest crime drama in television history, the writers of HBO's The Wire have now also delivered an unusually powerful indictment of the drug war. While the program itself raises many questions about the practical application of our nation's drug laws, this forceful statement removes all doubt about where its authors stand:If asked to serve on a jury deliberating a violation of state or federal drug laws, we will vote to acquit, regardless of the evidence presented. Save for a prosecution in which acts of violence or intended violence are alleged, we will â to borrow Justice Harry Blackmun's manifesto against the death penalty â no longer tinker with the machinery of the drug war. No longer can we collaborate with a government that uses nonviolent drug offenses to fill prisons with its poorest, most damaged and most desperate citizens. [Time]I can think of few things more satisfying than ruling against the drug war in a court of law. Alas, however, I expect not to be offered such an opportunity any time soon given the readily accessible archive of evidence that would lead any prosecutor to send me home well before opening arguments. On that note, my colleagues David Borden and David Guard once refused jury service outright in protest of the drug war's corrosive effect on the criminal justice system. They were found in contempt of court and sentenced to serve community service indefinitely so long as they refused to perform their civic duty. They eventually capitulated, but only after generating press coverage in The Washington Post. To my knowledge, neither has been called to serve since.Ultimately, the value of jury nullification as a weapon against the drug war is difficult to measure, but we have everything to gain by actively educating the public about the right to vote one's conscience when serving on a jury. I've learned anecdotally of many instances of nullification, usually at the hands of a concerned citizen who would never have stood out within the jury pool. Beyond that, I suspect that the prospect of nullification is already influencing prosecutorial behavior in dramatic, though invisible, ways. The best example may be California, where federal harassment of medical marijuana providers rarely results in formal charges.The U.S. Constitution, worn thin through decades of drug war destruction, does still bestow upon us the privilege of standing in judgment of our peers. Let us cherish this noble duty and exercise our constitutional right to put the drug war itself on trial, wherever and whenever the opportunity arises.
Mixed messages
Under this banner the Canadian press announced the UN drug control agency was demanding that Canada close down insite,Vancouver's safe injection site.As recently as one month ago I was at a meeting where just this issue was argued in front of a UN representative,who assured us that the UN had no interest in forcing independent countries into making decisions based on threats from outside.There was no doubt at that time where the pressure originated and the recent arrest of marijuana advocates who have operated in town for years unobstructed shows the US is flexing it's powerful hold on drug war politics and trying to regain lost ground in their war on drugs.Every time it begins to look like there may be some will to actually try some new approaches to drug addiction and the decriminalization of marijuana.The UN or the drug czar or some other do as i say not as i do group comes along and starts shouting that the sky is falling.This recent UN announcement is a slap in the face to every one that attended the recent conference.There is either no communication among UN people or we were lied to.This is exactly the kind of thing we were given assurances would not happen.The Olympics is putting extra pressure on the city government to clean up the cities image.That's much more important than saving 600 lives from over dosing or preventing addicts from spreading AIDS or hep C.
UN Recommends Busting Celebrity Drug Users
You know you've hit rock bottom when the United Nations is complaining about you:Leniency towards drug-abusing celebrities is sending out the wrong message to children and young people, the United Nations drug control agency said today.The International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) warned that allowing famous people to get away with drug crimes had a damaging effect on impressionable youngsters and undermines faith in the criminal justice system. [The London Paper]It's always cute when drug war supporters read between the lines and catch on that the massive international drug war hasn't stopped the party. Unfortunately, this realization often leads to bizarre proposals like biological warfare or mass-arresting famous people. This absurd scheme, like every other dubious drug war idea, will fail for all the same reasons it failed before. The drug war is simply not effective against wealthy privileged people. Those with the resources available to conceal their law-breaking from the prying eyes of police will continue to party in private. You can't deputize the paparazzi to pop Paris for pot and you can't railroad rockstars in drug war kangaroo courts. Just try it, and the number of 90210 zipcodes in the StopTheDrugWar.org membership database will soon crash our servers. It would be vastly more effective, though still futile, to ask that the press kick its habit of turning every wasted starlet into front-page news. The relentless trainwreck that passes for entertainment media on both sides of the pond is just as nauseous and predictable as its subjects, thus the apple can't be expected to fall far from the tree. It's all fun and games until LA SWAT raids Paris Hilton's house on a tip from Tara Reid and is forced to shoot a chihuahua in self-defense.
