^ The federal scheduling of methamphetamine is up to the TGA, not the police and prosecution for S8 substances seems to be very similar to S9 in most cases. I can't be bothered to look up state legislation, but I believe that in at least a couple of states methamphetamine is in their equivalent of S9 category anyway, which is what state police would charge under. Either way, if that was the argument the other poster was trying to make I don't buy that because of the few drugs that are manufactured here regularly, methamphetamine would have to be one of the more harshly treated.
Christ! said:
Is employing as many police as possible a main goal of law enforcement? Who is 'law enforcement' exactly, the people at the top or just the agency as a whole?
I don't think it would necessarily mean less police employed, there's lots more things they could be spending their time doing. These things would be popular with the majority of the people - like preventing real crime...it'd probably be popular with the majority of the police also.
I define law enforcement as anyone involved in the imposing and upholding of the law. From street cops to state and federal police chiefs and even including the prosecutors and attorneys who put the cases against a defendant before trial.
I definitely believe that they prefer having a larger amount of manpower available to them, and having the never ending fight against drugs as one of their goals serves to keep the force busy. It also provides them with easy targets to go for and in the public's eye, the police certainly look efficient, powerful and purposeful when taking down a lab or busting a major drug supplier. Although it may seem as though I'm very cynical about the police (which may be correct), I'm not saying that police view the drug laws as simply a means to an end; many of them probably do believe strict drug laws are righteous and just, at the same time as the laws also give them something to point to as a reason to keep the force well funded and employed with a large amount of staff.
The drug laws provide a huge amount of offenses for police to deal with, and removing many of these would definitely lead to a shake-up of how the police force is run. There are many other crimes for them to enforce, but take the manpower and resources that are tied up with drugs and move that to other areas of law enforcement and there would probably be a large amount of money that could be taken out of there and applied to other fields. In fact, that's one of the ideas behind pursuing HR policies - once those resources are freed up, they could be used for health and education instead. If a HR policy was correctly utilized, then health costs and the like associated with drug use would probably fall as well.
Christ! said:
It just doesn't make sense to me I guess, I don't look at LE as a company looking to make as much money as possible, they're an agency of the government. Sure there's a drive to get funding but maybe they'd prefer some of the money that would be saved to go elsewhere - like pay rises/more resources for going after higher level dealers rather than users/better equipment etc.
I don't see them as a 'company' as such either, though they are as driven by money as any other part of the government. Money makes the world go 'round after all.
Pay rises, technology and other resources all definitely fall under the broad 'budget' I mentioned above. When the police are seen as occupied with a large amount of crime, it provides a good reason to increase their budget, give them pay-rises, give them better technology, etc... There is an interesting scene in the first season of The Wire where an FBI agent explains to one of the lead detectives in Baltimore that since the War on Terror took over as a top priority, there has been less funding going to the War on Drugs and hence less available for the technology and manpower that they would like to have. In terms of police areas that take up a lot of money and technology and man power, drug laws are right up there. It was even bigger in America, where they involved their military and it was a good excuse for them to employ technology and manpower they might not have otherwise used... and also a good reason for more funds to be provided. I might look up budget figures for the police if I can, and it might help to illustrate my point that a large amount of money goes into enforcing drug laws both at a state and federal level.
Christ! said:
We could look at countries that have relaxed laws around drugs, and maybe find out the effect it had on their law enforcement regarding funding and employment rates.
That could be an interesting idea as well; perhaps Portugal, with it's recent change to it's drug possession laws in the last couple of years, would be a good choice.
Christ! said:
I suppose it comes down to public perception, the government is going to do whatever is popular and most people are still stuck in their old ways of drug = bad = try and get rid of all drugs/drug use.
Public perception definitely plays a role; it's an easy way for governments to look like they are tough on crime, etc. If they were brave they might go against popular opinion to do something that might actually help people and perhaps one day someone will.
