As The Dying War On Drugs Takes Its Final, Painful Breaths, Prohibitionists Are Trying Desperately To Keep It Alive
That the War on Drugs has been a colossal failure is, by now, beyond dispute. Forty years and $1.5 trillion dollars after Nixon declared War on Drugs in 1971, the drug addiction rate in the U.S. is about the same as it was in 1970, according to the Atlantic (it hovers between one and two percent). Meanwhile, drugs are no less readily available now than they were in 1970. Available drugs are if anything more potent than they were in 1970, and an admitted former pot smoker is President of the United States.
Still, good news is emerging. At least a few politicians — and a few state governments — have at least had the courage to admit that some aspects of the War on Drugs are less than desirable, or haven’t had the outcomes Prohibitionists were expecting, and have shot a couple of arrows into the heart of the Drug War. The bad news is, to quote the old saying: Three steps forward, two steps back. Every time a move is made to end, or at least scale back, the Drug War, fanatical Prohibitionists step in to keep it alive.
The Good News: A Georgia Lawmaker Is Trying To Get Rid Of “No-Knock Raids”
If you want to see the poster boy, so to speak, of the hubris, the fanaticism, the unchecked zeal of the police carrying out the War on Drugs, look no further than the Georgia toddler named Bounkham “Baby Bou Bou” Phonesavanh.
At about 2 a.m. on May 28, 2014, the 18-month-old was asleep in his crib when deputies from the Habersham County Sheriff’s Office threw a flash-bang grenade into his crib while conducting a “No-Knock Raid” in their search for a suspected drug dealer. The grenade exploded in the crib, blowing a hole in his chest and permanently disfiguring him. His family has since run up over a million dollars in medical bills; bills that Habersham County, to this day, refuses to pay.
What were the Habersham County cops looking for, you ask? Terrorists? A school shooter? They were looking for a suspected meth dealer, who, according to a confidential informant, had sold $50 worth of meth.
Georgia State Senator Vincent Fort has suggested that maybe, just maybe, maiming toddlers in the quest to rid the streets of low-level meth dealers may not be the best way to spend taxpayer money. He has introduced a bill that would severely limit when Georgia police can conduct no-knock raids, and his bill has bi-partisan support in the Georgia legislature.
The Bad News: Georgia Police Don’t Want “No-Knock Raids” To Go Away
Not surprisingly, the police — who, after drug cartels, stand to lose the most should the Drug War be repealed or even scaled back just a bit — aren’t going to let go of no-knock raids without a fight.
Carrie Mills, former police officer and now union rep for the International Brotherhood of Police Officers, has warned Georgia lawmakers that Georgia’s rules on no-knock raids are just fine the way they are, and her union will fight planned changes the whole way. Further, she warns, getting rid of no-knock warrants will make communities somehow less safe.
Continued here http://www.inquisitr.com/1783784/as...ists-are-trying-desperately-to-keep-it-alive/
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Drug prohibition creates way more crime than it fails to prevent.
That the War on Drugs has been a colossal failure is, by now, beyond dispute. Forty years and $1.5 trillion dollars after Nixon declared War on Drugs in 1971, the drug addiction rate in the U.S. is about the same as it was in 1970, according to the Atlantic (it hovers between one and two percent). Meanwhile, drugs are no less readily available now than they were in 1970. Available drugs are if anything more potent than they were in 1970, and an admitted former pot smoker is President of the United States.
Still, good news is emerging. At least a few politicians — and a few state governments — have at least had the courage to admit that some aspects of the War on Drugs are less than desirable, or haven’t had the outcomes Prohibitionists were expecting, and have shot a couple of arrows into the heart of the Drug War. The bad news is, to quote the old saying: Three steps forward, two steps back. Every time a move is made to end, or at least scale back, the Drug War, fanatical Prohibitionists step in to keep it alive.
The Good News: A Georgia Lawmaker Is Trying To Get Rid Of “No-Knock Raids”
If you want to see the poster boy, so to speak, of the hubris, the fanaticism, the unchecked zeal of the police carrying out the War on Drugs, look no further than the Georgia toddler named Bounkham “Baby Bou Bou” Phonesavanh.
At about 2 a.m. on May 28, 2014, the 18-month-old was asleep in his crib when deputies from the Habersham County Sheriff’s Office threw a flash-bang grenade into his crib while conducting a “No-Knock Raid” in their search for a suspected drug dealer. The grenade exploded in the crib, blowing a hole in his chest and permanently disfiguring him. His family has since run up over a million dollars in medical bills; bills that Habersham County, to this day, refuses to pay.
What were the Habersham County cops looking for, you ask? Terrorists? A school shooter? They were looking for a suspected meth dealer, who, according to a confidential informant, had sold $50 worth of meth.
Georgia State Senator Vincent Fort has suggested that maybe, just maybe, maiming toddlers in the quest to rid the streets of low-level meth dealers may not be the best way to spend taxpayer money. He has introduced a bill that would severely limit when Georgia police can conduct no-knock raids, and his bill has bi-partisan support in the Georgia legislature.
The Bad News: Georgia Police Don’t Want “No-Knock Raids” To Go Away
Not surprisingly, the police — who, after drug cartels, stand to lose the most should the Drug War be repealed or even scaled back just a bit — aren’t going to let go of no-knock raids without a fight.
Carrie Mills, former police officer and now union rep for the International Brotherhood of Police Officers, has warned Georgia lawmakers that Georgia’s rules on no-knock raids are just fine the way they are, and her union will fight planned changes the whole way. Further, she warns, getting rid of no-knock warrants will make communities somehow less safe.
Continued here http://www.inquisitr.com/1783784/as...ists-are-trying-desperately-to-keep-it-alive/
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Drug prohibition creates way more crime than it fails to prevent.
