PoliceLink

These are open questions to the LEO ladies and gentlemen who frequent this site.

I am not trolling.  It is an honest question with no denigration of y'all included.  If you don't wish to answer said questions, don't. 

The girl in question faced drug charges herself and stepped out on protocal. Drugs are a danger to our society and should be addressed and yes, people get killed but each knew that the probability was there. Now, wether or not in the future it can be cut down will depend a lot on how much is done now to prevent it from getting any worse. I know that your point of the question was the validity of fighting such a lost cause and to be honest, not to fight is three times worse. We as a whole want it safe for our children and alike and can't do so if no action is taken. So yes, it is better to fight the fight than roll over and accept defeat on any level.

Not a troll?? Are you sure?

Just this past weekend a 23 year old woman was murdered by drug dealers.  She was making a drug buy for the police who had coerced her into becoming a confidential informant.

So we have a dead cop and a young man charged with first degree murder for protecting his home from unknown invaders.

I would be remiss if I didn’t bring up the murder of Kathryn Johnston, a 92 year old women, by the Atlanta PD.</a> It is a case of evil police thuggery that I expect you are all too sadly familiar with.

pages and pages of civil rights violations, corruption of LEOs

Seems pretty inflamatory to me. If you say so.

JsubD says ...

I am not trolling.  It is an honest question with no denigration of y'all included.  If you don't wish to answer said questions, don't. 

 

Retleo says...

"Honest Question"? You call police officers Coercers, Thugs, Murderers, Blackmailers, Civil Rights Violators and Corrupt.  Then you try to pass off your diatribe as a legitimate question, gimme a break.  You already have an anti-police mindset and are just trolling here to get a rise out of us.  Forget it, your post is typical of the Proctologists's Poster Children who come here to attack the Law Enforcement Community with their Liberal and, quite frankly, moronic points of view.  Try My Space or Jerkwads.Com.  We don't need your type here.

JsubD, why don't you shoot an email to the ACLU, I'm sure they can help you find the answers that you WANT to find ... they make up lies about the police all the time.

          Definately a Troll !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!            

JsubD says ...

These are open questions to the LEO ladies and gentlemen who frequent this site.

First a little background so you can understand where I’m coming from.

Just this past weekend a 23 year old woman was murdered by drug dealers.  She was making a drug buy for the police who had coerced her into becoming a confidential informant.  You can read about it here.

 

In January, a police officer was killed while performing a no knock raid in Chesapeake, VA.  The shooter was not a drug dealer, but a small time (misdemeanor) marijuana smoker.  Apparently the “confidential informant”, a burglar, mistook some Japanese maple trees for a grow operation and gave up the info to police.  Even Pollyanna would recognize this as likely a quid pro quo.  "I know where somebody’s growing pot, can I get some leniency for the info?"  So we have a dead cop and a young man charged with first degree murder for protecting his home from unknown invaders.  These two tragedies were based solely on the word of a burglar.

I would be remiss if I didn’t bring up the murder of Kathryn Johnston, a 92 year old women, by the Atlanta PD.</a> It is a case of evil police thuggery that I expect you are all too sadly familiar with.

I could go on for pages and pages of civil rights violations, corruption of LEOs, innocent bystanders killed and injured as a direct result of the War on <s>Drugs</s> Sanity. 

Now the questions

 Do you believe the War on Drugs is more helpful to society than harmful?

If yes, how much collateral damage to law enforcement integrity, civil rights violations of the citizenry, and innocent people convicted or injured in WoD enforcement are you willing to accept?

If no,  are you aware of Law Enforcement against Prohibition (LEAP)?   Would you consider lending them some support? 

My own opinion is that the War on <s>Drugs</s> Minorities is a complete failure no matter what light you examine it under or what vantage point you are looking from.

In the interests of honesty, in my youth I did things very similar to what Rachel Hoffman was blackmailed by the Tallahassee police with, (buy a pound, ounce it out to friends,  and toke for free). It’s really not sociopathic behavior.

 

My apologies if the links don't work, I'm an HTML tyro and AKAIK there is no way to op test them here.

 Your nothing more than a spectator, watching the game wanting to call the plays, but keep yourself far away from danger, very easy remedy for the ills of society, you just pony up, join a police department, and carry the weight of the office and lead by exapmle, until then, quit your bitching and be content in being a spectator.

Troll-ish behavior notwithstanding, I think that the basic question is certainly a legitimate one for intellectual discussion.

Clearly we as a society are not seeing enough positives coming from the efforts to combat illegal drugs. So we need to re-think the OVERALL situation. Consider for example that the State of California now recognizes "medical' marijuana.

Consider how drug trafficking and the efforts to combat it have affected society... between the militarization of LEO work, flooding of the courts and corrections systems... This is not something that law enforcement alone can fix.

