Drug Agents Use Vast Phone Trove, Eclipsing N.S.A.’s (2013)
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
I'm excited by the chinks in the armor that have come with marijuana legalization/decriminalization, and I think once that spreads across much of the US, some of the Drug War will have lost its teeth, but I don't imagine it will make a large dent the surveillance industry.
Now that we have built the infrastructure, conceived of parallel construction, etc there will always be a shadowy enemy lurking in our midst that we need to turn it on. Its kinda like having a giant military-industrial complex. You really can't sustain it without war, yet it has its own momentum and seeks to sustain itself, so it makes war more likely.
How successful is the drug war? The recent headlines related to heroin seem to imply that it's been a failure. Before that there was a meth crisis and before that there was likely something else. Is enforcement actually reducing the negative social impacts of substance abuse? It would be interesting to see the ROI for enforcement.
Slavery, in the Colorado and many other state constitutions, is explicitly forbidden. Colorado, at least, allows an exception for convicted criminals.
I can't believe it's 2016 and I find myself having to say "yup, slavery is bad, let's not do that."
I'm not sure of the distinction you're making, but you may be confused about categories of slavery, of which chattel slavery (what the US had until 1865) is only one. You may be thinking of indentured servitude, but even that doesn't map precisely to prison labor.
Except no, we're not going to let 100 people have those $13/hour jobs. Instead, we're going to have 100 prisoners do those jobs for free, or next to nothing.
Sorry prisoner slaves. Sorry free citizens.
EDIT: And oh, we also have to pay guards to watch them do those jobs. So not free labor, not really.
Some years ago I read an interesting book on this, called The Pursuit of Oblivion[1]. In addition to providing a fascinating look at historical drug use across different cultures, the book also makes the general argument that the human drive to alter one's consciousness is as natural and inherent as the drives for food, sex, etc.
[1] https://www.amazon.com/Pursuit-Oblivion-Global-History-Narco...
I wouldn't say that. For generally law-abiding citizens like me, the lack of availability has done wonders to protect me from drugs. At some point or another in my life, I've been tempted to experiment with the legal drugs (alcohol, tobacco, etc.). I've never been tempted to try LSD or cocaine (for example), because there is currently no legal way to obtain it and I definitely don't feel like engaging in risky activities just to try.
Making all drugs legal and accessible will definitely have a negative impact on one portion of the population (curious people like me). A certain percentage of curious but otherwise law-abiding people will destroy their lives once drugs are legalized.
There are a lot of assumptions in there - the biggest one is that, in a legal market, drugs which are currently illegal today would still be more dangerous than drugs which already are legal. That's a big assumption, and there's plenty of evidence to suggest the opposite. For example, the success of diacetylmorphine maintenance strongly suggests that it is just as possible to be a regular user of heroin as it is to be a person who drinks regularly in the evenings but otherwise lives a 'normal' life.
On that note, we dramatically overestimate the danger of drugs like cocaine and dramatically underestimate the danger of drugs like alcohol and caffeine. Alcohol, incidentally, is one of the only drugs for which the withdrawal can literally be fatal[0]. (By contrast, while heroin withdrawal can cause dehydration and other problems, as long as those are treated correctly, the direct effects of the withdrawal are non-fatal)[1].
[0] Benzodiazepines can also cause the same effect.
[1] This does not mean that heroin detoxification is easy or should be taken lightly. Lots of things can still go wrong, and it's one of the reason why detox programs exist. But partly due to the legal status of heroin, we ascribe these to the 'danger' of heroin as a drug, all the while ignoring that alcohol detoxification shares all of these same challenges and many more.
this recent John Oliver piece on opiods holds a lot of truth: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pdPrQFjo2o
Benzodiazepines are far more addictive than opioids, and while their abuse has declined a bit, a lot of people still abuse xanax and klonopin, and before that valium. that' a lot of doctors directly and indirectly enabling all those addicts.
why hasn't the war on drugs taken on the opioid and benzo manufacturers? it makes me wonder why pharmaceutical companies and their executives aren't locked up like the drug kingpins they are?
Probably because it has little to do with what would actually be good for society, and more to do with filling the pockets of people who maliciously abuse moral rhetoric to their own advantage.
You can't make the claim that drug A is more or less addictive that drug B. Addiction has little to do with the substance used as far as is known and there is no way to measure addictiveness objectively.
Also, methadone is used because it's legal, politically safe, and has a long half-life. The long half-life is useful because the person using it doesn't need to dose as frequently and it lets politicians and addiction treatment professionals pat themselves on the back because they got the patient off of heroin.
> people will destroy their lives once drugs are legalized
I don't think this statement is really a good summary of that, though.
The better example is prohibition. I wouldn't say most people who consume alcohol are destroying their lives, but alcohol has a moderate impact on the liver. Regular use increases liver-related disease. And during the prohibition, liver disease went down starkly.
Say we legalize everything. Even if the additional addiction is negligible, any minor to moderate health detriment spread across a larger population (due to legalization) is a big societal cost.
