LOL RTF – I am not getting used to it, I 'spose that there will many many times in the future that we will have fun disagreeing!
< grin >
Allow me to clarify my post.
The general “no knock” raid policy as it currently exists is flawed. Police should not operate a warrant, especially a “no knock” raid, on the level of information that would be sufficient for a stop & detain.
However, this isn’t a problem with the concept “no knock” raid itself, but it is my opinion that the level of evidence required for that to be done needs to be much higher than what is currently done in practice.
I.e. gov’t and law enforcement have gone in the wrong direction. “No Knocks” are a good idea that evolved from the reality that some high risk warrants were just too dangerous (that and evidence was being destroyed). However, they failed to recognize that in order to invade a person’s home they really should have some solid probable cause in order to prevent accidental encounter’s with innocent folk.
RTFirefly:
I was about to post this exact same thing:
I actually agreed with you on one of the gun threads about a couple of things. I don’t think you ever went back to that thread though because it died off. (The response to jab1 thread maybe?)
By my count we had exactly 2.5 agreements. This makes 3.5.
If we agree any more, they might take away my NRA card and your ACLU card.
(don’t deny it, I know you are a card carrying ACLU member )
The war on drugs is a complete failure. I can score dope in any city of this country with almost no searching. And I don’t even use anymore.
That being said, what struck me about the article was what it did not say.
1. How many of these raids actually yeilded a drug or weapons seizure.
2. How many people arrested in these raids had their charges dropped or reduced in exchange for ratting someone else out.
Remember, if dope was legal, the cops would’nt be wasting their time busting in on these people, and at least one poor Denver woman would not have been shot.
And if murder was legal than some innocent joe who has been shot because he seemed like the suspect would be alive.
And if rape was legal than Diallo would be alive.
And if burglery was legal than …
Arguing that dope should be legal because it is a victimless crime is one thing. Arguing that it should be legal because mistakening identity sometimes in law enforcement (which yes shouldn’t happen) is meaningless because it then applies to any other crime, or are you saying it is okay to be shot by being mistaken for a murderer, rapist or thief?
Freedom - believe it or not, I’m not an ACLU member. Never have been one, and unless they get their heads out of their asses, I’m sure I’ll never be one. (If you want to know why I’ve got such a low opinion of them, send me an email. That’s a rant way too long for this space.)
I gave up on the ‘response to jab1’ gun thread because it was a nice weekend out (weekend before last), but everyone else was still posting like mad. I decided I had things I’d rather do than keep up! I thought I’d get back to it when the pace slowed down, but I never did.
Glitch: on the no-knock business, I agree with you - the more intrusive and extreme a search or other intrusion into a person’s house, personal effects, etc., the higher the evidentiary standard should be required to justify it, and the more checks ought to be in place to make sure it doesn’t just get done on someone’s whim. (Perhaps with a no-knock warrant, a judge and an appeals judge should have to sign off on it, for instance. After all, a judge can frequently be found who’ll sign off on just about anything.)
Personal story :
A couple years ago, I was renting a house with 4 other people. One of them happened to sell a bit of pot. One day we got word through AFOAF that the cops were going to raid our house. What a scary thought. So we got rid of all the pipes and everything even remotely incriminating.
Cops came without a warrant “just to have a look around because we got some reports of ‘narcotics’ being sold and consumed here.” I wasn’t home at the time, so our European roomates who are unfamiliar with the 4th amendment let them in. No big deal, right? Place was spotless. Well, the cops brought a spot of their own. A sack of weed. They didn’t press any charges for the pot. I guess it was more of an intimidation thing. The equivalent of saying “Hey, look what we can do if we want to. Better not f*ck with us.” Needless to say, our roommate stopped selling dope after that incident.
I’m pretty sure this wasn’t an isolated incident. The chief of police for a nearby town was indicted on charges of planting cocaine on somebody. Seems to be pretty much common practice.
If you can not answer a man’s argument, all it not lost; you can still call him vile names.
–Elbert Hubbard
Glitch,
You aren’t under the mistaken impression that the drug war ever was a good idea, are you?
Let’s try some simple questions. Can you tell me why these drug laws were passed in the first place? Did the reasons make good sense? If not, when did they start to make sense?
