COPS and drug users

psdf

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Dec 1, 2007
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I'm a long time fan of COPS and I can't help but wonder how show after show, season after season there is a fairly persistent routine every single department does. I'm of course talking about busting low level drug users and junkies.

God knows how many percentages of busts on this show are about person x being pulled over for looking suspicious and ending up in jail for having dope or how person y is lured into selling some to undercover cops. This goes on year after year and nobody gets any wiser. I'm fairly certain this kind of activity also happens in my home country (Finland) though certainly not in such high numbers. Stupid ass people getting busted for fairly harmless crimes of smoking pot or doing coke.

Why do the police even bother? Shouldn't we just legalize drugs and reap the profits? Prohibition (both in the USA and in Finland) showed that banning alcohol led to violence, the mob and other bullshit nobody likes. What do you guys think, what would be the positive and negative effects of legalizing drugs?
 
The negative aspects of legalizing drugs are called "Dutch People". They are scary. Especially the ones with goatees.
 
I find it strange that in a legal system based upon proof and evidence a lot of people end up in court because of things found in their car which was searched because one police officer relied on "probable cause" and/or "reasonable suspicion".

I'll also take your argument one step further and claim that police are mostly just wasting their time busting kids for underage drinking when they haven't done anything to endanger the lives of themselves or others.
 
Shouldn't we just legalize drugs and reap the profits

Yes - cannabis for sure. It's probably best to keep coke and heroin illegal, particularly since cocaine has been known to kill first-time users.
 
Yes - cannabis for sure.
Word. Cannabis has many other uses than just getting high.

It's probably best to keep coke and heroin illegal, particularly since cocaine has been known to kill first-time users.
I don't know about coke though. I do know that the Americans have spent absolutely astronomical amounts of money to keep it out of their country with horrible consequenses. The gangsters at home and abroad get rich as hell. Prisons house the largest inmate population in the world.

Here drugs are not as widespread as in the US and other countries... I do know that the number of coke users has grown rapidly and the prices have gone down a lot. I'm not entirely sure what legalizing coke would do around here. Any other Finns care to comment?

When we discuss about the dangers of drugs, I'd like to point out to something called "responsibility". In my opinion anyone doing drugs should take full responsibility of it and not blame anyone else if it ruins their lives. Also most people somehow fail to realize that we already have an extremely lethal drug called "alcohol". The drinking culture here is ridiculous and alcohol kills thousand of people every year. I think a statistic showed that it is the leading or second biggest killer among the 18-65 yr. old men.

I have never been drunk or high in my life and I really don't know if I ever will be. I'm somewhat curious to try cannabis one day but I'm sure I can do without.
 
As far as I'm concerned, people have the right to kill themselves with poor decisions if they'd like. On the other hand, I'm also reasonably certain that the majority of the public can't be trusted to make their own decisions.

Thus, it would be correct to call me a libertarian, though my ideal form of government would be with myself as benevolent dictator for life.
 
When we discuss about the dangers of drugs, I'd like to point out to something called "responsibility". In my opinion anyone doing drugs should take full responsibility of it and not blame anyone else if it ruins their lives. Also most people somehow fail to realize that we already have an extremely lethal drug called "alcohol". The drinking culture here is ridiculous and alcohol kills thousand of people every year. I think a statistic showed that it is the leading or second biggest killer among the 18-65 yr. old men.

Yep.

Here's a snippet from a London Ambulanceman's blog :

"When taking this gentleman to hospital I drove past six known drunks in the space of one street. Alcohol, and alcoholism is a big blight on our society - some shifts the only jobs we have are those influenced in some way by alcohol. Most assaults can be attributed to alcohol, frequent callers (sometimes six times in one day) are very often alcoholic, and the amount of "collapse ?cause" jobs that turn out to be drunks is frankly astounding.

My personal view (and not the view of the LAS by any means) would be to prohibit alcohol, but legalize cannabis. Not only would it cut our workload by, at my estimate, 60-70% but I've never had anyone high on cannabis try to hit me. Cannabis users are very rarely violent, tend to be generally easier to handle and seldom get loud and annoying. It's true that there are long term health consequences, and that heavy 'stoners' can waste their life away - but the same holds true of alcohol and alcoholics."

A decent reason to make cannabis legal.

Having said that, I'm not entirely sure where I stand on this one, hence playing devil's advocate using someone else's words.
 
Every one should read William F. Buckley Jr's views on the drug war and policy.

some of my favorite bits
Conservatives pride themselves on resisting change, which is as it should be. But intelligent deference to tradition and stability can evolve into intellectual sloth and moral fanaticism, as when conservatives simply decline to look up from dogma because the effort to raise their heads and reconsider is too great. The laws aren't exactly indefensible, because practically nothing is, and the thunderers who tell us to stay the course can always find one man or woman who, having taken marijuana, moved on to severe mental disorder. But that argument, to quote myself, is on the order of saying that every rapist began by masturbating

We're not going to find someone running for president who advocates reform of those laws. What is required is a genuine republican groundswell. It is happening, but ever so gradually. Two of every five Americans, according to a 2003 Zogby poll cited by Dr. Nadelmann, believe "the government should treat marijuana more or less the same way it treats alcohol: It should regulate it, control it, tax it, and make it illegal only for children."

Such reforms would hugely increase the use of the drug? Why? It is de facto legal in the Netherlands, and the percentage of users there is the same as here. The Dutch do odd things, but here they teach us a lesson.

The reason why we don't legalize it is because congressmen enjoy being able to send money back to their districts and the drug war gives millions to these districts in education, law, and police budgets over time.
 
The negative aspects of legalizing drugs are called "Dutch People". They are scary. Especially the ones with goatees.
I really hope you are joking ... I?m in Holland on a regular basis (no, not to buy drugs:p ) and I?m really annoyed by that kind of stereotype.
Why do the police even bother? Shouldn't we just legalize drugs and reap the profits?
eh ... No? "Hard" Drugs like Cocaine or Heroin already do quite a large amount of damage to people, there is no thinking what those would do if they were available to a wide puplic legally.

On the Subject of legaliszing marijauana ... it wouldn?t do much harm IMO but with legal Drugs like Alcohol and Tabacco around who do serious damage to people and society, it?s quite hard to see why you?d wanna have another one legally around messing with People (and though marijauana might be less problematic than alcohol - it does have it?s side effects and does cause addiction). It?s a case of we already have the Measles and Mumps around messing up people, do we really need to bring Influenca in on the equation? I don?t think so ...

Apart from that ... for the Police to go after drug users is just wrong. They are victims not criminals. They need help, not punishment.
 
I really hope you are joking ... I?m in Holland on a regular basis (no, not to buy drugs:p ) and I?m really annoyed by that kind of stereotype.

It was a side pun at our dear Adunaphel who happens to be Dutch and has a goatee :D
 
eh ... No? "Hard" Drugs like Cocaine or Heroin already do quite a large amount of damage to people, there is no thinking what those would do if they were available to a wide puplic legally.

Have you ever seen what alcohol can do to the human body if consumed in too great quantities? Yet alcohol is freely available to anyone over 16/18/21 depending on their location.
 
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