Anyway, I think there is still a decent argument to be made about individual freedom being worth the cost, and a decent argument to be made about a substitution effect (given how bad we already know alcohol to be, a legal drug just needs to be no worse than alcohol).
Alcohol consumption went up during Prohibition, and went back down after it was repealed.
E.g., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prohibition_in_the_United_Stat...
> Scholars estimate that consumption dropped to a low of about 60% of pre-prohibition levels around 1925, rising to almost 80% before the law was officially repealed.[citation needed] After the prohibition was implemented, alcohol continued to be consumed. However, how much compared to pre-Prohibition levels remains unclear. Studies examining the rates of cirrhosis deaths as a proxy for alcohol consumption estimated a decrease in consumption of 10–20%.[96][97][98] However, the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism's studies show clear epidemiological evidence that "overall cirrhosis mortality rates declined precipitously with the introduction of Prohibition," despite widespread flouting of the law.[99] One study reviewing city-level drunkenness arrests came to a similar result.[100] And, yet another study examining "mortality, mental health and crime statistics" found that alcohol consumption fell, at first, to approximately 30 percent of its pre-Prohibition level; but, over the next several years, increased to about 60–70 percent of its pre-prohibition level.[101]
From the Ken Burns PBS "Prohibition". I don't have a transcript of it, but here's a quote from PBS:
"The solution the United States had devised to address the problem of alcohol abuse had instead made the problem even worse. The statistics of the period are notoriously unreliable, but it is very clear that in many parts of the United States more people were drinking, and people were drinking more." http://www.pbs.org/kenburns/prohibition/unintended-consequen...
Alcohol related deaths in the US are currently 2.75%. They were 3.2% in 1923.
https://www.niaaa.nih.gov/alcohol-health/overview-alcohol-co...
http://www.census.gov/popclock/
Consumption did decline initially, but then rose steadily.
"Prohibition" by Eward Behr, pg. 148
That's an argument for decriminalization, not legalization.
Your argument is offensive. If you need to be protected from your lack of self control then to make the rest of the world suffer is depraved.
My argument is not offensive, you simply chose to be offended.
> If you need to be protected from your lack of self control then to make the rest of the world suffer is depraved.
Yeah, let's get rid of all the guard rails on mountain roads too. Some of us like the adrenaline of getting near the edge and if you need to be protected from your lack of self control, too bad. My desire to ride the edge should trump your desire for guard rails... right?
I'm offended by your reasoning and lack of insight into the overall societal cost of having certain temptations kept out of your reach. This not just about getting high, it's about the crime, corruption and death that comes from this madness.
I'm guessing you are a relatively intelligent person - try thins thought experiment: Do you drink alcohol? Can you control your intake? Know anybody who does? Know anybody who is an alcoholic? Do you accept that most people who use it can enjoy it but there are some unfortunates who can't and that's just the price of the freedom to drink?
Now replace the word "alcohol" with "drugs". Because guess what? Alcohol is a drug too, except it's socially acceptable.
I'm not trying to be an asshole, but your original premise comes off as "sure, other people may be fucked by the system now, but it works pretty ok by me so I see no need to change it"
Do you accept that most people who own and use guns do so responsibly but that there are some unfortunates who can't and that's just the price of the freedom to own and use guns?
I believe in personal freedom up to the point where that freedom impedes on that of another. What you put in your body is your own god damn business.
One more argument in my favor: obesity is reaching epidemic levels in America and has a great societal cost. Do you think we should make junk food illegal to protect those that can't control themselves.
Every one of your arguments has been inadequate. Ignore the hurt of me calling you out and think about my point. The War on Drugs has done far more harm than good. It's bad policy and if you research it, did not have any good intentions behind it.
Right, but my point was that cost is worth the freedom. There's a lot of unhealthy drug fetishization and tragic deaths from irresponsible drug users too, and I think you already said the cost is worth the freedom.
> I believe in personal freedom up to the point where that freedom impedes on that of another. What you put in your body is your own god damn business.
If the world worked like that, I would agree with you whole-heartedly. But in real life, drug users end up killing or otherwise abusing people around them (whether it be through DUIs, child neglect, safety mistakes, etc.). So along with drug legalization there have to be dozens of secondary laws that outline what you can and can't do under the influence, where you can and can't go, etc. And people (of course, not thinking clearly while under the influence), will break these laws anyway and end up killing people, destroying property, etc.
> Do you think we should make junk food illegal to protect those that can't control themselves.
Completely illegal? No. But I see the value in limiting accessibility to junk food, especially in schools and such, where kids are still developing self-discipline. So maybe that's where I can agree with you.
Legalize them. Regulate them. Treat their abuse as a health issue, not a criminal one.
When my brother overdosed on heroin, the police laughed about just another dead junkie. Yeah, I feel so much safer.
A health issue with a cost burden on responsible people who exercise good judgment. Addicts rarely pay for their own treatment.
> When my brother overdosed on heroin, the police laughed about just another dead junkie. Yeah, I feel so much safer.