As you alluded to, the major justification for no-knock is the idea that evidence (drugs) might be destroyed. Without the impetus of the drug war, we probably wouldn’t have no-knock raids at all. So the question arises – was the original justification for the drug war anything that really made sense?
World’s Largest Online Library of Drug Policy - http://www.druglibrary.org
Avenueb wrote:
<quote>ENFORCE THE DRUG LAWS! Don’t let people go in court. That will solve all the problems, believe me.</quote/>
So answer a simple question. How many millions of people do you think we ought to throw in prison for best results?
World’s Largest Online Library of Drug Policy - http://www.druglibrary.org
The War on (Some) Drugs persists because of ignorance and fear. Hopefully, the younger generation (I assume most of them know the truth despite the brainwashing) will actually start voting and perhaps the insanity will end. Here is an interesting article. Another good one. Yet another work of Carroll’s The international aspect. About propaganda. Some hope for the future. One more link-it’s a good one.
::crossing fingers, hoping this UBB shit works right::
It’s not how you pick your nose, it’s where you put the boogers
BDD, I hope you can help get out the word then…because so many sit on their asses and don’t help “these kids” understand how important it is to vote no matter what you believe in!
Cliff: As stated in my first post on this thread, I am “firmly on the fence” on the subject of the “drug war”.
The primary cause for the initial use of no-knock raids was high risk warrants, not the drug war. The fact that some drug raids are also high risk warrants is besides the fact. A secondary cause was the destruction of evidence, which only came to light well after the start of using no-knock raids.
I have one thing to add here.
The only drug that has gone it’s merry way during this whole “war on drugs” is qualudes.
Really! Look around, no one, but no one, has any ludes available. Oh, you might know someone who knows someone who might have an old bottle up in a closet, but it’s not on the streets for sale. When our gov’t said “no more” and really enforced it - viola! no more qualudes.
SO does this mean they are not seriously enforcing the war on coke, speed, smack, ect…?
Carpe Jugulum
Well, they don’t call me Glitch for nothin’. I though for sure I said in the first post I was on the fence with regards to the merits of the drug war. Ends up I didn’t. Just trying to live up to the handle.
If it isn’t clear by now, I am on the fence with regards to the drug war.
BTW, police have been doing “no-knock” for a lot longer than people seem to realize. They were doing them in the prohibition era too for liquor raids. I know for certain that the police have done “no-knock” raids on bike gangs (and other gangs) in the 70s. Basically, whenever the police feel that a raid will be too dangerous they break the door down first and then identify themselves. I suspect that they may be more common these days (I don’t have any hard stats on the subject), but they have been around for a long time.
The war on drugs, like most policing activities, is reactive in nature. That is why it is failing. Agencies are doing next to nothing to prevent crackhouses from springing up, only raiding them after they’re there, endangering innocents within proximity.
IMO, if the focus was redirected to a proactive attitude i.e. somehow stopping the dealers before they set up shop, we’d be in better shape.
The illegal drug business is a “get rich quick” business and potential dealers know there’s nothing to stop them from initially setting up operations anywhere the market may look good. They know they’re gonna make some quick money. If they get greedy, and most do, they’ll attempt to expand and draw attention to their operation. That’s when reactive policing comes into play. But it’s already too late.
Proactive policing is the key.
Kent4mmy:
Perhaps you’d like to outline how this ‘procactive policing’ would work. I’ve got a proactive solution: legalize it and regulate it, just as alcohol and tobacco are (both of which are arguably worse than most of the currently illegal drugs). This would eliminate the artifically inflated prices which make dealing so attractive, thereby reducing the need for law enforcement to concentrate so heavily in a lost cause. There would be no long term increase in addicts. Most people are smart enough to stay away from crack and heroin already. Legalization won’t change that.
Most drugs are illegal for ludicrous reasons. (I’m only familiar with marijuana, check out Cliff’s library for more info.) Hearst lead the campaign against pot because he had acres of trees he wanted to sell for paper. He could only do this if hemp was illegal. DuPont inveseted heavily in nylon. In order to corner the market, they needed hemp illegal. Ronald Reagan stepped up the War on (Some) Drugs after being convinced that pot smoking causes homosexuality. After so many years of hearing lies, it’s hard to hear the truth.
techchick: I’m doing my best. Hell, MTV is doing it’s best.
