Posted on 06/04/2014 12:17:09 PM PDT by Kaslin
When Alecia Phonesavanh heard her 19-month-old son, Bounkham, screaming, she thought he was simply frightened by the armed men who had burst into the house in the middle of the night. Then she saw the charred remains of the portable playpen where the toddler had been sleeping, and she knew something horrible had happened.
Bounkham "Bou Bou" Phonesavanh, who is in a medically induced coma at Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta, may never wake up. But the appalling injuries he suffered during a police raid in Habersham County, Ga., last week should awaken the country to the moral obscenity that is the war on drugs.
Two months ago, after a fire at their home in Wisconsin, Alecia, her husband and their four children, ranging in age from 1 to 7, moved in with relatives who live just of outside of Cornelia, Ga. The whole family slept together in a garage that had been converted into a bedroom.
Sometime before 3 a.m. on May 28, a SWAT team consisting of Habersham County sheriff's deputies and Cornelia police officers broke into that room. One of the cops tossed a flash-bang grenade, which creates a blinding light and a loud noise that are supposed to disorient the targets of a raid. It landed in Bou Bou's playpen and exploded in his face, causing severe burns and a deep chest wound.
The cops were looking for the Phonesavanhs' 30-year-old nephew, Wanis Thonetheva, who a few hours before had allegedly sold methamphetamine to a confidential informant from the same doorway through which the SWAT team entered. They had obtained a "no knock" warrant by claiming Thonetheva was apt to be armed and dangerous.
Thonetheva was not there, and police did not find any drugs, cash or guns, either. When they arrested him later that morning at a different location, he had about an ounce of meth but no weapons.
Habersham County Sheriff Joey Terrell and Cornelia Police Chief Rick Darby said their officers would not have used a "distraction device" if they knew children were living in the house they attacked. But their investigation of that possibility seems to have consisted entirely of asking their informant, who according to Terrell was at the house only briefly and did not go inside.
Even rudimentary surveillance should have discovered signs of children, who according to the Phonesavanhs' lawyer played with their father in the front yard every day. Alecia told ABC News there were "family stickers" on the minivan parked "right near the door they kicked in," which contained four child seats, and "my son's old playpen was right outside because we were getting ready to leave" for Wisconsin. Anyone who entered the house would have seen toys and children's clothes.
Last week, Terrell claimed Mountain Judicial Circuit District Attorney Brian Rickman had assured him the officers involved in the raid did everything right and "there's nothing to investigate." Rickman, who says he is conducting a thorough review, denies telling Terrell that. But the issue here goes beyond sloppy police work.
Terrell says Thonetheva is to blame for Bou Bou's injuries, and the alleged meth dealer may even face criminal charges based on that theory. But Thonetheva did not toss an explosive, incendiary device into a baby's crib; the police did that, in the service of an odious ideology that says violence is an acceptable response to consensual transactions in which people exchange money for drugs that legislators do not like.
"The little baby (who) was in there didn't deserve this," Terrell told WXIA, the NBC station in Atlanta. "These drug dealers don't care."
Terrell, by contrast, cares so much about the psychoactive substances his neighbors consume that he is willing to endanger the lives of innocent bystanders in his vain attempt to stop people from getting high. If people like Terrell cared a little less, Bou Bou would be home with his parents instead of clinging to life in a hospital.
It's a numbers game. Using absolutes is silly when the real measure is percentages. Sure, 2% of the population can get drugs because they have contributed much effort to maintain a black market trade in this stuff. The black market couldn't support more than 2% of the population for any length of time and this keeps the stuff from spreading to the other 98% of the population.
You may or may not have experience with drug addicts, but I have. I remember people I knew who would frantically dial every pusher they knew as well as other addicts in a desperate attempt to find someone who was "holding." They would run all over town going to various drug hangouts just trying to score a hit because they were jonesing.
So to answer your point, no, making something illegal doesn't stop everybody from using it, but it stops most of them.
You posted a cartoon, so you must be right. You win the debate! Good job!
Liberal/Prog agitprop: Tell a sad story, blame the other side, and then enter a moral Nonnegotiable Final Judgment against them. No discussion, no negotiation -- just an absolute, unappealable, blistering, FINAL condemnation of the other side, delivered as psywar 24/7/365.