As far as I know, my entire extended family has not has a single drug abuse case. And certainly a drug death would be unheard of. We were all taught growing up that mind-altering substances should be avoided at all costs, and it paid off with a virtual 0% drug usage rate in the family.
Contrast with your family where you yourself openly admit to using drugs recreationally and think they are good, yet your brother died overdosing on them. I would venture to guess that there are other, unnamed members of your family that use drugs and have or had drug problems in the past.
The best and simplest place to stop drug abuse is in the home via good parenting. That is my vision for what America should strive for. I can't lend my support to your cause because I don't believe in it. I believe that if my parents and grandparents taught us it was okay to experiment "safely" with drugs and such that the amount of drug abuse in the extended family would go way up. Good luck-
I know that ideas and the words that define them are the proper path, but for such a smug, self-satisfied, and small-minded jerk such as ythl, I'd like to take it outside and wipe the stupid grin off of his face.
I had two friends overdose on heroin, and I found them and made the call that saved their lives. I watched the paramedics amble up the stairs, looking pissed that they had to deal with two more junkies on a Saturday night. One of my friends' hearts stopped for a minute and a half. I got grilled by the cops for an hour, who wanted me to snitch on the dealer and wondered why I would hang out with such "losers" in the first place.
Find a facility that invoices "responsible people" and will treat someone without health insurance or very deep pockets. Find a person who is hopelessly addicted to marijuana so much that they burden responsible people with their expensive treatment.
Again, draw the comparison to cigarettes and alcohol, both harmful and deadly addictive products. Responsible people don't burden the healthcare system with health issues caused by smoking or drinking. Responsible people don't expose themselves to the harmful effects of prolonged stress through overwork and sleep deprivation enabled by legalized stimulant intake (caffeine, nicotine, Adderall, modafinil).
Reminder that addicts come in all forms of people you might consider responsible contributors to society. Surgeons, businessmen, lawyers, politicians, CEOs, computer programmers.
> We were all taught growing up that mind-altering substances should be avoided at all costs, and it paid off with a virtual 0% drug usage rate in the family.
That you know of. Adolescents rebel, seek novelty, don't have the best judgment and have misguided priorities and influences; addicts and alcoholics learn to hide questionable behavior. People don't talk about it out of shame and not wanting to disappoint.
I lost two childhood friends to the disease. Their families would have said the same thing. One family found out after the autopsy. They were a model family and they were completely blindsided. "How could this happen to him of all people?" was the prominent reaction I remember.
> Contrast with your family where you yourself openly admit to using drugs recreationally and think they are good, yet your brother died overdosing on them. I would venture to guess that there are other, unnamed members of your family that use drugs and have or had drug problems in the past.
I know more families than I can realistically count who openly drank in front of their children, even encouraged consumption, yet their kids didn't grow up to be alcoholics. I know of people who raised kids with a realistic outlook on marijuana use, yet none of them have overdosed and died.
I know families who blatantly used highly addictive drugs in front of their kids, yet somehow, their children grew up to deny that lifestyle and still be successful and drug free.
You can instill values through lessons and experiences in children, yet as they gain autonomy it is up to them to accept, reject, interpret or reflect on them.
You may have chose to accept those experiences and attribute them to your lifestyle, but the same cannot be universally applied across the population.
It is a low blow to use the overdose of someone's brother to try to raise your anecdote as fact.
> The best and simplest place to stop drug abuse is in the home via good parenting.
Good parenting can't stop people from making the choices they want to make. People are people, not robots to be programmed, who have a multitude of varied beliefs and reasons to approach mind altering substances.
Murderers, rapists, thieves and war criminals can and have come from homes with good parents. So can addicts.
> I believe that if my parents and grandparents taught us it was okay to experiment "safely" with drugs and such that the amount of drug abuse in the extended family would go way up
The truth is people are capable of responsible use of drugs including alcohol. There are also dangers, risks and consequences behind consumption; some of them not good at all.
However, I would want my child to come to me if they had a problem with drugs including alcohol or addiction. Lying breeds resentment. Drawing hard but false lines in the sand is a good way for someone to file you away as a person who can't be turned to when they need the help of someone honest and trustworthy.
> That is my vision for what America should strive for. I can't lend my support to your cause because I don't believe in it.
Or we can approach addiction with a realistic outlook: people are going to drink and use drugs. By virtue of the way our brains work, some people will become addicted. There isn't a single way to stop this and there are many, many reasons it will continue despite best efforts to end it. What we can do is educate, take preventative measures, limit availability, ensure quality and purity, reduce harm, move addiction from out of the shadows of criminality and provide accessible/affordable treatment.
The difference between your example and drug policy, is that guard rails are there to prevent accidents. Same with laws on speeding (protects others from speeders). American drug policy doesn't prevent accidents, it restricts individual freedoms under the guise of protecting society.
My family has serious problems with alcoholism. As a result, I don't drink because it would be a very risky personal choice. Statistically I'd probably be dead before retirement. However, I don't have a problem with weed or LSD. They're fun and I know how to use them safely, so I do.