It’s not how you pick your nose, it’s where you put the boogers
Glitch wrote:
<quote>Cliff: As stated in my first post on this thread, I am “firmly on the fence” on the subject of the “drug war”.</quote>
Then I take it you haven’t read the major research on the subject. I suggest you start with the Consumers Union Report on Licit and Illicit Drugs at http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/Library/studies/cu/cumenu.htm
If you do enough reading, you will discover soon enough that the drug war was a fraud from the very beginning at it has never made sense at any point in history. (And there’s nothing “on the fence” about that conclusion – it is cold, hard fact.)
<quote>The primary cause for the initial use of no-knock raids was high risk warrants, not the drug war. </quote>
“high risk warrants” with regards to what particular set of crimes?
<quote>The fact that some drug raids are also high risk warrants is besides the fact. A secondary cause was the destruction of evidence, which only came to light well after the start of using no-knock raids.</quote>
So what is the only set of crimes where the imminent destruction of evidence which might be avoided with a sudden, unannounced entry is even a potential problem?
(Hint: I think you missed something major with your reasoning here.)
World’s Largest Online Library of Drug Policy - http://www.druglibrary.org
Glitch wrote:
As stated above, that is a clear sign that you aren’t familiar with the most basic research on the subject. Let’s start with the basics:
-
Opium smoking was first outlawed because of the fear that Chinese men were luring white women to have sex in opium dens. No other form of opium was outlawed, just the peculiarly Chinese custom of smoking it in opium dens.
-
Cocaine was outlawed largely because of fears that superhuman Negro Cocaine Fiends would go on a violent rampage and rape white women and shoot white men. It was believed that cocaine made them better marksmen and impervious to bullets. Caffeine was almost outlawed at the same time for the same reasons.
-
Marijuana was outlawed because “All Mexicans are crazy and marijuana is what makes them crazy.”
Those were the original reasons for the laws. Is there anything in there that you find even remotely sensible?
Now, if you will read the further history of these laws at http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer under Historical Research, you will find that in all the years since, the reasons have never been any better than that.
Hmmm, do you get the similarity between alcohol prohibition then, and drug prohibition now?
Now let’s ask the obvious question. What percentage of no-knock raids are for drugs? What percentage are for all other crimes (combined)?
The Denver Police just gave some recent stats on that, if you are interested. Turns out that about 100 percent of the ones they did last year were for drugs. Seems to me that every one I have ever read about has been for drugs. You see there really isn’t much danger that someone stealing motorcycles will flush the evidence down the toilet before the cops bust in. It seems also that they have killed more people in no-knock raids for marijuana than the drug itself has killed.
World’s Largest Online Library of Drug Policy - http://www.druglibrary.org
[quoteI have one thing to add here.
The only drug that has gone it’s merry way during this whole “war on drugs” is qualudes.
Really! Look around, no one, but no one, has any ludes available. Oh, you might know someone who knows someone who might have an old bottle up in a closet, but it’s not on the streets for sale.[/quote]
Except for someone I knew who had fifty pounds of them a year or so ago.
Not exactly.
No, it means there are a whole set of different conditions with ludes, such as the fact that they require specific, somewhat controllable chemicals, and a more elaborate manufacturing process than is required with the other drugs.
As for the other drugs, as Janet Reno said shortly after she took office as AG (and after having spent several years as a prosecutor in Florida), she doesn’t know of anyone in law enforcement who believes it would be even remotely feasible to cut off the supplies of coke, heroin, speed, and most other drugs.
And there is also that report by the Rand Corp. a few years back which estimated the cost effectiveness of various methods of addressing the drug problem. Trying to cut off the drugs at their source was the least cost-effective method of addressing the drug problems. In fact, they estimated it produced a net loss for every dollar invested.
It seems clear that you haven’t read the most basic research on the subject. I suggest you start with the history of the marijuana laws at http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/History/whiteb1.htm It is only about twenty pages long, and you will find it highly entertaining – not what you expected at all.
Then I suggest you read the Consumers Union Report on Licit and Illicit Drugs at http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/Library/studies/cu/cumenu.htm
That is probably the best book ever written on the subject, and it is also quite surprising. You will learn something new on every page.
World’s Largest Online Library of Drug Policy - http://www.druglibrary.org