The $1 Million Drug War Trial That Means Nothing
Why is the U.S. government spending $1 million to bring drug charges against a man who's already going to die behind bars? Colombian rebel leader Ricardo Palmera is already serving a 60-year prison sentence. Convicted in a hostage-taking conspiracy, he has no chance of parole and is likely to die in prison.But U.S. prosecutors are about to begin a monthlong trial, which could cost more than $1 million, seeking to prove that Palmera and his guerrilla allies are drug traffickers. [AP]So what's the point? AP explains it as well as I could:For the U.S., however, the outcome matters a great deal. The Bush administration has taken a hard line against the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, branding them not just a terrorist group but a violent drug cartel. A courtroom win would reinforce that stance.As Pete Guither points out, the story's headline "US Seeks Symbolic Drug War Victory" couldn't more perfectly describe what's going on here. We are spending $1 million to stamp the "drug trafficker" label on a guy that's already been branded as a terrorist. In the absence of actual tangible progress in the war on drugs, these sorts of symbolic endeavors are the lifeblood without which the morale of the great drug warrior army might wither and disperse. And when all is said and done, the only fact of any significance to emerge from this will be that drug prohibition provides income for violent paramilitary armies to buy guns and bombs for their political wars. Even when the desired verdict is handed down, the drug war is nothing other than an exhibit in its own futility.
People Don't Inject Marijuana With Hypodermic Needles. They Smoke It.
Via Paul Armentano at the new NORML Blog:According to a recent news item making international headlines, a journalist in a forthcoming BBC 'documentary' will "inject" herself with the "main ingredient" of so-called "skunk cannabis" in an effort to warn viewers of the "dramatic" and "unpleasant" effects of marijuana.And so, we're reminded yet again that there is simply no level of absurdity to which the purveyors of anti-marijuana hysteria will not stoop. It shouldn't be at all necessary to explain that no one shoots THC straight into their veins. So when we find this intrepid "journalist" rolling around on the floor soiling herself or whatever, let's just keep in mind that it won't happen again unless this ridiculous stunt somehow catches on. And if that happens, it will be BBC's fault, not marijuana's.Of course, while this preposterous exercise will teach us nothing about the effects of recreational marijuana use, it does illustrate two important points worth considering:1. Marijuana is sufficiently mild in its effect that anyone attempting to vividly depict its horrors must resort to the most extreme and unrealistic experiments imaginable. Showing footage of normal marijuana users using marijuana normally would be utterly boring and insignificant. Thus, the choice to approach the subject under such bizarre conditions tells you everything you actually need to know about the integrity of marijuana's critics.2. Marijuana is so amazingly safe that this journalist can confidently inject its main ingredient straight into her veins. Do you think the BBC or the doctors involved in this mindless charade would have allowed this to proceed if there were any real danger? This whole trainwreck is really just a giant concession that marijuana is medically safe even in atypically massive doses. Once again, we can count on marijuana reporting in the British press to be injected with everything but the truth.
You Know the Drug War's Gone Too Far When It Shows You Its Penis
Allegations of weird and inappropriate behavior by narcotics officers have become so commonplace that one struggles to feign shock or surprise upon learning of them. A drug informant's allegations that a Marin narcotics agent offered her leniency in exchange for three-way sex - and then sent a photo of his penis to her cell phone - have left a legal mess at the Hall of Justice that could take months to clean up. [Marin Independent Journal]This poor woman agreed to cooperate after being arrested for selling an ounce of marijuana, and the next thing she knows, there's a penis in her phone. Prosecutors subsequently dropped the charges against her, so the penis was ultimately the only punishment she received. Not a bad deal by drug war standards, but it does make you wonderâ¦Will investigators be contacting other female informants this detective worked with? My understanding is that people who like to show other people their penis tend to do so habitually. For all we know, this cop could have been going around for years targeting women for arrest and then texting them pictures of his penis. The bottom line is that the entire process of turning arrestees into informants is inherently coercive and morally dubious to begin with. When you have undercover cops making shady deals with drug defendants, it's just a matter of time before someone sees a penis.