In my humble opinion, I think that if we legalized marijuana and treated it like alcohol, it could be heavily taxed and regulated, with funds from said taxes being used to help combat other drug trafficking and increase the penalties for all other illicit drugs.

That having been said, I have grown up seeing marijuana up close & personal in a number of ways, but I have NEVER actually tried marijuana, simply because of all my efforts to enter LEO work, I figured that the 1 time I'd try it, it would blow my chances of getting hired. I have also made several arrests as a police officer for as little as 1 small joint, so don't think that I let people "slide" either....

To answer your question: no the war on drugs often fails because we are fighting it with one arm tied behind our backs. We lock them up and liberal judges turn them loose. If they make it to trial, the charges are dismissed because the arresting officer forgot to dot an "i" or cross a "t". If by some chance they are convicted, they are usually given a light sentence and then let out early. The ACLU and other left wingers have created this mess we're in by coddling the crooks.

JsubD says ...

For those who actually thought about my questions and responded, thank you.  For those who have a kneejerk defensive reaction when problems in the war on drugs and the Law Enforcement Community, I understand your defensiveness, but denial of problems in all aspects of the justice system does not aid in finding solutions.  I don't want to muck up your forum, and I certainly don't think all officers are corrupt.  Please keep yourselves ans the citizrns safe.  Maybe ask yourself this question,  are we winning the War on Drugs?

We would have a better chance to win without your "help".

Oops.  I messed up my previos post.  The last three paragraphs are mine, not another's as indicated.

Yep, rsteade, they (Asiatn) are doing what, in my opinion, needs to be done. Wimpy legislators in DC don't want to crack the whip. Afraid of the cartels?......

We can start with legalizing and regulating marijuana.  The Medellin cartel would hate that.  As would organized crime in this country. Imprisonment for users is expensive and the punishment is all out of proportion to the harm caused by drug use. People WILL take psychactive substances for a wide variety of reasons.  They always have and they always will. Putting people in prison for harming only themselves is, IMHO, immoral.  Prohibition did not work in the 1920s and it is not working today. 

 We also need to completely rethink no knock raids.  SWAT is for hostage situations, holed up bank robbers etc.  Using them to serve search warrants at 3am only leads to dead cops and dead citizens. 

If you have children, the odds of them smoking marijuana before they're 21 are greater than 50%.  Should they go to jail for that?  Should they be denied student loans for that?  It likely won't happen to them though, because although middle class people use similar amounts of illegal drugs as the poor, the poor are far more likely to be arrested, prosecuted and imprisoned.  That fact is not necessarily caused by institutional racism in the law enforcement community, but can be easily explained with the low hanging fruit analogy.

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You are a retired Navy Master Chief and you want to legalize weed? You sir are a disgrace to your service. You evidently have no concept of what the military really is. You must have been one of those brown nosing, ass kissing types who never did any fighting. I can't believe your  statement. I am completely stunned by it. I am certainly glad that you didn't stand in a foxhole with any true fighting man. You mst have been one of the 9 to 5 types.

Your analogy that people using drugs hurt only themselves is just that, your uninformed opinion. You have got to be kidding. You have evidently not held a child in your arms and consoled them because Mom is on the floor dead with a needle in her arm. You have never been in a house that isn't fit for dogs to live in , no food in the fridge, and a little one running loose with a diaper that should have been changed last week. You might be blowing smoke but it certainly is not up the ass of anyone here.

You have also evidently never been involved in a no knock raid or even a knock and announce. The criminals are armed better than the police. Have you ever seen a place rigged to blow if the cops come in? Do you do the job? How can you assume to explain what SWAT should or should not be used for. Yes the old analogy "walk a mile in their shoes".

As far as my kids smoking weed, well yes they should be arrested and placed on probation and forced to go through a substance abuse program my son was and I busted his skinny ass. Denied a student loan? What the hell are you talking about? As far as middle class lower class and upper class being arrested for drug use again you evidently lead a very sheltered life. Watch the evening news. All classes are arrested, doesn't matter to the officer on the street. Same with other crimes, there are no class lines. Most sexual offenders are middle and upper class individuals. It has nothing to do with low hanging fruit.

Get an education on what LE does. Get an education on weed and what it leads to. Quit smoking the stuff, open your eyes and see what's going on in the world. Drugs hurt everyone!!

As a mod here I should not voice my strong dislike for your statements nor your ignorance. I apologize to the membership but this kind of stuff really chaps my ass. I worked the streets and drugs for to many years to keep my mouth shut on this one. I tried to be civil but it was hard to do so. If the subject comes up and you can't stand the heat stay the hell out of the kitchen. I will not be so nice next time Chief.

legalize some of it..

execute some drug dealers

thats how I would deal with it