The government seeking to steal a hotel because some guests sold some marijuana. Posted on 03/31/2014 11:38:10 AM PDT by Kaslin
Even though I’m personally a prude on the issue of drugs, that doesn’t stop me from opposing the Drug War, both for moral and practical reasons.
After all, how can any sensible and decent person want laws that produce these outrageous results?
The DEA trying to confiscate a commercial building because a tenant sold some marijuana.
The government seeking to steal a hotel because some guests sold some marijuana.
Cops raiding an organic nursery and seizing blackberry bushes.
The feds grabbing cash from innocent bystanders in legal cases.
The government arresting a grandmother for buying cold medicine.
Cops entrapping an autistic teen to boost their arrest numbers.
And don’t forget the misguided War on Drugs is also why we have costly, intrusive, and ineffective anti-money laundering laws, which result in other outrages, such as the government arbitrarily stealing money from small business owners.
Though not every enforcement action leads to grotesque abuse of human rights. Sometimes the Drug War merely exposes the stupidity of government.
Let’s add another horror story to our list.
Jacob Sullum of Reason has a very disturbing example of how the Drug War leads to very bad outcomes.
Why did a SWAT team raid Bob and Addie Harte’s house in Leawood, Kansas, two years ago, then force the couple and their two children to sit on a couch for two hours while officers rifled their belongings, searching for “narcotics” that were not there?
Sullum conveniently provides the answer, though it’s not one that should satisfy any normal person.
…the Hartes made two mistakes: Bob went to a hydroponics store in Kansas City, Missouri, with his son to buy supplies for a school science project, and Addie drank tea. It cost them $25,000 to discover that these innocent actions earned them an early-morning visit by screaming, rifle-waving men with a battering ram.
Here are the odious details of local government run amok.
…the Hartes hired a lawyer to help them obtain the relevant records… Eventually the Hartes learned that a Missouri Highway Patrol trooper saw Bob at the hydroponics store on August 9, 2011. Seven months later, state police passed on this hot tip to the sheriff’s office, which sprang into action (after a few weeks), rummaging through the Hartes’ garbage three times in April 2012. On all three occasions, they found “wet plant material” that a field test supposedly identified as marijuana.
Does that sound like probable cause for an assault on their home?
…the cops did not bother to confirm their field results with a more reliable lab test before charging into the Hartes’ home, three days after their third surreptitious trash inspection. When the Hartes starting asking questions about the raid, the sheriff’s office suddenly decided to test that wet plant material, which it turned out was not marijuana after all. The Hartes figure it must have been the loose tea that Addie favors, which she tends to toss into the trash after brewing.
So what’s the bottom line? The Hartes want to make it easier to obtain records.
…the Hartes think Kansas cops would be more careful if obtaining police records were easier. “You shouldn’t have to have $25,000, even $5,000,” Addie Harte tells KSHB. “You shouldn’t have to have that kind of money to find out why people came raiding your house like some sort of police state.”
I obviously agree, but an even more important lesson is that we should re-think America’s foolish Drug War.
I happen to think drugs are bad and that people shouldn’t use them. Heck,
I also think people shouldn’t overeat, that gambling is dumb, and that alcohol abuse is terrible.
But I know that government prohibition won’t solve these problems and almost surely will make matters worse.
Besides, I don’t like being on the same side of an issue as certain people.
This guy says it better than I can. I agree for all of his reasons, It’s time to end the “War on Drugs” and the “War on Terror”. The ultimate losers in those two ‘wars’ have been the American people and our constantly eroding ‘inalienable rights’.
It is probably pointless for me to engage in this topic because people believe what they want to believe, and simply do not care if reality shows them to be wrong.
Do you know what’s worse than the drug war? Not having a drug war. You want to see how not having a “War on Drugs” worked out for another nation?
Look up the History of China from 1830 to the Present. Legalized drugs utterly destroyed that nation and killed millions.
I agree. I am against illegal drugs, but I can see the WOD is no good. People are being abused everywhere. Some are even be killed by them, after their dogs are shot. I used to be a supporter of cops, but not much any more. I am sure there are still a few good cops out there, but there are a ton of bad ones too. I just wonder if it will ever be normal again.
Interesting that the title of the article links Prohibition and the War on Drugs, because they are linked. The national WOD began with various Federal laws targeting marijuana and opiates in 1935. There were laws prohibiting free use of these drugs before then, but not widely enforced. But in 1935, they rolled out “Reefer Madness” and went after pot.
Why? Why then?
Because Prohibition had just been repealed in 1933, and all those Elliott Ness types needed something to do. After all, you couldn’t just lay them off, like happened to so many private sector workers at that time. They’re government workers. So they created the WOD.