On Barry Cooper's latest avoid-getting-busted video release
Former Texas police officer Barry Cooper is at it again. Granted instant media notoriety when he switched sides and released a 2006 video, "Never Get Busted Again," Cooper provided tips and advice to people about how to travel with marijuana and avoid getting nailed. (Our colleagues at Flex Your Rights have criticized some of Cooper's advice, but that's not what this post is about.) Today, Cooper begins shipping his latest effort, "Never Get Raided," a primer on how to possess, grow, and sell pot without getting busted. Cooper is not well liked in the drug reform community. He got off on the wrong foot by falsely affiliating himself with Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, as noted above, his advice has been criticized, and his personal behavior has been called into question as well. He has also been accused of being a mercenary (for not giving away his videos). I'm sure a lot of those criticisms are well-founded, but that's not what this post is about, either. I haven't seen Cooper's latest effort. I don't know if it delivers the goods, and I'm not here to say you should go out and buy it. But I certainly support any effort to blunt the ability of the cops to bust people for pot offenses. What roused me from my dogmatic slumber on this was LEAP executive director Jack Cole's quote in a Dallas Morning News article about Cooper and the new video. What Cooper is doing is wrong, Cole said: "We don't agree philosophically at all on these issues," said Cole. "He thinks he should be able to school people on how to break the law, we believe in changing the law." Sorry, Jack, I'm with Barry Cooper on this one. There is no moral, ethical, or philosophical justification whatsoever for terrorizing, arresting, prosecuting, and jailing people for marijuana offenses. Anyone who can teach the nation's millions of pot smokers have to avoid the cops deserves kudos, not criticism. It's not like he's teaching people how to be better killers or robbers. We are talking about a non-violent activity that does no harm to anyone except, arguably, the pot smoker himself. As old-school American dissident Henry David Thoreau once noted, ""Unjust laws exist. Shall we be content to obey them, or shall we endeavor to amend them and obey them until we succeed, or shall we transgress them at once?" Or shall we, like Mr. Cooper, tell people how to successfully transgress them? Hell, yeah. I understand where Jack Cole is coming from. LEAP needs to be viewed as responsible law enforcement opposition to the drug war, not as a bunch of drug crime facilitators. But I don't carry that particular burden, so I say good on Barry Cooper (provided, of course, that his advice is good). Yes, of course, we need to change the drugs laws. But in the meantime, as 800,000 people get arrested each year on pot charges, we need to reduce the harm, and helping people avoid arrest and prosecution for marijuana offenses is doing precisely that. The pot laws need to be subverted, and if Barry Cooper's videos help do that, more power to him.
legalize it and make money instead of wasting it.
i think that it is time to legalize pot and stop the drug war. it is not working it never did and never will. if alchol and cancancer sticks are legal well but god then so should pot. even the playing field.
B.C. Supreme Court Ruling Favors Privacy Over Police
For years,people in Canada have watched courts south of the border throwing out cases over technicalities. Canadian courts have traditionally sided with the police in cases where the line has seemingly been crossed.
