Well, can they? Especially within a heavy undercover operation and have a joint or something passed to them, (or even cocaine) can they hit it? I would suspect to keep suspicions at a minumum and to prevent cover from being blown, they can. Sorry if this has already been asked, I checked the archive but couldn’t find anything.
What are the details regarding this? Anyone know the exact laws?
Check out this thread on the same topic. Several posters have personal experience that confirms that some cops are allowed to take drugs as part of an undercover operation.
From what I understand they can in life threatening situations, but they have to report in that they have done so, and then go to a hospital for treatment. That’s how it was explained in the book I just finished called Under and Alone by a fed who infiltrated the Mongols motorcycle gang.
Sounds like a really bad idea in spite of whatever good can come from it. It would be terrible to get a good cop started on cocaine while working undercover against a dealer.
Yeah, but a lot of criminals have the false idea that if you’re an undercover cop you won’t do drugs. So they offer you drugs to prove you’re not a cop. Sort of like the false belief that undercover cops aren’t allowed to lie about whether they’re cops or not.
Believe it or not, undercover cops are allowed to lie to the people they’re investigating. So asking a streewalker if she’s an undercover cop isn’t going to be much help in avoiding a prostitution sting.
From personal experience: yes, they can, and yes, they do. There are limits, but those limits are set by the unit commanders + a bit of common sense.
I know they are just movies, but check out “Rush”, and “Narc”. Both are great movies…especially Narc and leads you into the life of an undercover drug agent.
Sometimes they have sex with prostitutes in order to gather evidence, too. But this is controversial. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/12/AR2006021200943_pf.html; http://www.local6.com/news/7043931/detail.html
Far, far preferable to being shot in the head by the guy who offered it to you.
I expect there’s at least some support for narcs who’ve had to do drugs in the course of undercover work but genuinely don’t want to get hooked, if not from the department itself than from the doctors they’d be referred to or other groups. I’m sure seeing the effects of drugs at their worst would influence their determination to stay clean quite a bit as well. I imagine inevitably some could stumble, but in the long term, having to get clean is (usually) better than death.
Thing is, getting physically addicted to drugs isn’t that big a deal. What really keeps addicts going back is psychological addiction. A cop doing a small amount of cocaine to avoid arousing suspicions isn’t usually going to have the same psychological factors that lead to addiction.
Most people prescribed opiates for pain don’t become addicted. They take the opiates until the prescription is finished, then they deal with the physical withdrawl symptoms, and move on. Only a small number of people remember that drug experience as so pleasant that they seek out more opiates.
Go to a hospital for treatment? What exactly would you treat? Highness?
Yes. I can’t seem to find the name of it, but a paramedic friend of mine likes to tell stories about how they have a drug that basically takes away the high (at least from heroin) to sober people up in order to treat them. He says people get pretty upset when they lose their rather expensive buzz. Go figure.
From this page: http://www.drugs.com/MTM/N/Narcan.html Narcan is used to reverse the effects of narcotics.