Why do we have guardrails for LSD? Works fine for me! Why do we have national guardrails for weed? It's legal in my state and works fine for me! And why in the world is alcohol legal? This is a toxic substance, it's seriously risky for me, and putting it out in the open could lead to bad decisions on my part. We should ban it!
No. We shouldn't ban alcohol. Nor weed or LSD. These aren't guardrails protecting us from the cliff. These law are baby fences, presuming that some government official needs to protect us from ourselves.
Why should we have guardrails for guns? Works fine for me! It's legal in my state and I use mine responsibly! To suicide prone and mentally unstable people this is a deadly tool, it's seriously risky them. We should ban it!
Your and my ideas of individual freedoms are different. You (probably, based on your political leanings) believe that guns are bad and should be banned. You believe that particular freedom should be taken from individuals (but retained by governments). You believe that drugs are good and should not be banned. And the faulty logic you use is... "people should be able to harm themselves and that's why drugs should be legal. Guns harm others therefore they should be illegal." The elephant in the room, of course, is the death and damage caused accidentally to others by people under the influence of drugs.
Also, I suggest you stop stereotyping people. You're not good at it, and your argument attacks thing I never even implied. I believe in a collective-oriented society with strong individual freedoms.
Schizophrenics should not be allowed to buy a pocket pistol, but mentally sound citizens should be essentially unrestricted... no current military hardware or classified technology, the rest is fair game. Buy a tank if you want.
Same with drugs or any other policy. Blatantly addictive or destructive drugs like krokodil should not be allowed, but safe drugs like LSD/weed/mushrooms (and others) should be at least as legal as alcohol.
People in favor of universal drug legalization are all for drug control in the same sense as gun control, plus higher taxes for narcotics. But control is different from prohibition.
So, yes, drugs should have safety rails provided by the government. It's one of many public services governments should provide. But right now, that "safety rail" is an electric fence with thousands of security guards watching it.
So I'm not liable for what happens to people on my property?
Do you truly believe that you haven't tried controlled substances because they are hard to get?
And, do you believe you are law-abiding?
Although not personally offended myself, it is almost never appropriate to say this to somebody hurt by an action or comment you have made. Please respect the feelings and opinions of others, even when you find it difficult or nigh impossible (such as in this case) to relate to the perspective of the hurt party.
And see, so drugs are good, right? Only such experiences lead to more such experiences, and on and on.
Addiction doesn't stem from initial bad experiences, but exceptionally good ones. You should fear the latter many times more than the former.
What would you forecast the expected effects of you trying LSD or cocaine would be?
A night of amusing delusions? Heightened spiritual awareness? A one-way ticket to pus-oozing blowjobs in bus station parking lots?
Part of the effectiveness of the Drug War has been to implant a binary perspective on the dangers of drugs: uncompromising, guaranteed, full-scale disaster. They manage to re-arrange everyday peoples' notions of cause and effect to make it seem as if the drugs are the problem leading to emotional disaster. This is a convenient scapegoat.
The real situation is the breakdown and loss of faith in the fully industrialized world is causing more people to want to escape than ever, breakdowns in family structure, financial stress, physical stress, loss of freedom and so on. These things can't be fixed easily and despite all of the drug arrests, people are continuously becoming more desperate.
For me? Probably not much. But who knows, maybe I'll try it the first time, nothing happens. 10 years later I fall on hard times and then I try it again to try and deal with my situation, this time become addicted, and then make my problems an order of magnitude worse.
That's how alcoholism generally works.
Source: http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/CHICO-Fraternity-pledg...
It's not stupidity on his part at all, it's just fear. And it's understandable that there's fear, because look at the world we're in! Fear is generated constantly. It takes effort and a gentle intervention to snap people out of it and encourage them to grow and become responsible and let others live freely.
In fact, you probably can control yourself (how is your record so far?), it's only a fear that you can't. I don't like being restricted in my life, because you're afraid you won't be able to control yourself.
Furthermore, the law has not eliminated drugs: If you run into hard times and seek something to self-destruct with, you can still easily find LSD or cocaine. It would just take you more effort because of the law.
So the law has put up a small barrier around you so you can get away with exercising less responsibility, making you weaker, yet your threat from the substances persists.
Meanwhile it has endangered me and millions of others in our quest for spiritual enlightenment. (I don't care about cocaine, only LSD). There are other ways to learn enlightenment of course, but in the meantime if we want LSD we run the risks of arrest in the act of purchasing, holding and consuming. We also risk poisoning because it comes from the black market. And we have to endure greater surveillance in our daily lives and at the borders. And we have to pay greater taxes for all the law enforcement and surveillance equipment.
While the benefits of millions of people attaining spiritual enlightenment are tremendous. There would be less fighting, less greed, less anxiety, more sharing, more volunteering and less fear. Having a connection to our spirit, environment and world means less waste, stress and pollution.
Imagine if 50% of the people in your life were as giving and kind and generous as your first-grade teacher. Don't let a vague fear of distant self-destruction control you. Just by posting and exchanging information on this forum, you're adding momentum to the process of cooperation on a grand scale. Don't restrict access to spiritual substances. Let the people who want to chill out, see the big picture and cooperate on a grand scale figure out how to do it.
