Just a query–after reading so many posts that indicated a good number of you partake in illegal drugs I am curious. Is anyone really afraid of being caught with drugs? Do you just figure the only people caught are the ones doing something else and just happen to have drugs on them? (And big dealers, of course). I know there is a huge increase in drug convictions, but are these purely drug convictions or just something convenient to lock up someone who is a troublemaker–kind of like Al Capone and his conviction for income tax evasion.
Why? Are you a cop?
I don’t use any illegal drugs, so I’m not particularly worried about imminent arrest. But I do feel that the US’ efforts to combat drug use have become a greater burden on what still hopes to be a free society than the use of drugs by a portion of the citizenry will ever be.
I haven’t any problem with drug enforcement, though, from time to time, I might partake of the weed if it is available. I’ve far too many friends who have managed to get themselves all fucked up using the harder drugs to support them and it doesn’t bother me in the least to tell you that I turned in the location of a couple of labs I found out about to the cops, who went and shut the bastards down.
When it gets to the point that the stupid bastards are so bold that they start cooking the stuff up and leaving empty chemical containers outside, the deserve to be busted. I’ve ex-friends who are dead because of horse, meth and crack and I’ve been held up twice by assholes feeding their habits. A couple of years back I drove a friend home to his neighborhood at night and it looked like every other damn yard had some guy in it dealing drugs and calling out to us.
A couple of years ago, a batch of bad crack hit the streets in Atlanta from a small lab and a few users got very dead before the guy was caught, but he ** knew** the stuff was bad when he made it and he didn’t give a shit.
I don’t mind pot and figure it needs to be legalized, but I hate that hard stuff. I had a couple of girlfriends who shot up and had to get rid of both of them when they started stealing from me to support their habits and a girlfriend of mine got the shit beat out of her by a guy who went nuts on crack.
I understand there’s some major drug kingpins in South America who seem to supply most of the coke for the US and who ‘somehow’ manage to escape the South American authorities all of the time. I don’t think I’d mind if the US chucked a couple of small nukes over there to do what the local governments can’t.
Hell yeah I’m scared of drug enforcement. I’m terrified! You know what would happen to a guy like me in jail? shudder Every time I go to buy a bag of weed I’m scared out of my mind.
Cops here don’t need any kind of reasonable cause to search you. They do whatever the hell they want and get away with it every time. If I tell the judge the cop didn’t have cause to search, the cop will just say he smelled pot smoke and that was his reasonable cause. Then it’s my word against his. Who’s the judge going to believe?
Are you serious, or kidding? I mean, because frankly, unless you have some illness that is being helped by smoking weed, I don’t understand why you would take such risks. IF you are as scared as you claim to be. Doesn’t sound like fun to me.
To answer the OP, I personally don’t take illegal drugs, so no worries for me. However, I think pot should be legal for medical reasons. I also hear stories about innocent people’s rights being horribly trampled along the way by law enforcement fighting the “Drug War”. That does scare me some.
Melatonin–Nope, I’m not a cop. Just got curious from reading all the comments from people who used drugs. I smell pot occasionally and don’t see much in the paper about arrests. Most of the stuff in the news is about meth labs and cocaine.
I’m probably a statistical fluke, but I don’t use drugs (including alcohol and nicotine), I have no desire to use drugs, I’ve spent half my life working in law enforcement, and I think all drugs should be legalized. All of them; marijuana, cocaine, heroin, LSD, crystal meth, whatever. I think you’d have to be an idiot to use them, but who says you don’t have a right to be an idiot?
What is your basis for belief that the cops in your area have a general policy of perjury?
- Rick
I don’t let cops in here at all. I try not to anyway. Sometimes they sneak a couple feet inside but basically I ask them to stay outside. If they see ANYthing illegal they can use probable cause later.
You don’t have to let them inside you know. I don’t have any drugs here but you never know what they may see.
Litle Nemo:
I love how you think we ought to be free to be idiots. That’s sweet, but Let’s be realisic. There are a lot of idiots out there who are really good people, can contribute to society in a real way, but don’t have the sense to not get involved in hard drugs.
Plus, what about children, the disabled and whatnot? those who do not have the mental capacity to choose. Laws exist to prevent the impressionable from being taken advantage of. Surely, as a law enforcement officer, you must believe this.
I believe that the use of drugs should be legal,where the dealing, creatuion and everything else pertaining should not be.
However, as in all things, I believe education is the best route to prevention. Something the US has obviously not relised yet.
“C’mon, it’s not even tomorrow yet…” - Rupert
If you need a graphic solution, http:\ alk.to\Piglet
BRG,
Your post is almost comprehensible.
