"We're from the gov'ment and we's here to help!"
Posted on 11/22/2006 7:35:17 AM PST by Dick Bachert
Atlanta police went to a home on Neal Street in Atlanta last evening to execute a search warrant. When they kicked the door in the only occupant of the home, a 92-year-old woman, started shooting. She hit all three police officers. One in the thigh, one in the arm and another in the shoulder. All police officers will be OK. The woman will not. She was shot and killed by the police.
I'm not blaming the cops here. Not at all. They had a valid search warrant, and they say they were at the right address. Shots were fired, three cops hit, and they returned fire. A 92-year-old woman who was so afraid of crime in her neighborhood that she had burglar bars on every door and window, is now dead.
The blame lies on this idiotic drug war we're waging. We have all the studies we need, all of the comprehensive data is in. We can do a much more effective job of reducing drug use in this country if we'll just take a portion of this money we spend for law enforcement and spend it on treatment programs. A Rand study showed that we can reduce illicit drug usage in this country a specified amount through treatment programs at about 10% of the cost of reducing drug usage by that same amount through criminalization and law enforcement.
There's just something in the American psyche that demands that drug users be punished instead of treated and rehabilitated. We think they're stupid and ignorant for getting mixed up with those drugs in the first place. And you know what? We're right? But look at the messages we send to our children every single day with cigarettes, alcohol, and an endless stream of drug ads on television and in magazines. Drug culture? You bet we have.
Ever hear of Alberto Sepulveda? The police went to the right house, but still ended up shooting the 11-year old in the back with a shotgun while on the floor complying with orders. "Whoops. Sorry, kid. Have a nice day."
"Next time, instead of kicking the door in like you're the A-Team on speed, try ringing the doorbell with a bouquet of flowers and then cuff grandma while you search the house."
They had to get in before she flushed her stash.
Another reason to legalize pot is to deny Libertarians the one issue that can sooth their pouts and shut them up.
I have also somewhat reluctantly concluded that illegal drugs should be legalized in order to defund gangs, reduce mayhem, and (greatly) reduce our prison population. But I have a question:
If drugs are legalized, doesn't that mean that they will be branded, marketed and sold? Will Merck come out with MadDash brand cocaine? Starball Express methamphetimine? How would the (now legal) user get his stash? If consumption were legal but distribution were illegal, you'd have essentially the situation we have now. If manufacture and distribution were legal too, then capitalist forces would end up promoting drug use. How do you resolve that one?
Don't mistake that result for causality, though - it could be that neighborhoods with an extant drug problem are more likely to use the DARE program, thus self-selecting for abusive tendencies.
In any case, there is no evidence that DARE works at all.
"There's just something in the American psyche that demands that drug users be punished instead of treated and rehabilitated."
'Puritan heritage.'
More like 'increasing influence of statist control freaks', acting as 'health Nazis'. From H.L Mencken's obituary of a "latter day Puritan" who was utterly opposed to, as Mencken calls it, "the Prohibition imbecility":
http://www.freebooks.com/docs/html/gncf/appendix_a.htm
In his own position there was never the least shadow of inconsistency. When the Prohibition imbecility fell upon the country, and a multitude of theological quacks, including not a few eminent Presbyterians, sought to read support for it into the New Testament, he attacked them with great vigor, and routed them easily. He not only proved that there was nothing in the teachings of Jesus to support so monstrous a folly; he proved abundantly that the known teachings of Jesus were unalterably against it. And having set forth that proof, he refused, as a convinced and honest Christian, to have anything to do with the dry jehad.
This rebellion against a craze that now seems so incredible and so far away was not the chief cause of his break with his ecclesiastical superiors, but it was probably responsible for a large part of their extraordinary dudgeon against him. The Presbyterian Church, like the other evangelical churches, was taken for a dizzy ride by Prohibition. Led into the heresy by fanatics of low mental visibility, it presently found itself cheek by jowl with all sorts of criminals, and fast losing the respect of sensible people. Its bigwigs thus became extremely jumpy on the subject, and resented bitterly every exposure of their lamentable folly.
In the process of being added to the "verboten substances":
tobacco.
http://www.thirdmill.org/answers/answer.asp/file/99989.qna/category/pt/page/questions/site/iiim
http://mywebpages.comcast.net/webpages54/ap/CigarSmoking.html
http://www.amazon.com/Health-Benefits-Tobacco-Smokers-Paradox/dp/9962636434
I can only hope grandma's family suit against the department outweighs whatever potential "revenue" the gubmint makes off confiscations.
"We're from the gov'ment and we's here to help!"
This is where the tire hits the pavement, and what I've always wondered. When I ask a 'tarian "Just how are these recreational drugs going to be manufactured, distributed, and sold?" I get some "principled" fairytale about how the gov ought to get out of everything, like that's going to happen, but I know that this would be a lawsuit/liabiliity nightmare that would choke the courts.
I'd say, let the pothead 'tarians get the capital together to open up their chain of MJ stores.
"Seizure laws and no-knock warrants seem to violate the 4th Amendment. The gubmint has used the WOD to expand its tyrannical powers. I don't like that."
The bottom line here is that you don't own yourself any longer, the state does.
I wonder if this 92 year old woman is a casualty of the SCOTUS no-knock decision.
"Take the profit out of the equation and the problem will be reduced substantially"
Legalization wouldn't take the profit out of the equation. Drugs are the same as any comodity, price is based on supply and demand. To take the profit out of the equatiuon we need to take the demand out. How do we do that?
What kind of treatment would be required for someone that smokes a joint on the weekend with some friends?
"There's just something in the American psyche that demands that drug users be punished instead of treated and rehabilitated."
I'm a big fan of narco-darwinism. If you can do drugs and fulfill your obligations then fine. But don't come crying to me saying "I'm sick," or "I need treatment," or some other horsesh*t.
Girl scouts sell cookies door-to-door, without calling first...
need more information.From news.bbc.co.uk:
Elderly woman dies in shoot-outA 92-year-old woman has been shot dead after she apparently fired at three police trying to serve a search warrant at her house in Georgia, officials say.
Kathryn Johnson shot the plain-clothed narcotics officers who had approached her home in Atlanta, city police said.
The officers had knocked on the door and announced themselves before forcing it open, the police said.
She was the only person home at the time and had lived there for about 17 years, police said.
One policeman was hit in the arm, another in a thigh and the third in a shoulder.
Assistant Chief Alan Dreher said the officers had a legal warrant and "knocked and announced" before they forced open the door.
He said they were justified in returning fire when they were fired upon.
Her niece said she talked to her aunt every day and the conversation was often about crime in the area.
"Every window in her home and every door on her home has burglar bars," Sarah Dozier told a local newspaper.
"I talked to her the other day about a 72-year-old who was raped. I know she was just scared."
The incident is being investigated by police.
AND an entrepreneur!
And, now a corpse. She just keeps on morphing.
How many of these do we have to see before people learn...
Er, according to CNN:
"As the plainclothes Atlanta police officers approached the house about 7 p.m., a woman inside started shooting, striking each of them, said Officer Joe Cobb, a police spokesman.
One was hit in the arm, another in a thigh and the third in a shoulder. The officers were taken to a hospital for treatment, and all three were conscious and alert, police said."
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.