Opponents of Marijuana Reform Constantly Contradict Themselves
This article on a marijuana decriminalization effort in New Hampshire provides a useful case study in the utter confusion and desperation of the anti-pot peanut gallery:â¦Exeter Police Chief Richard Kane, among others, is adamantly opposed. "If we reduce the penalty for small amounts of marijuana, it will eventually lead to legalization and I think that's heading in the wrong direction," he said last week.Nashua Police Chief Donald Conley also said it would be a mistake to take the sting out of the law. [Boston Globe]So the Police Chief begins by arguing that we must go around stinging people for possessing pot. But when reform advocates argue that too many young lives are being derailed by harsh punishments for petty offenses, Conley completely changes his tune:But Conley said it is rare for first-time offenders to get jail time for possession of small amounts of marijuana."As far as someone getting arrested and their lives being ruined, I don't think that's the case," he said. "Employers are more forgiving in this day and age, and police prosecutors frequently reduce marijuana cases down to violationsâ¦"Wait, so should we be stinging people or not? He begins by defending aggressive sanctions and ends by claiming the sanctions aren't aggressive. The contradiction is transparent and embarrassing.It is, in fact, not at all uncommon to hear defenders of harsh marijuana laws speak approvingly of the fact that most offenders avoid jail time. Thus, it is not necessarily the practice of ruining lives for marijuana which they crave, but rather the discretion to do so should the urge happen to arise. Meanwhile, millions of otherwise law-abiding Americans are branded as criminals so that people like Chief Conley can live out their authoritarian fantasies.
Save the Rainforest From the Drug War
U.S.-sponsored efforts to fumigate Colombian coca crops have utterly failed to prevent cocaine production. But they have been very effective at destroying Colombia's national parks:Leftist rebels, right-wing paramilitaries, and narcos that control the billion-dollar cocaine trade have invaded the 2.5-million-acre Macarena, laying waste to much of it to plant coca. Most of Colombia's 48 other national parks and nature reserves are suffering similar fates. Chased from more accessible sites by U.S.-sponsored aerial fumigation, coca growers relentlessly clear forests knowing that they are beyond the reach of the U.S.-Colombian fleet of planes because spraying of the parks is prohibited by law. [Los Angeles Times]So what's next? Are we gonna spray crop killers on this precious irreplaceable ecosystem? Doing that will just force the drug lords to burrow deeper, leaving an ever-expanding trail of flaming destruction in their tracks. Let's face it, rainforests are awesome. They are filled with jaguars, anacondas, and large spiders that eat chickens. I don't know what kinds of animals live in Colombian forests specifically, but I'm sure there are some wicked cool creatures in there that are worth saving.Unfortunately, there's nothing in this entire LA Times article that even vaguely resembles a plan for stopping drug traffickers from completely destroying everything. The Colombians' best idea is literally to ask that people please stop doing cocaine, a plan so useless it isn't worth the trees that died to print it out. We are on an irreversible trajectory towards the total permanent destruction of many of the world's most unique natural resources as long as current efforts to thwart illicit drug production continue. That is just a fact.This would all be a terrible price to pay to get rid of cocaine, except that we haven't even come close to accomplishing that and we never will. Invaluable natural resources are being destroyed for nothing. Only by ending the drug war immediately can we even begin to address this rapidly expanding ecological crisis.
Where should the money be spent?
That was the question for the day's discussion at the third of three drug awareness conferences held in Vancouver,B.C. Canada. Today's (Wed.Feb.27'08) meeting was a breath of fresh air as the prohibition movement and it's proponents finally got the message and went to form their own group somewhere.
Should Candidates For Public Office Be Drug Tested?
