Lets say we have this cop that’s going on an assignment undercover infiltrating either drug dealers, manufacturers or users of some sort and it’s pretty certain that they will expect said officer to ‘sample’ the merchandise.
Now for arguments sake, we’ll say its weed.
My question is, would the cop be able to smoke with them if it was for the good of the operation?
Oh and if this cop wasn’t a smoker of any sort, would he be allowed to ‘practice’ smoking beforehand so the gang or dealer or whoever couldn’t tell if he had or not?
I’m assuming as a cop he’d have a lot of access to the drug in question by the way
Yes. Undercover cops are allowed to break laws that will allow them to maintain their cover. I presume that this wouldn’t involve killing anyone or beating people up (they’d bust the operation before), but drugs are fair game.
I like this thread. Personally I don’t know about what the cop would legally be able to do, but I doubt he legally would be able to smoke the bud. However, I do think the superior officers would overlook the matter if it affected the officers chances at life and death. I am fairly certain cops are easy on marijuana offenses anyway. For instance, in my hometown a former illinois state police officer failed a drug test and had to go through a hellatious time, but ultimately got his job back (as far as I know). It is my opinion that if they gave a guy back his job through that ordeal (and believe it was a bigger one than an undercover taking a toke of a chillum), they would inevitably overlook the officer and concentrate on the guy in his basement just relaxing after work… :mad:
Yes, they can get high.
I was on a grand jury a few years ago and the case was a drug bust, I specifically asked the undercover officer if she took a toke and she said yes. The reason i asked was to see if by getting high her judgement and memory may have been impaired. Not surprisingly, the DA then jumped in and managed to change the topic.
There was a movie about this very topic several years ago called “Rush”. The main character, an undercover cop, was flirting with serious drug addiction.
Back in the days of powdered coke, many people carried their own snorting tubes; I read somewhere that narcotics detectives would usually have special tubes that allowed them to give the appearance of snorting, but would ‘catch’ the powder so as to prevent it reaching the nostril–and, presumably, be a good way of capturing evidence.
In the days of alcohol prohibition, according to an Upton Sinclair novel, Prohibition agents did drink alcohol with bootleggers; it was the only way they could verify that it was alcohol and justify the complaint. But, as I say, it was only a novel, so make of that what you will.
One of my professors was an undercover narcotics agent in the 70’s, and he said that at that time, in that department, police officers were not allowed to be intoxicated on the job. He also said that there were many times that he talked his way out of someone wanting him to test the product, usually claiming a drug test for parole or trying to quit the habit.
Don’t quote me on this, but I think I remember hearing about a law (could just be here in Virginia) that a cop is allowed to do everything up to but not including what he wants to bust the perps for. For example, a cop wants to bust someone for cocaine. He could smoke weed with them, but not the coke.
Perhaps someone more knowledgable than I can come along and clarify.
Along the lines of what ChuckForbin mentioned, how whould any of that testimony be credible? Wouldn’t even a cut-rate defense attorney claim that the officer, presumably the only witness, was toked out of his mind? If being high makes one unable to drive a car in the eyes of the law, certainly we shouldn’t use intoxicated individuals to put people behind bars.
a high school acquaintance of mine became a narc, and most of his buys were for marijuana. He said that he couldn’t inhale; he became good at faking it by taking in smoke - not drawing it all the way into his lungs - then blowing it out. At least thats what the official policy was, he also said that there were plenty of times that technique didn’t quite work out the way it was supposed to…
On an almost related note, Phillip K Dick’s book, A Scanner Darkly is about a cop who becomes an addict and asks himself the question if he is a cop pretending to be an addict or an addict pretending to be a cop. I recommend it.
I guess its obvious it does happen… But do they have some explicit legal protection that allows them to take drugs and avoid prosection (at least in some juristrictions) ? If so how far does this protection go ? Or is it simply that the courts and their superiors simply turn a blind eye, in the interests of getting evidence on serious criminals.
Someone in the previous thread said you can get away any “lesser crime” in the interests of prosecuting a serious one. This seems unlikely to me…
There is a certain designation of peace officer that is allowed to perform ANY act in the course of developing an assigned case. Frequently, their legal immunity extends for period well beyond the date of an actual bust.
Actually, I was looking at a law enforcement magazine a couple of months ago, and there is high-quality fake weed that cops can keep on them to toke with others during UC operations. It supposedly looks and smells just like the real deal, but has no THC to impair the officer. I guess the problem would be trying to explain to the perps why you only want to smoke your personal stash and not theirs. That seems as if it would raise red flags.