The last time this occurred on a broad scale in the U.S., it ended in the Civil War. So guess how this will work out?
Exactly right. My thoughts, but better said.
Also exactly right, though I have one quibble. You don't have to addict anyone. Make drugs available, and people will addict themselves. Drugs are self marketing once they get going in a community.
"Brave New World" is their guiding light.
History indicates that there are many worse forms of governments to suffer under rather than ours. It is a safe bet that whatever comes after a societal collapse will not be liked by the libertopians. They claim to hate totalitarianism, but if they let drugs wreck society, they will GET totalitarianism because that is the default form of government throughout most of human history.
“Liberal/Prog agitprop: Tell a sad story, blame the other side, and then enter a moral Nonnegotiable Final Judgment against them. No discussion, no negotiation — just an absolute, unappealable, blistering, FINAL condemnation of the other side, delivered as psywar 24/7/365.”
Well, actually, you’re describing the position of the Drug Warriors. Talk about projection...
The body pile of your position is far larger than the body pile of my position. That part of your tag line about mass murder? That applies to drugs too. History has already run your experiment. Like socialism, it was an utter disaster.
LOL — not really, as I said, it's the short version
, playing off the old saying that a picture paints a thousand words.
I did explain it more fully: the government has no incentive to acknowledge that the Constitution is binding, indeed it has vested interest in making it as non-binding as possible. — At this point they are very, very adept at tying contra-constitutional policies to emotion so that they can simply appeal thereto instead of having to provide any actual justification… and for those situations where they're sitting on a powderkeg
they allow a different branch to to implement the policy or (esp in the case of the judiciary) simply refuse any accountability.
We’re in agreement...whether it be drugs or unhealthy school lunches, the Government has a role to play.
That is a simplistic and childish understanding of the drug issue. I have personally known several people who died of drug overdoses. Two of them were women who left behind less than 1 year old children.
Which part of "largely" did you not understand? Clearly those women violated their children's rights - but the War On Drugs, while harming others, did nothing effective to stop them. And if banning for all adults ()including childless ones) substances involved in child neglect is the right thing to do, then alcohol must certainly be re-included; do you support that?
I have known several chronic drug abusers, and what money they get either comes from stealing
Which will fall as drug prices fall with legalization. Thanks for the pro-legalization point.
or from the government. The third party being harmed are we people who are stolen from
Stealing is and should remain illegal. Should we ban all the things for which people steal in order to buy?
and we people who have to pay taxes to feed these parasites.
The people forcing the tax payments is the government, not the users (although I won't hold my breath waiting for them to turn down the money). One big-government policy does not justify another.
There's no reason to think drug use would be much more widespread under legalization than it is now; and our government and many others have handily survived fairly widespread use of the drug alcohol.
it is exactly what happened in China.
Different culture, different circumstances. For the long period that opiates were legal in this country, nothing of the sort happened.
it didn't work at Platzspitz in Switzerland.
So let's not repeat micro-legalization in only one small area, which does nothing to address the key problem of supplier profits being inflated and restricted to criminals.
Are you on drugs? Of COURSE there is a reason to think drug use would be more widespread under legalization. It has already happened before! What is utterly idiotic is the belief that it won't happen again.
Different culture, different circumstances. For the long period that opiates were legal in this country, nothing of the sort happened.
I have pointed out China's experience with drugs for about 8 years now, and every time I do it, someone tries to assert that "different culture" made China vulnerable, but Americans would be immune. This is an utterly nonsensical exclusion of the role of physiology in drug addiction, and it's very much like saying poison gas won't work on someone because they have a different culture.
It is such a stupid claim, that I cannot believe people are willing to actually say it. And to cap it off, you repeat that utter nonsense about "opiates were legal in this country, nothing of the sort happened." That statement is either a deliberate lie, or the result of astonishing ignorance on the topic. Yes, opiates were here, and people were getting addicted to them. Look up the deaths caused by laudanum. It never got as bad as China BECAUSE WE STOPPED IT BEFORE IT GOT THAT BAD.
So let's not repeat micro-legalization in only one small area, which does nothing to address the key problem of supplier profits being inflated and restricted to criminals.