The WOD exists as an outgrowth of Prohibition, and for the simple reason that the government will create a reason for its bureaucracies to exist if one does not naturally occur.
I’m for ending the drug war because I’m for making the fed too small to operate a drug war. I’m not, however, for universal legalization until the government is much much smaller and nanny state dismantled.
Question: How can drugs be legalized when the illegalization is itself illegitimate?
The Facts are simple:
I’ll see your ending the “War on Drugs” and the “War on Terror” and raise you an end to the “War on Poverty”. Somehow these “War on [noun-not-denoting-an-ideology-or-nation]” deals always end up eroding liberty and not solving the problem represented by whatever is being made “war” on.
Government is way more corrupt than individual citizens, or did you not know that?
Here are some facts:
Support of the War on Drugs and Constitutionalism are mutually exclusive, as the War on Drugs has damaged 90% of the Bill of Rights:
Amendment 10 — Destroyed by combining “necessary and proper” with the intrastate/interstate regulation of Wickard.
Amendment 9 — Everything. Seriously, EVERYTHING about the War on Drugs is about the federal government exercising powers not expressly delegated by the Constitution.
From Justice Thomas’s Dissent in Raich:“If the Federal Government can regulate growing a half-dozen cannabis plants for personal consumption (not because it is interstate commerce, but because it is inextricably bound up with interstate commerce), then Congress’ Article I powers – as expanded by the Necessary and Proper Clause – have no meaningful limits.”Amendment 8 — Mandatory minimums and zero tolerance combine to make the punishments outweigh many of the “crimes”, even is you accept the crime as valid.
Amendment 7 — In [civil] asset forfeiture, the victims are routinely denied jury-trials even though the amount in controversy exceeds $20.
Amendment 6 — The clogging of the courts with drug-related cases erodes the notion of a “speedy trial” to a joke. Often drug charges are added on to the list of crimes, which can “taint” the jury w/ prejudices. Often police act on informants whose identities are “protected”, which impairs the ability to confront the accuser.
Amendment 5 — How does “Comprehensive Forfeiture Act of 1984” comply with “No person shall [...] be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law”?
Amendment 4 — Kentucky v King”The Fourth Amendment expressly imposes two requirements: All searches and seizures must be reasonable; and a warrant may not be issued unless probable cause is properly established and the scope of the authorized search is set out with particularity. [...] The proper test follows from the principle that permits warrantless searches: warrantless searches are allowed when the circumstances make it reasonable, within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment , to dispense with the warrant requirement.”In other words:Yes, the fourth amendment requires warrants for searches, but… fuck that!
Amendment 3 — [Nope, nothing here... yet.]
Amendment 2 — Arguably, the “prohibited persons” from the `68 GCA.
Amendment 1 — Religious freedom is denied via the war on drugs ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Employment_Division_v._Smith ), there are stories of “legalization”-advocacy publishers being raided/harassed.
Many people say Prohibition did not work, but what is there definition of “did not work”? How many millions of people (children, fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, grandkids, nieces, nephews, cousins, aunts, uncles) have been killed, maimed, or hurt by alcohol and drunk drivers since Prohibition ended?
Living in USSRW (Washington State), the brain-dead liberals (who control elections due to their overwhelming majority) decided to make use or recreational drugs legal. One recent report said that usage at a local high school has doubled. Is this a good thing?
Why will drug use increase among all ages groups - including kids - when legalized? Easy: it is cheaper and more available.
Many people say Prohibition did not work, but what is there definition of “did not work”? How many millions of people (children, fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, grandkids, nieces, nephews, cousins, aunts, uncles) have been killed, maimed, or hurt by alcohol and drunk drivers since Prohibition ended?
Living in USSRW (Washington State), the brain-dead liberals (who control elections due to their overwhelming majority) decided to make use or recreational drugs legal. One recent report said that usage at a local high school has doubled. Is this a good thing?
Why will drug use increase among all ages groups - including kids - when legalized? Easy: it is cheaper and more available.
I’d rather see a war on government.
They think when stoned or need their next toke/hit that is why it makes sense.
Don’t you think it might be possible for the police to enforce drug laws without rampant violations of people’s rights?
Why does it need to be a “war”?
Yes. I think we should certainly do away with some seizure laws, and we need to reign in illegal searches, and put a halt to numerous other abuses. The War on Drugs has long been used as an excuse for the Authorities to run roughshod over the populace, and we need to stop tolerating it.
Why does it need to be a “war”?
Because much of it is international in scope. Heroine, Cocaine, and even meth, are transshipped from outside of the country, and therefore it requires some sort of National government response. i.e. "Federal."