You aren't the same sort of curios. I'm the sort that goes to Amsterdam as a vacation spot. I tried out things when I was younger. Drug education? Mine was in the 80's and 90's. I figured it was a bit ... overblown. The only addictions I've truly had were to nicotine and caffeine, both of which I have today. Completely legal too.
The thing is that it was possible for me to combine the anti-drug propaganda, tone it down some, and balance it with what I saw around me. I asked folks questions about stuff. We can educate, control strength and purity, and invest in treatment programs. We can educate on safety like say we do with alcohol. We can invest in much improved public transportation. And so on.
> A certain percentage of curious but otherwise law-abiding people will destroy their lives once drugs are legalized
I actually think the small percentage whose lives get ruined due to drugs will be smaller than the percentage of lives that are ruined and uprooted due to the war on drugs. Folks have lost houses and their children for pot - or lsd, even if they are as responsible as you can be with kids (relative babysitting for example, or they are at their mom/dad's house). Many have went to jail or prison and this is pretty common.
Most folks don't get addicted to drugs - a few have higher addiction rates, and I think we can minimize that with proper education and investment.
from http://www.vice.com/read/the-first-fentanyl-addict
"Roughly 10 to 14 per cent of all physicians will be substance-dependent over their lifetime, and the incidence in anesthesia providers is 2.5 times higher than other physicians, according to a five-year outcome study from 16 physician health programs in the US."
I often think it has something to do with the work or work environment when there are such trends, and start working to figure out why or if anything relieves it.
But I'd expect the trend to trickle down to pharmacists and pharmacy techs, who handle the drugs quite often. It does happen, but I don't know if it happens as much as physicians.
The main curiosity to me is what leads these professions to develop a substance abuse problem in the first place? It isn't just opiates: If I remember correctly, nurses have a high rate of alcoholism. I nearly always have access to alcohol, and I don't drink regularly. Access in itself isn't nearly enough to cause addition or even use.
Is the law really the only thing that keeps you away from harder drugs? Don't you think that it's your own willpower?
Like you, I'm generally law abiding, but thanks to certain friends, I have easy access to a number of illegal drugs - and it's in an relatively safe environment where my chance of getting caught is quite low.
But despite that access, the only drugs I've ever used in my life are alcohol and marijuana (well ok, I'm literally addicted to caffeine). I've never even tried cigarettes.
It's not the law that keeps me away from certain drugs, I just don't want to do them.
That's a real shame. LSD is incredible.
> This electronic briefing book is compiled from declassified documents obtained by the National Security Archive, including the notebooks kept by NSC aide and Iran-contra figure Oliver North, electronic mail messages written by high-ranking Reagan administration officials, memos detailing the contra war effort, and FBI and DEA reports. The documents demonstrate official knowledge of drug operations, and collaboration with and protection of known drug traffickers.
As a jobs program it's probably pretty good. Law enforcement jobs. Prison jobs. Court jobs. Political prizes to argue over and differentiate yourself from the other guy.
As a control program it's fantastic. Look at all the traffic stops, civil asset forfeiture and surveillance they get away with.
A friend of mine, a MBA/PHD fellow who happened to give lectures on one of the most prestige US University, as well as working for very prestige Hedge Fund in NYC, is a great example of this.
In 2007 we was pulled over for a missing stop light. The car was his grandmother and he wasn't aware. As the cop approached him from the right side to look into his glove compartment while he was reaching for registration, the cop noticed a pill on the floor. It happened to be some sort of para-morphine tightly controlled drug that his grandmother used for a pain from her cancer.
No amount of explanation was enough for this cop. Even when his grandma showed up at the police station with bottle of same drug to explain.
Shortly after his life got ruined very quickly. Of course both University and his job found out and he was removed from his duties due to "very strict no drug policies". No amount of explanation was enough. He tried to get another job and over 3 years went from looking jobs at Universities to trying for McDonald waiter, but even they did not want to hire "a druggie".
As he had some savings, it wasn't the worst part. But as he got 6 years parole, being mandatory forced to go to some sort of AA meetings where for 45 minutes a week he had to listen stories of people who couldn't hold a cigarette cause that's how much they got their hands stung by needless, was worst of all nightmares. He even got approached by few drug dealers who happen to often visit those premises to try to recruit new members, and was somewhat glad he had some savings set aside, otherwise he might have gone and really start dealing!
Also he couldn't move out of State until the end of his parole (it would be considered violation) and had to check once a week to the local police station and bring updated drug test, even though he had to pay for those tests from his own pocket. If you think you just come to overcrowded NYC police station and drop a piece of paper at some drop box, then you wrong. Those "visits" usually took about 3-6 hours, depending on how busy they were. Sitting in the line in such a place every week for so long has to be nightmare on its own...
Not to end this tragic story too sad, eventually once his parole ended he moved to his uncle to Alaska and find some peace working on a fish farm. But his drug record will remain in the system for at least next 15 years.
So boys and girls don't "do" drugs....
