Joe Conason has a good piece in Salon about the war on drugs. Want to cut waste and abuse? How about starting with the $50 billion we spend every year on the war on drugs. And why aren’t either McCain or Obama talking it?
Copinthehood.com has moved to qualitypolicing.com
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Shot cops and turnstile jumping
There’s more about that here. Also interesting (if it weren’t, would I post it?). “Officers Seeking Fare Evaders Often Find Worse Crimes.”
And here’s a first hand account of the shooting from the L.T.
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Illegal immigration and arrest
There’s more here. It’s interesting.
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Another Isolated Incident
“It’s not that SWAT tactics are always wrong. It’s that they’re frighteningly too often the first resort with the police departments that have them.” That’s from The Agitator. It’s worth reading.
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2 Officers Shot in Subway Station
The New York Times reports. The Queensbridge Homes are not too far from where I live.
A man who was being arrested for using a student MetroCard on Tuesday evening struggled with two plainclothes police officers in a Queens subway station and then shot them with the gun of one of the officers, the police said.
The gunman was then shot by the officers’ supervisor, the police said.
“The whole thing lasted probably 45 seconds,” said Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly, who discussed the shooting after visiting with relatives of the wounded officers, Shane Farina and Jason Maass, at Elmhurst Hospital Center.
Officer Farina, 38, who had surgery late Tuesday night, was in critical but stable condition. Officer Maass, 28, was in stable condition and was expected to be released Wednesday morning. The suspect, identified by the police as Raul Nunez, 32, was in stable condition at Bellevue Hospital Center. He told detectives there that he had been afraid that he would be deported if he were arrested.
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Taser use draws fire from Amnesty International
The Boston Heraldreports:
The stunning rise in Taser use has drawn the fire of the local Amnesty International chapter, which says Tasers were supposed to be a non-lethal alternative to gunfire.
“Now it seems clear that police departments are using Tasers not as an alternative to lethal force but to get compliance.”
Amnesty International says that since 2001, 320 people have died after being tased.
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Courthouse Confessions
Evidently I’m going to meet Steven Hirsch on Thursday at the Non-Motivational Speakers Series. His blog, Courthouse Confessions, is fascinating. Too much for me to read right now…. There’s an interview with him here.
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Cop in the Classroom
Gelf Magazine has an excellent interview with me in advance of me being part of the Non-Motivational Speakers Series this coming Thursday.
It’s always a little scary to read what you said. Because sometimes you didn’t say it. Other times you did say it, but it’s not what you meant.
In this case, I said it, I meant it, and damn if I don’t sound downright clever at times. My compliments to Michael Gluckstadt who interviewed me and wrote it up.
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War on Drugs in Mexico
Drug Killings Haunt Mexican Schoolchildren
See the New York Times for the whole terrible story.
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Are drugs evil?
This is taken from the comments of a previous post.
Your comparison of a drug dealer to anyone who sells cigarettes and booze is interesting. I believe that even with the huge tobacco lobby at work, most tobacco products will be illegal within twenty years, and rightfully so. Booze is a different story because it is well tolerated by many who use it and not as addictive as amphetamines, opiates or nicotine.
I can’t argue against legalization of marijuana because too many studies have suggested a low addiction and personal harm factor. The addiction and personal harm factors for cocaine, heroin and meth far surpass those for marijuana though, and I believe that if you are to make an argument for legalization it has to overcome the harm caused by using a substance.
Even with this academic B.S. aside, you have been to the streets where non-addicted dealers see what their product does to their customers, the desperation the ability to drop all semblance of humanity just to get high. Why do you defend those who lack the moral clarity to continue selling these substances when they see what it does to people? Or to put it another way, I have never seen a male heterosexual cigarette smoker offer to perform oral sex on a male 7-11 clerk just to get a pack of cigarettes. (Same goes for a marijuana user-It’s not the price it’s the drug.)
I like your last point! And it’s valid. I think the answer is quite simple: cigarettes are not as bad as crack and heroin. Yes, cigarettes kill a lot of people, but a nicotine addict is not like a crack addict.
But I don’t believe there is a fundamental difference between one addictive drug and another. Alcohol does ruin lives. Cigarettes kill people. But heroin and crack can do it in a particularly ugly manner (not that throat cancer is pretty).
Here’s the point: regulation does not equal approval. If regulation could lower drug use–and there’s every reason to think it can–then we should regulate.
Plus I refuse to play the “moral clarity” game. There are recreational cocaine users just like there are recreational drinkers.
I don’t believe drugs are evil. I think some drugs for some people are bad. I think heroin and crystal meth are very bad for almost all people. Many of my best friends regularly use alcohol, cigarettes, marijuana, and ecstasy without fucking up themselves, their families, or their jobs. They’re not evil.
But my point isn’t to encourage use. Quite the opposite: it’s to discourage use. And since the U.S. has the highest usage rate in the world for pretty much every illegal drug, it’s safe to say our current war on drugs doesn’t work.
The idea of condemning the morality of drug dealers to me is a little silly. Unless you’re willing to say capitalize is evil (and though it may be, I’m not), I’m not going to say drug dealing is evil. They used to say that about music, sports, and alcohol. Is it wrong to sell to drugs addict? Maybe. So what about methadone clinics?
And besides, condemn all you want, if we lock up one drug dealer, another will sell. That’s the problem: we CAN’T STOP drug dealing. Repeat that. We can’t stop drug dealing. Once we accept that, we can figure out the best way to deal bad substances. And if regulation can lower usage, lessen addiction, and raise money all at the same time, why not give it a try?