The Corrupting Influence of Drugs
Drug War Rant reminds us that among the hidden costs of the drug war is police corruption.
Now you came into this thing a bright eyed, shiny young recruit… You’re a police officer four or five years — you see the wasted energy you spend on this drug war. And now you’re standing in a motel room where a drug arrest has just been made. Laying on the bed is a hundred and some thousand dollars which hasn’t been counted yet in cash… In your back pocket is a thirty-eight hundred dollar bill from the plumber that you didn’t know how you were going to pay… And, it doesn’t make any difference anyway. And you take your first taste. And then you’re gone.
The drug war is a bad policy that serve no constituency except tough-on-crime ideologues and companies that sell black tactical gear to police departments. The drug war makes us less safe and less free. Let your elected representatives know that (a) you oppose the failed prohibition and (b) you vote.
October 10th, 2006 at 7:16 pm
I agree the increased corruption it leads to is a big problem with the drug war, but can we make that argument while still recognizing that corrupt cops are the perpetrators of the problem, not its victim.
The ‘oh, the poor police just can’t help themselves’ tone in that article made me want to wretch.
October 10th, 2006 at 7:54 pm
I believe the war on (some) drugs is one of the key reasons the Left is so rabidly against the war on islamofacism. For many, a drug bust is the first and perhaps the only time most otherwise honest citizens come up against the pointy end of their government. The WoD is fundamentally a war of betrayal–friends snitching and informing on friends as part of a plea bargain, narcs pretending to be your friend and then arresting you, kids and parents informing on each other, and so forth. Time and time again, the WoD has been the excuse to tatter the Constitution and BoR, including, of course, the 2nd amendment. No wonder nobody trusts the government’s claim that wiretaps, harsh interrogation methods, and warrant-less incarceration will only be used against terrorists; we all know that sooner or later, they’ll be deployed in the WoD as well.
I understand that communist and socialist agitators have kept the anti-war movement alive since the VietNam war in order to weaken our country. I understand that the quite laudable liberal impulse towards tolerance that grew out of the civil rights movement has been horribly distorted and exploited by many intolerant enemies.
However, those are more or less intellectual objections. What brings it home is the idea that smoking a joint could get you, you personally, disappeared as a terrorist. Exaggerated and paranoid that may be, but those fears are only aggravated by official government propaganda to the effect that buying drugs does fund terrorism.
The drug war is a hideous waste of money and manpower, but those losses are a mere nosebleed to the hemorrhage of Americans’ trust in their government.
October 10th, 2006 at 8:07 pm
[…] Say Uncle posts a link to a story on the invaluable Drug War Rant about how the War on (Some) Drugs inevitably corrupts those who fight the war: the police. (We won’t but mention the DEA, allegedly known even in Federal law enforcement circles as corrupt jack booted thugs.) […]
October 10th, 2006 at 9:41 pm
The problem isn’t corrupted cops the problem is a corrupted law enforcement regime. Any profit motive in law enforcement is a bad bad idea. Drug war plus asset forfeiture plus cash going back to the busting enforcement agency rapidly = corruption.
Once the agency tastes these “profits” the push is on for seizing cars of drunk driving suspects or someone suspected of patronizing a prostitute. Where will it end?
October 12th, 2006 at 1:47 pm
I’ve been in that exact same scenario, except my bills weren’t quite as large. I guarded a floor of a drug house, by myself, with a gym bag full of uncounted cash sitting next to me on a day bed, for 1 1/2 hours before the evidence team got up to my level in the large house.
I had thoughts.
I rejected them all, and not only because of principle.
Foremost in my mind was the fact that the informant who made this bust possible probably knew just how much was in the bag….
When I was a rookie, a grizzled old field training offcer told me that there is no such thing as an un-bribable cop. He said that the cops you hear about taking bribes were simply ones who had set their bribe threshold too low.
I had people, mostly drunks I stopped for DUI, try to bribe me, and I would explain to them that I took no offense, they just didn’t have enough money to bribe me. That way, I kept on their good side and they would blow in the breath-box when I got them back to the station, thus insuring their conviction.
I finished my 25-year career without anyone getting to my bribe level….