No, but it certainly is tempting to subject our political leaders to the same rampant privacy invasions endured by millions of Americans in the name of the war on drugs:The S.C. Senate Judiciary Committee last week adopted a proposal that could result in a constitutional amendment requiring candidates to take a drug test before seeking public office. As tempting as it seems on the surface, lawmakers should analyze it carefully before they plow into it. There could be rocky ground ahead.Many believe that if drug testing is employed widely in business, it should be employed in the government, too. What is good for private citizens should be good for elected officials. The goal is to eliminate the use of illegal drugs from the workplace, where a variety of harms might arise. [Beaufort Gazette]Ok, I understand that people believe that, but why candidates specifically? Is there any evidence of party-prone politicians bumping blow on the public dime?The proposal's origin started when former S.C. Treasurer Thomas Ravenel was indicted for possession of cocaine. He awaits sentencing, but shortly after the arrest, he checked into a rehabilitation facility. South Carolinians were embarrassed, and rightly so.South Carolinians have dealt with tarnished images before. In 1903, Lt. Gov. James Tillman shot and killed N.G. Gonzales, a co-founder of The State newspaper, on Main Street in Columbia. Former Congressman John Jenrette was convicted in Abscam. Many S.C. lawmakers were indicted in Operation Lost Trust. S.C.'s agriculture commissioner was arrested for taking at least $20,000 to protect illegal cock fighting.Cocaine! Murder! Bribery! Cockfighting! What do all these things have in common? You can't prevent them with drug testing. And yes, that includes cocaine, which only stays in your system for a couple days. Just pause for one moment and contemplate the collective stupidity of all this. Aside from these presumably non-drug related cock-fighting scandals and whatnot, this pretty much comes down to one guy doing some coke and now everyone wants to drug test candidates for public office even though anyone can blast rails of coke all weekend and just declare their candidacy on a Wednesday.Once again, the popularity of drug testing thrives on the failure of its proponents to comprehend basic facts about how drug testing works. I'd propose the creation of some sort of website to provide that information, but there are already 12 million of those. And, of course, if anyone on South Carolina's Senate Judiciary Committee comes forth to point out that drug testing isn't really very effective against cocaine to begin with, they inevitably render themselves susceptible to accusations of cocaine use and possibly even cock-fighting.
Thailand's Drug Strategy: Mass Murder Thousands of Drug Suspects
Via DrugWarRant, Thailand's new prime minister has pledged to continue his nation's shameful quest to maintain the most brutally evil drug policy in the world:"My government will decisively implement a policy against drug trafficking. Government officials must implement this policy 24 hours a day, but I will not set a target for how many people should die," said Samak Sundaravej, the new prime minister.The interior minister Chalerm Yubamrung, said: "When we implement a policy that may bring 3,000 to 4,000 bodies, we will do it," [Telegraph]They've tried it before, but it didn't work, so they're trying it again:During a three-month killing spree in 2003 as intense as a full-scale armed conflict, thousands named on police "black lists" were shot dead, allegedly on government orders.Yet the government's narcotics control board concluded that more than half the victims had no involvement in drugs. One couple from north-eastern Thailand were shot dead after coming into unexplained wealth and being added to a black list. They were, in fact, lottery winners. What can even be said about this? It is just a perfect exhibit of the fact that drug prohibition will still fail even when taken to the greatest heights of inhumanity and totalitarianism. It is the temptation of any drug warrior to seek the gradual removal of any and all safeguards that impede progress towards purging and destroying the enemy. In America, we raid houses based on unreliable informant testimony, we confiscate property without establishing guilt, we tamper with juries, conceal exculpatory evidence, intimidate witnesses, overvalue seized contraband at trial, and we interpret and/or adjust our laws as needed to ensure that the people we accuse of drug crimes are convicted and punished quickly and severely.The consequence of all this, ultimately, is that innocent people can't defend themselves from the drug war any better than the guilty. It is for this reason that you'll never hear American drug warriors rise to condemn human rights abuses fueled by foreign drug wars. Our political leaders thoroughly lack the moral standing to preach about the due process of drug prohibition. Rather than becoming placated by the observation that our own drug war could be far worse, let us ask ourselves what sorts of vicious atrocities await should we ever dare to take our eyes off American drug warriors for even a moment.
Keep the work up and prohibition will end.
Now that police keep screwing up and bringing the swat type enforcement into middle America the love of police is fading. I know a lot of people who do not dare call police for anything, they take care of it themselves. It's too dangerous to call cops, they cause more trouble than they are worth. I have seen the person who called for help be the one arrested when it was all said and done, now that is screwed up if I may say so. Just keep the fight up and we the people will end this nightmare we live in.