Yes, if we are going to make a horrible blunder, let it be a massive one. The Communists also used to claim that Communism didn't work only because freedom existed on the other side of the border. No, Communism wouldn't work no matter on how large of a scale that you attempt it. Legalized Drugs won't either, but one has to have a comprehension of time periods longer than a toker's childhood to grasp that the theory breaks down on long time scales.
Straw man. What it is, is a non-exclusion of the roles of other factors - which addiction experts agree are significant.
and it's very much like saying poison gas won't work on someone because they have a different culture.
This is an utterly nonsensical exclusion of the role of nonphysiological factors in drug addiction.
Yes, opiates were here, and people were getting addicted to them. Look up the deaths caused by laudanum. It never got as bad as China
After some huffing and puffing, you concede the point.
BECAUSE WE STOPPED IT BEFORE IT GOT THAT BAD.
There is no evidence that addiction was growing. (Free clue: using all-caps is not evidence.)
Oh look straight to insults. So now we all know that you know the facts don’t support your position.
I disagree, I think society should be based on objective truths and natural (G*ds) laws. Asset forfeiture claims that the property is guilty of a crime. Anyone that argues "Guns don't kill people do" should instantly see the lie in the concept of "guilty property". A just society would not base any of it's law on a obvious fallacy.
Re legalization, certainly marijuana should be decriminalized.
It is a straw man to assert that physiological addiction trumps any considerations of culture? Once again, how do you argue that humans are immune from mind-altering narcotics because of culture? In what universe does that make any sense?
This is an utterly nonsensical exclusion of the role of nonphysiological factors in drug addiction.
It is nonsense to suggest that there ARE any other factors. Physiological addiction is the ONLY FACTOR. This is not some religion or fad we are talking about. This is direct chemical manipulation of the decision making process of the human mind.
After some huffing and puffing, you concede the point.
After some creative editing, you torture the sentence into saying what you want. I should not be surprised, because if you won't be honest with the facts, why would you be honest with what other people said?
There is no evidence that addiction was growing.
Where do you get these ideas? If there is no evidence that addiction was growing, HOW DID IT COME TO THE ATTENTION OF THE GOVERNMENT? If it wasn't growing, why didn't it remain quietly below the radar? Beyond that, this idea is completely demolished by looking at the evidence of China. Oh, but wait, you said that was all because they had a different culture, and not because Opium has a direct chemical lock with receptors in the human brain.
Here is your "No Evidence" that addiction was growing.
How am I even supposed to argue with you? You espouse notions that are patently absurd from my understanding of history and logic. You believe things that look to me like utter nonsense, and I simply don't see any common grounding of facts from which to carry on a discussion.
Straw man. What it is, is a non-exclusion of the roles of other factors - which addiction experts agree are significant.
It is a straw man to assert that physiological addiction trumps any considerations of culture?
No, that's simply a baseless claim rebutted by addiction experts. Here's your straw man:
Once again, how do you argue that humans are immune from mind-altering narcotics because of culture?
I don't and never did.
Physiological addiction is the ONLY FACTOR.
All-caps is not evidence. Here's evidence - what the American Society of Addiction Medicine says:
“Genetic factors account for about half of the likelihood that an individual will develop addiction. Environmental factors interact with the person’s biology and affect the extent to which genetic factors exert their influence. Resiliencies the individual acquires (through parenting or later life experiences) can affect the extent to which genetic predispositions lead to the behavioral and other manifestations of addiction. Culture also plays a role in how addiction becomes actualized in persons with biological vulnerabilities to the development of addiction.”
If there is no evidence that addiction was growing, HOW DID IT COME TO THE ATTENTION OF THE GOVERNMENT?
For an alleged conservative, you have a dismaying credulity toward government. If there is no evidence for manmade climate change, how did it come to the attention of government?
The facts: the DEA says, "In 1880 [...] there were over 400,000 opium addicts in the U.S. [...] By 1900, about one American in 200 was either a cocaine or opium addict." (http://web.archive.org/web/20110529221013/http://www.justice.gov/dea/demand/speakout/06so.htm) 400,000 in a population of 50M is one in 125 - ergo, between 1880 and 1900 addiction declined.
Government employees brining infants destroys more lies.
Conservative Freepers don’t require the government’s protection from drugs.
***burning infants
**lives
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.