But internally? No, we need to scale back some of the "War" mentality.
>>>Do you know what’s worse than the drug war? Not having a drug war. You want to see how not having a “War on Drugs” worked out for another nation?
Look up the History of China from 1830 to the Present. Legalized drugs utterly destroyed that nation and killed millions.<<<
Agreed, with some disagreement thrown in. Mao eliminated the opium problem by filling the Yangtze River with the heads of decapitated drug user after he took over the country. The problem with drugs soon became a minor concern.
The war on drugs has to be waged in the hearts and heads of each person. (I would agree that the “war on...” phrase is overused, too.) I’m not an alcoholic because of my own moral values and my own strength of will. I was raised in a home where my family didn’t drink to drunkenness, and I have raised my son to do so. I’ve been drunk, and I find that to be a revolting feeling. All of this happened without government intervention. It’s part of my cultural attitude about drugs.
In fact, American culture has changed its attitude about alcohol, too. The amount of alcohol drunk in the early 19th century is far greater than what the average American drinks today. I would argue that government intervention did little to see this reduction; however, the temperance movement changed culture.
Ditto tobacco, as it concerns reduced use. I remember my father expressing disgust with tobacco years before it became a government cause. I think the government piggybacked public sentiment, not created public sentiment.
Surely marijuana legalization will lead to all sorts of bad unforeseen circumstances, and that will inevitably lead to disgust in our culture. Sadly, that will take about two or three generations, and God knows how many people will have lives badly screwed up in the interim. But government involvement isn’t the solution. It will take a higher power.
How many “millions” have had their lives harmed in some way by alcohol since Prohibition ended? A bunch. How many would have been prevented had Prohibition continued? I would argue your net gain would be “none.” In fact, you would have more murders and gang related deaths over alcohol during that time.
Why is that? The answer is obvious; because people want to drink alcohol. So long as people want to drink alcohol, they will find a way to do it. It’s the same with drugs. It doesn’t matter what laws you pass. It doesn’t matter how invasive you make the government. It doesn’t matter how many people you lock in the local and state dungeons.
Last I checked, Heroin is illegal. And its abuse is destroying the lives of suburban white kids when it used to just be a “black” thing. Opiates, without prescription, are illegal. That doesn’t keep wealthy NFL team owners from popping them like Sweet Tarts. Meth is illegal. And it’s leaving a bigger swath of destruction through our rural areas than the worst tornado outbreak ever did.
You cannot use the iron hammer of government to solve what are social issues. In fact, it makes people naturally rebel against it. If you want to end alcohol abuse, or drug abuse, or pornography, or child abuse, you have to convince people that they don’t want to drink, use drugs, watch porn or bugger kids. Until you do that, people will do these things no matter how much you empower a totalitarian police state.
Unless, of course, you just start executing people over a joint of marijuana. That might work. Do you think we should try that? I can guarantee you’d have a very low recidivist rate.
I’ve been in the practice of criminal law since 1984. I was a prosecutor until 2002. Now I am in defense. And I can tell you that the only thing the WOD is doing is filling prisons and creating a totalitarian police state.
Threatening somebody with prison merely for possessing the wrong liquid, plant, medicine, etc. is simply Unamerican, and exhibits a profoundly shallow understanding of the nature of Freedom itself. "Protecting the public" is the mantra of many Tyrants, and even if they're not particularly authoritarian, leaders who espouse such nonsense invariably perpetuate Tyranny, even if it's unintended.
Contraband law invites and creates massive abuses of privacy rights and the Fourth Amendment, just to name a couple.
So, whether Prohibition works or not, it is Tyrannical and should be rejected on that basis.
In America, we're not supposed to adopt authoritarian solutions just because they may "work". And, by the way, history has made its judgement on Prohibition. The verdict: it didn't work.
This Prohibitionist's feeble understanding of Freedom is a hallmark of the collectivist authoritarian mindset, and it should not afflict Constitutional conservatives who claim to have any interest in minimal government, because it takes BIG, nanny state government, with breathtakingly expansive police power, to enforce such widely targeted (and broadly disregarded) laws.
How about we concentrate on prosecuting and imprisoning people who actually violate the rights of others? Thieves, fraudsters, and anybody who commits an actual crime, whether it be in furtherance of a drug habit, or to pay for grandma's operation.
The War on Drugs is both tyrannical and absurd.
I'm not going to waste my breath further trying to convince anyone. The facts, and what the current situation is, are as plain as day.
If drugs are permitted to become legal, they will destroy this nation, just as it destroyed China.
Let us agree that the current war has many abuses, but let us also agree that eradicating drugs is a necessary task.
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