I don't know if you've seen elderly people take pills, but they often have poor eyesight coupled with poor motor skills so losing a pill or two is not surprising. We put my elderly dad's pills in a daily pill holder (one for morning pills, one for evening pills) because he had trouble counting them out himself. Though if a pill is taken on demand, like a painkiller, leaving them in the bottle may be more sensible.
As for how it ended up on the passenger's side, I would hope that if grandma is on narcotic painkillers that she's taking them while she is a passenger, not driving.
As for wether or not someone can be convicted for even one small pill, yes, it is possible... for example:
In NJ: Possessing any amount of a schedule I, II, III, or IV CDS incurs a fine of up to $35,000, at least three (and up to five) years in prison, or both. Possessing any amount of a Schedule V CDS incurs a fine of up to $15,000, up to 18 months in prison, or both. Using or being under the influence of any CDS not for the purpose of treating a sickness or injury (as legally prescribed by a licensed physician) incurs a fine of up to $500.
http://www.criminaldefenselawyer.com/crime-penalties/federal...
Curious how they established that.
There, proven that he knew they were present and intended take possession.
It's another example of why you should never talk to the police -- it's not going to help you, and may end up hurting you.
http://www.vice.com/read/law-professor-police-interrogation-...
"You understand what I'm saying? We knew we couldn't make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin. And then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities," Ehrlichman said. "We could arrest their leaders. raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did."
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2016/03/23/poli...
And there were two things going against this guy. First, cops have a lot of incentive to make drug busts and not much incentive to be lenient.
And second, "It's not mine, it's grandma's" would be the first thing I'd expect from somebody who was abusing or selling pills.
How often do you look at the passenger's floor as a driver?
As for the excuse, that might be the first thing to expect, but that doesn't automatically make him a liar. The onus is on the law to establish that it's not grandma's. Plus, grandma actually did have a prescription for the narcotic, so even if the excuse might sound shady, it's certainly plausible.
I agree 100% that the truth should have come out in court and that the end result (if true) was ridiculous. All I'm saying is that from the cop's perspective the evidence on the scene looked sketchy and he did his job.
The basis of his bringing a dog was simply stereotyping me. In my state there is no probable cause requirement to call in a K-9 unit and have a dog walk around your vehicle. The dog alerted because they are trained to satisfy their handler's suspicions. He didn't find any drugs because there weren't any.
The story sounds bizarre, but it's the policing in our country that is bizarre, not the story.
how did the pill get out of the bottle and onto to the floor, that too on passengers side. A cop just happened to spot a tiny pill on the floor
It is easy for a pill to get on the floor. I've had those blister packs spill out medicine and dropped pills out of a medicine container. And yes, cops do spot things on the floor - especially when there is high contrast, as is likely with a white or light pill and dark carpeting. It wouldn't actually matter if it is a pill - it could have been a small piece of crumpled paper that looked like a pill.
how did the university find out about it, do they run criminal records of employees on a regular basis?
Some of them do run criminal records. He probably needed time off work, both for court and the probation check-ins. They aren't really keen on working around a work schedule. He might have been required by probation to let them know. He might have been required to tell the school because of other laws as well. He might have missed work because of the jail time. In addition, arrest records aren't private.
Why did the judge even convict this person, just a random pill on car floor is enough to convict someone?
Yes, that is enough - even if you drug test as clean. It is assumed that the inside of your car is something you have responsibility over. Though sometimes folks can wind up getting out of this sort of thing, many don't and many take plea deals instead of going to court. Percieving a lack of options and an overworked public defender can do that.
Edit: there seems to be some confusion in the replies about my point. This isn't an endorsement of drug laws. We who oppose legal injustice need to have an accurate understanding of how these laws work and what is actually likely to happen in order to be taken seriously, and to prioritize our advocacy for legislation and DoJ rules. I don't believe this story is likely to be true, and that helps me to focus on things that actually happen every day.
The criminal justice system seems very lenient towards certain kinds of individual when it comes to minor quantities of drug possession. If the pedigree that the OP mentions is even half true, this guy should have had the charges dropped with a half decent lawyer.
And the worst case scenario should have been a pre-trial intervention program, which is basically a lenient probation for a year or two, after which the charges go away and during which no criminal record exists.
On the other hand, driving a car and not knowing it's your grandmother's is likely I make any cop think you're a lying sack of shit and or high on said drugs.
Leaked emails shows she sides with law enforcement regarding encryption, publicly she is calling for an "intelligence surge" as a core part of her national security strategy, and in interviews she still strongly stands by her support for the Patriot Act:
http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/clinton-wont-budge-mass-surveillanc...
The people who will end up getting appointed to the various leadership roles is the other big question. Hillary's advisers contain many hold-overs from the Bush-Cheney era, including ex-DHS lead Michael Chertoff who strongly supported the TSA full body scanners (made by the company he went on to work for), who I hope aren't given big roles.
Regardless, all of those cyber contractors in DC, Maryland and Virginia must be excited that their gilded age was given a 4yr extension and likely a further expansion. Not that they were ever at much risk of losing it - given the majority of the candidates were hawkish from the start of the primaries, the pull of influential thinktanks, and of course the media, with the NYT - in between fawning over Hillary - publishing daily articles citing 'anonymous intelligence sources' supporting various causes.
