Category: Police

NPR has a good story about law enforcement agencies seizing drug assets. It can pay for itself.

The kicker is this: police prefer to come in after the drugs have been sold because it’s better for police to seize the money rather than the drugs. If police seize the drugs, the drugs are destroyed. If police seize the money from selling the drugs, they get to keep the money.

Talk about a dirty partnership. I thought robbing drug dealers was a crime.

In England, the Daily Express reports that drug dealers are getting arrested on purposeso they can make more money by selling drugs in jail.

A few years ago they banned cigarettes and smoking in Rikers Island (NYC’s jail). Now a single cigarette sells for about $20. For one tobacco cigarette. More often than not, these cigarettes come from correctional officers (i.e.: jail guards).

If we can’t win the war on drugs in jail, where can we win it?

I had a thought about your book. This is not a criticism but something I was left wanting when I finished. Someone, somewhere, (and I nominate you) needs to articulate at length a pathway from the current environment towards what decriminalization/legalization would look like.

If there’s one out there it’s not widely known.

I think there’s a lot more enthusiasm for legalization than there appears because there’s no channel for it. A lot of people that are for it or at least equivocal would say “let’s give Plan X a try”. Its harder to bring people around to a conceptual, as you know from working the street.

I also believe (in my tiny little opinion) that the black community would get behind any reasonable pathway presented because they’re paying an outsized price for the war on drugs.

One thing has occurred to me though: Any plan offered would have to consider the pushback from a multi-billion dollar tax free industry having it’s existence threatened.

Sgt. [name and e-mail withheld upon request]

Thanks for the nomination. And that’s a valid complaint about my book. To be honest, I have no idea.

I’m pretty pessimistic about the whole possibility of any real pullback in the war on drugs. But then I suppose “wets” thought that too, in 1925. Maybe it really does start with medicinal marijuana. Maybe more Americans need to visit Holland. Maybe it has to do with getting the medical industry behind regulation (because they could profit from treatment and would profit from selling legal drugs). Maybe it has to do with finding and outing a criminal element contributing to drug war politicians. Maybe it’s LEAP.

But it’s not just drug dealers who are against legalization. It’s prison guards. It’s police agencies. It’s the makers of military equipment. It’s the entire prison-industrial complex.

I’m open to ideas. Comment below.