Prompted by “New Mexico Police Say They Can’t Fight the Drug War Without Stealing”: http://www.hightimes.com/read/new-mexico-police-say-they-can%E2%80%99t-fight-drug-war-without-stealing
Let’s start with some ‘stage setting’ highlights:
“Law enforcement officials in New Mexico are concerned that departments will no longer be able to afford to support the drug war now that the state has officially outlawed the asset forfeiture program…”
“…police agencies across the state can no longer seize a citizen’s property based on suspicion of a drug-related crime. The recent signing of House Bill 560 by New Mexico Governor Susana Martinez abolished the capacity for law enforcement to go scavenging for profitable items like houses and automobiles without first obtaining a conviction.”
“…this new law of the land has police departments nervous about dwindling budgets and the inability to earn the required cash to keep their narcotics divisions from sinking like a stone.”
“Now, rather than profit from innocent citizens, police agencies across New Mexico must see drug-related cases all the way through to a guilty verdict before they are given permission to auction seized property—a process that was previously allowed to take place without any evidence of a crime. Because of this adjustment to the law…, some police agencies have said that they will no longer make property seizures a priority, which has caused them to take less of an interest in combating the War on Drugs.”
“‘We’re going to try not to seize,’ Farmington Police Chief Steve Hebbe said, adding that he is upset over the fact that no police agency was asked about what the demise of the seizure program would do to them financially.”
Notice the monetary trend here. Logically removing incentive towards reckless sanctioned theft is problematic, because such theft was an important revenue stream for law enforcement.
What’s that say about our law and the sometimes horrific apathy largely responsible for sustaining demonstrably corrupt ones? If police can’t steal, they can’t incarcerate (i.e. ruin the lives of) non-violent people, and that’s a problem against public safety, according to lawful gun holders with badges (dangerously militarized largely due to such “War”)?
The “elephant” (thanks to serious mainstream media bias for several decades and counting) in the mainstream public “room” is bipartisan political insistence to sustain the war on some drugs based solely upon feeding the hypocritical beast of favoritism in the “land of the free” (actual public safety be demonstrably damned).
Such “War” is grounded in blatantly unconstitutional law (illegal judicial branch redefining of the Commerce Clause combined with outrageously disarming the ninth amendment judicially recognizing our fundamental rights), offers no concrete evidence of effectiveness in dealing with drug abuse, is highly destructive against liberty and health, and comes from tough-talking affirmations towards demonizing certain drug use from pathetic suggestive science at best (mainly junk science otherwise) — at least involving psychedelic drugs (yes, including the notorious LSD).
“While the law enforcement community would like the general population to believe that the loss of the civil asset forfeiture program will lead to an uprising in drug-related crime, the reality is these departments have been using the program to primarily bully those caught in violation of minor drug offenses, such as possession of marijuana.”
Where do some kids get the incentive to bully? From their considerably cute desire to become police officers?
A world without law abuse is a world with significantly less unhealthy stress. A world with significantly less unhealthy stress is a significantly better world with significantly less drug abuse, as the prohibitionist U.S. National Institute on Drug Abuse recognized back in 1995…
“Researchers have long recognized the strong correlation between stress and substance abuse…” [emphasis mine]
Restoring constitutional law is required to prevent law abuse (including promptly ending the disastrous war on some drugs now negatively impacting roughly millions of non-violent people). There’s no logical alternative. If you disagree, back that up with complete reasoning (which is the only form of reasoning I tolerate around these ‘whole truth’ parts).
Law enforcement is obviously important for public safety, but their effectiveness is tied to the credibility of law. The war on some drugs is horribly evil law (no, I’m not being melodramatic) that puts us all at serious risk on both sides of the badge.
Law abuse is the worst form of abuse due to its mainly broad scope of destruction (and the form of abuse igniting the American Revolution and necessarily unalienable rights). The governmental statistical consistency of below 1% of our nation’s population using (not necessarily abusing) drugs such as heroin (which has a 23% dependency rate, according to the prestigious Institute of Medicine) clearly shows that drug abuse is not even close to being more disastrous against public safety than abusive law, tragically ironically speaking.
“We the people” must do better now for the sake of actual law. Publicly exposing Republican hypocrisy on this front would be a powerful thrust against Certain Drug Prohibition (the bigger and badder sequel to the failed Alcohol Prohibition that “mysteriously” required a federal constitutional amendment), right Republicans?
I am an honest freak (or reasonably responsibly balanced "misfit", if you prefer) of an artist working and resting to best carefully contribute towards helping society. Too many people abuse reasoning (e.g. 'partial truth = whole truth' scam), while I exercise reason to explore and express whole truth without any conflict-of-interest -- all within a sometimes offbeat style of psychedelic artistry.
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