There's also been almost entirely silence over surveillance policies from the tech industry/community as far as I can tell. Although typically our industry isn't very political or partisan (until things actually go down like SOPA), so this is not entirely atypical.
Note: most of this is regarding military/defense but it seems to spill over into federal drug and criminal investigations. Drug policies are another big elephant in the room.
This is the saddest thing about this election. Everyone is so distracted by the Trump buffoonery that a Generic Politician (tm) is going to take the reins and continue policies we've been bitter about for years. And most will see this as a "good thing" ("At least it's not Trump!")
We did get two decent outsider runs this year, and I do wish Bernie Sanders was mopping the floor with Trump, but there are limits to the amount a President can do when the entire process rewards pay-to-play, incremental change, and preserving business-as-usual.
And, to be fair, it's pretty great that it's not Trump.
But yes, it was a horribly sad election. In some ways HRC represents everything that is wrong about politics in the US, and Trump represents everything that is wrong about, well, pretty much everything.
A lot of people know the repercussions of mentioning anything that sounds like affinity toward Trump.
A lot of people know the inefficiencies in the Republican nomination process and the inefficiencies in the Democratic nomination process that promote the dichotomy being presented.
The point is, not everyone is distracted by that.
1. Instant 50% reduction in prison population. More than half of all prisoners are there for drug crimes [1]. It costs 20-40k/year to house a prisoner [2]. There are approximately 2.2 million prisoners the US [3]. That equates to an instantaneous savings of $6.6 billion.
2. Elimination of the DEA. Instantaneous savings of $2 billion [3].
3. Massive reduction in crimes that are caused by drugs. E.g. theft, assault, etc. Personally, i'd estimate that as making up the bulk of the other 50% of all crime. Of course, I can't back that up with any data, but it makes logical sense to me that the majority of crime that happens is in one way or another connected to drugs.
4. Drug cartels disappear essentially overnight. Yes, they might switch to kidnapping or extortion or something. But those are not hyperscale businesses. They would evaporate to the point of irrelevance almost immediately.
5. Street gangs disappear or dramatically lose influence. Why fight a turf war if there's no money to be made on the turf? Sure, some will still happen. But they'll be dramatically reduced and the ones that remain will be severely underfunded.
6. Police and the communities they serve will no longer be enemies. Drug use is a victimless crime, and people resent being shaken down and arrested on suspicion of drug dealing and/or using. If drugs were legalized, police would only arrest people who are antagonizing others. This would go an enormous way towards healing the divide between police and citizens.
7. No more impure, uncertain drugs. Things would be labelled correctly and their doses standardized. This should dramatically reduce accidental overdose deaths, and improve the health and wellbeing of addicts by eliminating the nasty stuff their drugs are cut with.
8. Reliable, cheap supply for addicts. Being an addict involves an enormous amount of wasted time and money. It's extraordinarily difficult to hold a job, because just getting the drugs takes lots of time, waiting, and exposure to risk. Now, there are other reasons it's hard to hold a job as an addict, but these are big factors.
9. Massive reduction in social stigma around addiction and drug use. This is a double-edged sword, of course. But I think on balance it'd be a good thing. It would make it easier and less shameful for addicts to seek treatment. Taking it out of the underworld would make families more aware of their member's possibly spiraling problems, and give them an earlier opportunity to do something about it.
10. The way i'd like this to be structured would be that the government would sell these drugs in unmarked shops at essentially their marginal cost of production (which is extremely low). They wouldn't advertise, obviously, and you could implement reasonable age controls by checking ID in a similar way to alcohol. Now, that system is imperfect obviously. But that's ok I think. It's not like kids don't have access to drugs now. Monitoring and maintaining open lines of communication with these people will allow them to be studied and given access to treatment options and help. They can be guided into jobs and offered medical help with detox.
I say all of this as a former heroin addict. It's easy availability would make it somewhat harder for me not to use it. On balance though, it seems extremely clear to me that it's the right thing to do. The synergy of all the policing/crime benefits would be extraordinarily profound. The enormous reduction in crime and improved relationship between police and their communities would make police even more efficient at stopping what remaining crime there is. It would not surprise me in the slightest to see something like a 75-80% reduction in all crime within the first couple of years.
That isn't even to address the benefits to narco-states like Mexico. There it would be truly transformative. Terrorism would lose its largest funding source [5]. Border patrol agents would stop facing well-funded adversaries. The civil war in Colombia would stop. Corruption in government would be reduced to standard corporatism. The list is just endless, and it's not like drugs aren't available now.
What, really, is the marginal harm of making them slightly more available, when weighed against all of this? In my opinion, the drug war and its effects are the greatest ongoing crime against humanity in the world right now.
[1] https://www.bop.gov/about/statistics/statistics_inmate_offen...
[2] http://thelawdictionary.org/article/what-is-the-average-cost...
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarceration_in_the_United_St...