Smilingjaws - what is this “pot smelling” technique you refer to? Is it along the lines of smoking but not inhaling?
I’m always up for trying somwthing new.
I grew up in California, and may not have the same dim views of pot that you seem to. In my worldview most people have a drug of choice be it pot, beer, food, sex, cigarettes, and even coffee. Mine is pot. Since I lived among people who accepted it, I have not developed any feeling of shame about it.
Ok, taking the questions one at a time:
Well, I don’t know about being “really afraid” of getting caught. Actually, I’ve been through the misdemeanor process already(in MT). The worst part is the jail time and the gawd-awfull fine. Getting busted for anything is a bad experience. I do take sensible precautions against it, but I don’t worry too much about it most of the time.
Who gets caught? Greedy people who sell drugs for money, have lots of traffic, and draw attention to themselves.
Quite often people are getting in trouble for something else and the cops also find “illicite materials” on them or in their cars or homes. Weren’t a few sports stars were caught like this recently?
I really doubt that this particular form of getting busted is used to lock up troublemakers or today’s Al Capones.
I struggle every day to be the kind of person my dog thinks I am.
Jane–oh, no, there’s definitely inhaling 
I’ll be driving somewhere with the windows down and smell this familiar smell and have to really sniff to make sure it’s what I think it is!
Of course–I do the same thing when I think there’s dog poop somewhere and think I might have stepped in it
Quick and cheesy answer: no, 'cause I don’t do drugs.
Serious answer: the extremes that the justice system is going to in the “War on Drugs” are really getting bad. I know people heavily involved in drawing attention to the excesses of government.
I don’t want to turn this into a great debate. I tend to agree with Little Nemo.
Or to put it a different way, prohibition didn’t work for alcohol, all it did was make it expensive and build up the mafia. What makes you think it’s any different with other drugs?
BigRoryG, there are differences between making something completely legal to everyone, and having some restrictions. We have policies like that now with alcohol and tobacco. Also, prescription medication. So just because something is legalized does not mean it can’t be regulated. Although there may be arguments on how well regulation works, I guess.
jane_says asked:
Was this a joke? I think what Smilingjaws was referring to is something along the experience of going to a concert and catching whiffs of the cloud floating around. Last time I went to a concert, I knew what to look for and saw people lighting up all over. It wasn’t regular cigarettes either. The odor was the most obvious clue, but behavior was the biggest indicator of whom the odor came from.
BigRoryG, my post was intended as a broad outline of my position on drug legalization, not as a detailed program. I agree that there are some people who aren’t capable of realizing the consequences of their action, for example children and the mentally retarded. Although I don’t see any reason to include the physically disabled on this list; toke up, you guys!
As for the idea of legalizing drugs but keeping everything involved with the production or sale of drugs illegal, I find that hypocritical. If drugs are wrong, then everything about them should be illegal including their use. Probably especially their use; the bottom line is that drug users are the ones creating the market.
I read the newspaper! Just in the past year or two, I’ve seen cops in this area accused of crimes including, but not limited to planting drugs(chief of police did this), burglarizing an elementary school, being a serial rapist, selling cocaine, etc, etc, etc. It’s such a common occurance that nobody seems to be bothered about it anymore.
And as the the question about why I still smoke pot even though I get scared when I’m going to get a bag? Well, it takes maybe 20 minutes to drive across town to get the bag, and that bag lasts me a week. Seems like a good trade-off.
Sentinel sez:
That is obviously the opinion of a reasonable person.
I believe the medical term for this kind of reasoning is weltanschaung-from-der-TV-drama.
I don’t use drugs of any sort, and I’m scared of drug enforcement laws. I have reason to sometimes carry a few thousand in cash on me, and if I get stopped and searched it may be seized as possible ‘proceeds of crime’, and the burden will be on me to try and get it back, even if I’m not charged with something.
I may give a co-worker a ride home one night, and we’ll be stopped and he’ll be found to have some pot on him, and they’ll take MY car away under Asset Forfeiture laws. They don’t even have to charge me with anything.
Then I may be subject to a humiliating cavity search the next time I cross the border, simply because I fit some federal drug profile.
And of course, I may be shot in my bed when the police kick in the wrong door by accident and open fire without provocation, which has happened more than once in the ‘war against drugs’. In one case, they opened fire through the closed door of a motel room which was supposed to contain a drug kingpin, killing the innocent occupant who was sleeping in his bed.
You don’t have to be a criminal to be afraid of the abuses in civil liberties that are taking place under the guise of a ‘war’ on drugs.