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In all the years that the 'War on Drugs" has been
enforced by local, state and federal law enforcement
agents, and the hundreds of thousands if not
millions of people who have been arrested,
prosecuted and sentenced to prison/ jail- nothing
has slowed down or stopped the importation of drugs,
the sale of drugs or the use of drugs.
You think locking people up will prevent them from
having access to drugs? Drugs are one of THE most
corrupting influences on the criminal justice system
that exists. There is no keeping drugs out of
jails and prisons, anymore than we can keep air out
of prison.
The
lure of sex, money and goods in exchange for
smuggling in drugs and other contraband is too
strong for many corrections officers to resist.
Prohibition of any vice does not stop it from
being available behind bars.
Local or state cops are not the only ones who
succumb to the temptation of making a quick buck (or
thousands). FBI agents and Homeland Security Agents
and politicians can find the lure of the potential
payoff too much to resist.
Anyone who believes that "eventually" we will win
the war on drugs is delusional and has no concept of
history. The consequences of alcohol prohibition
should have taught us that law enforcement agents
are seriously corruptible and that prohibition of
the vices in which people willingly engage will
never stop those people from engaging in those
vices. Laws against activity in which the willing
participant is both the victim and the criminal
always have and always will engender police
corruption and destroy the fabric of the "criminal
justice system."
As I have stated elsewhere, vice laws are only
enforced arbitrarily and selectively. When law
enforcement agents can pick and choose which
'victims/criminals' to arrest, the temptation
is too great to offer the 'victim/ criminal' the
opportunity to make it worth while to not make an
arrest. Many law enforcement agents themselves or
their families use drugs- which include illicit
steroids, pain medication, pot, etc. They know that
not every drug user is a drug abuser and while drugs
can and do kill, it is the prohibition of drugs
which increases the likelihood of drying from the
use of a prohibited drug which has been tainted with
other ingredients to increase the profits.
I am not in favor of drug use... I don't drink
alcohol, never smoked and have never used illicit
drugs. Drugs may be bad, but the war on drugs is
much, much worse. The "war" has corrupted every
facet of the criminal justice system and everyone
who is connected to the enforcement of "the
war." It created thugs like
NYPD Michael Dowd, who was often referred to
as “a criminal who happened to wear a cop uniform.”
He was considered the dirtiest
cop in NY (although there were plenty of others).
He flaunted his corruption and his Superiors
ignored it. 'Despite "incontrovertible indications
of serious corruption," the commission said,
Internal Affairs never initiated a single
investigation of Officer Dowd and, until the Long
Island police intervened, the allegations against
him "inevitably died a natural death."'
Michael Dowd was not the first or the last of the
really crooked cops. When will we listen to the
reports from the many commissions that are
formed after the latest scandal involving corrupt
cops? The Knapp Commission (1971) which was
impaneled after the NYPD scandal in the 1970s, which
asks the question "Will history repeat itself? Or
does society finally realize that police
corruption is a problem that must be dealt with
and not just talked about once every twenty years?"
Furthermore, it reports "In recent months there
have been numerous accusations of corruption among
prosecutors, lawyers and judges.... Moreover,
District Attorneys offices are reluctant to
encroach upon each others jurisdictions, much less
investigate each other's personnel..."
According to Donald F. Cawley, Commander,
Inspections Division, testifying before the State
Commission of Investigation (the Knapp Commission) "Police
officers have been involved in activities such as
extortion of money and or narcotics from narcotics
violators in order to avoid arrest; they have
accepted bribes; they have sold narcotics. They
have known of narcotics violations and have failed
to take proper enforcement action. They have
entered into personal associations with narcotics
criminals and in some cases have used narcotics.
They have given false testimony in court in order
to obtain dismissal of the charges against a
defendant..."
This was the 1970s. Twenty years later came the Mollen
Commission, after the scandal involving
Michael Dowd and his criminal cop cohorts. The
Mollen Commission issued another report that showed
nothing had changed in those 20 years and the NYPD did not
implement the changes in policing suggested by the
Knapp Commission. Throughout the US, the scandals
just keep coming. LAPD, NYPD, Chicago PD, Detroit
PD, Baltimore PD, Miami PD- you name it, there is a
drug corruption scandal. These scandals and the harm
they do to the justice system will not stop until we
stop the criminalization of behavior that is better
suited to be handled as a medical issue when and if
the use of drugs becomes a crisis for the
individuals using those drugs.
Adults can smoke and drink alcohol- both 'drugs'
which have the potential to cause great harm to
one's body including death. Until one drives a
vehicle under the influence of alcohol or commits
violence while drunk, drinking alcohol
is a vice that is no longer prohibited and is left
to the individual to decide when it is time to seek
help. Smoking may be quite dangerous to one's
health, and the loved ones of smokers frequently beg
the smoker to quit. There are products available to
help the smoker quit when they are ready. Both
are treated as medical issues and not crimes, which
makes it far easier to seek treatment when the
smoker or alcoholic is ready to quit. Why not other
drugs?
How much evidence of the harm done to all of us by
the "war on drugs" will be enough to convince
society that it is time to
rethink the wars on the citizens who choose to
engage in vices of which you do not approve-
which you may find morally reprehensible? Isn't
police corruption "morally reprehensible" to you?
How many bad cops/ prosecutors/ judges/ corrections
officers will it take to make you understand that
the wars on drugs, gambling and prostitution have
been serious failures and will NEVER be
'won'?
For a
continued list of these drug crimes commited
by law enforcement agents, please
visit https://stopthedrugwar.org/taxonomy/term/27
RESOURCES:
http://www.drugpolicy.org/resource/law-enforcement-against-prohibition-leap
https://lawenforcementactionpartnership.org
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