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drug_Enforcement_Administratio...
[5] http://www.cfr.org/terrorist-financing/tracking-down-terrori...
1. Instant 50% reduction in prison population. More than half of all prisoners are there for drug crimes [1]. It costs 20-40k/year to house a prisoner [2]. There are approximately 2.2 million prisoners the US [3]. That equates to an instantaneous savings of $6.6 billion.
It will cut new admittance to prisons. Anyone currently serving time would need their sentences pardoned or legislation passed that allows for their released. Over time, still savings.
2. Elimination of the DEA. Instantaneous savings of $2 billion.
We'll still need some enforcement of the controls we put in place, though we can do it through other branches -likely something like a combination of the FDA, USDA, and the ATF. Lesser cost savings, but much better sort of spending.
Furthermore, I'm definitely into having marked shops for some drugs. I think smoke shops/coffee shops (for pot and hash) would be an improvement to the culture and give some alternative to bars. I'm fine with some hallucinogens being sold in a marked shop - and anything else that proves to be about as safe. I'd also make sure anyone working in the shops - either marked or unmarked - had some training or have training levels - basic knowledge for cashier with more advanced knowledge person on premisis at all times.
Under a partial legalization regime, yes. Personally i'm thinking they should all be legalized, though. The drug shops can be self-funding by charging slightly above marginal cost.
> Furthermore, I'm definitely into having marked shops for some drugs. I think smoke shops/coffee shops (for pot and hash) would be an improvement to the culture and give some alternative to bars. I'm fine with some hallucinogens being sold in a marked shop - and anything else that proves to be about as safe. I'd also make sure anyone working in the shops - either marked or unmarked - had some training or have training levels - basic knowledge for cashier with more advanced knowledge person on premisis at all times.
Ya I agree. I'd like to see the 'less harmful' drugs, like marijuana and hallucinogens completely legalized. Like, you can buy them at 711 legalized. For 'harder' stuff like cocaine, meth, heroin, et al, i'd like to see them sold by the unmarked government-run drug shops that don't advertise or try to encourage consumption in any way. That feels like the best balance of interests.
I mean, they'll have to have ways to verify potency in production. Heroin, if injected, will probably get some oversight like a drug. A infrastructure for the stores - I'd imagine in the states it'd be contracted out to someone private, but that still costs money. Spot tests for potency. USDA would wind up involved in the actual plant base: I don't know who covers imports from other countries where it is also legal. Then you have tax collection, cleanliness standards, and things like that.
Overall, I think it would save a good amount of money - especially when you consider 5-10 years out. The better part is that once it levels out some, the costs seem more are more predictable.
Edit: Accidentally deleted to much on a rewording, and added it back in.
1. http://norml.org/ (National Organization for the Reform of Marijauna Laws)
2. http://www.maps.org/ (Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies))
3. http://www.drugpolicy.org/ (Drug Policy Alliance, part of George Soros's Open Society Institute, I believe)
4. http://www.leap.cc/ (Law Enforcement Against Prohibition)
They aren't all pushing exactly for my positions, but they're all pushing in that direction. And the further
Now, from my understanding, Microsoft has re-worked Skype to always connect via their Skype servers (as the middle man).
How come your default is "why not"? Shouldn't there be a justification for indefinitely storing these types of records? And "might commit a crime in the future" doesn't qualify.
Yes it's cheap to store them. So what?
As the devils advocate, why should their be?
Also, deleting stuff in the business world is a major pain in the ass. Do we delete it after X years? What if part of that data is involved in a long term lawsuit, how do we only delete the part that is not? Will the information have historical value at some point?
And the big one, the telephone company has worked with our governments for decades sharing this information. The real question is "How long has the .gov been paying the telcos for these records". This is probably why they are stored forever.
So I hear anyway.
edit: Nevermind I'm blind.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/10/25/at-t-is-spy...
Maybe the repost is supposed to be a diversion, is what I'm implying. However, I see the new story has been posted already:
https://www.eff.org/cases/hemisphere
I ran across this trying to see if there was earlier public mention. Rather good conspiracy containment if not.
However, AT&T’s own documentation—reported here by The Daily Beast for the first time—shows Hemisphere was used far beyond the war on drugs to include everything from investigations of homicide to Medicaid fraud.
Hemisphere isn’t a “partnership” but rather a product AT&T developed, marketed, and sold at a cost of millions of dollars per year to taxpayers. No warrant is required to make use of the company’s massive trove of data, according to AT&T documents, only a promise from law enforcement to not disclose Hemisphere if an investigation using it becomes public.
Fines clearly dont work. We have drug epidemic currently in the united states. What other solutions do you suggest that will stop the drug money flows? I say bend over the banks - but no one of course will do that ;)
I bring this up as I remember a fascinating security economics paper that examined the economics of spam and its non-obvious conclusions regarding a good intervention point: http://css.csail.mit.edu/6.858/2014/readings/trajectories.pd...
Does anyone here know of a similar study for the drug supply chain?
http://nypost.com/2015/05/22/smuggler-with-ton-of-cocaine-cr...