From: [b--y--c] at [criminaltrial.com] (Bob Horner)
Newsgroups: alt.law-enforcement,alt.politics.usa.misc,alt.conspiracy,alt.current-events.usa,alt.politics.reform,alt.fan.rush-limbaugh,talk.politics.misc,talk.politics.guns,alt.politics.usa.constitution,alt.politics.usa.congress
Subject: Re: What War on Drugs?
Date: Tue, 24 Jun 1997 20:37:24 -0700

I have been on the front lines of the so-called "war on drugs" for over
twenty years and some questions occur to me: Why are we so obsessed with
whether someone we don't know gets high? Who appointed us to be everybody's
"Father Knows Best"? Why do we create an artificially inflated market price
for drugs that in turn causes most of the theft and violent criminal
behavior that terrorizes our communities? The answer to each question is,
in large part, a bureaucratic self-interest that I like to think of as
"turf".

The Criminal Courts Building in downtown Los Angeles has 19 floors. The
majority of those floors each house eight courtrooms. Each courtroom has a
judge, bailiff, clerk and court reporter permanently assigned. Among
others, the District Attorney, Public Defender, Alternate Public Defender,
Indigent Criminal Defense Appointments Panel, as well as the Probation
Department daily send hordes of people to each courtroom. This swarm is
also backed up with enormous numbers of supervisors, administrators,
clerical and support staff individually servicing every organization. All
of these people are being paid by the government in one fashion or another.

Then, of course, there is the complex and overlapping web of State and
Federal law enforcement agencies that have provided the raw defendant
product for what in reality is a large sausage-making machine. The local
police, the DEA, the FBI all have enormous narcotics units and "task
forces" that provide an extravagant amount of employment for various forms
of drug soldiers of all persuasions. Then there is the correctional system
with thousands upon thousands of employees. All of these agencies represent
a fiefdom to some bureaucrat. All of these modern feudal lords and hundreds
of thousands of their minions stand to lose in a big way if our collective
attitude toward the issue of drug use changes in any significant manner.

What is truly amazing is how these bureaucrats have convinced you, the
voting public, to squander vast sums on this lost cause while education and
health care go begging. The moral posturing of these public servants is
generally self-serving. They can hardly be honest and take a position that
will result in them losing their highly-paid jobs, can they?

In the Criminal Courts Building, Division 30 of the Los Angeles Municipal
Court is the central felony arraignment court for the City of Los Angeles.
If you sat and watched what goes on for a few days you would see how your
tax dollars are being spent. At least 65% of the cases arraigned there are
outright Health & Safety Code violations for the possession, sales, or
transportation of some controlled substance. An examination of these cases
will reveal that our armada of drug enforcement generally seems only
capable of capturing pip-squeaks. Illegal aliens that sell a single rock of
cocaine to an undercover officer backed by more than ten other officers are
the rule of the day. Thousands of actual paid law enforcement dollars go to
seizing $5 worth of drugs. Then we send this illegal for a long and costly
prison stay. Deported upon release, he slips back and resumes his trade
after shooting the person who took his place. A significant amount of the
remaining cases are, in reality, drug cases as well. Burglary, Robbery and
drive-by shootings can in large part be deemed drug related. Addicts steal
to pay outrageous drug prices. Gangs are in the business of selling drugs
and settle territorial disputes with violence, just as they did during the
1930's. We faced the same problems then. Didn't we notice how the drive-by
shootings stopped in Chicago when we repealed prohibition? The real problem
today is, that in not having learned from history, we are now repeating it
on a significantly grander scale.

If the law against possession of heroin was repealed, would you immediately
go out and get a fix? Is the law the only thing that is keeping you and
your loved ones off crack? Alcohol is legal, are you laying in the gutter
on skid row? If your answer is no, why do you care if some weak-willed
stranger overdoses? Why is it your business anyway? Maybe I am harsh,
uncaring and insensitive, but given the choice between confronting a
drug-starved fiend in my bedroom, or seeing him carted dead off the street
corner to the morgue from an overdose, I would gladly opt for the latter.

GIVE THEM THE DOPE! We could sell these folks what they crave at one tenth
the current street price. We could charge sales tax. We could make billions
of dollars that could be used for better purposes than financing the
self-perpetuating consumer of our scant public resources the drug war has
become. We would remove the reason street gangs exist. For those that want
it, we could set up rehabilitation centers at a fraction of the cost we now
spend on the criminal justice system. Don't make the mistake of perceiving
this problem in terms of a "war". This has been foisted on you to think in
terms of "winning" and "losing". Nobody wants to "lose" and a sense of
false pride prevents us from looking at the problem rationally.

-- 
babydoc
http://www.criminaltrial.com