Civil asset forfeiture is disgusting and ought to be ruled unconstitutional. However, most of the stuff they seize really is crime-related.
Civil asset forfeiture needs to disappear completely and forever.
But I think in this case the issue is not the tool to freeze or seize assets in itself, which used pragmatically helps society, is the accountability of those who exploit it
I have vibes regarding this like those who said ok there are some shitty cops who shot people, then let’s defund the police
> In practice, however, civil forfeiture is often wielded against regular people who aren’t doing anything wrong. In many states the typical cash forfeiture amount is in the hundreds of dollars — $423 in Michigan, or $369 in Pennsylvania, according to the latest data from the Institute for Justice, a law firm that represents forfeiture victims and tracks the practice nationwide. In many cities police departments have been known to make seizures of less than $100 on the flimsiest pretenses, typically concentrated in the poorest neighborhoods.
The usage of 'typical' sounds like they mean 'average', for such precise numbers.
I don't really see how that matters. Most people tried for murder are guilty, but that doesn't mean they shouldn't have their day in court.
you keep saying this but you have no data whatsoever to support this claim.
"Although there are accessible statistics of seizures at the federal level, it often happens that the totals of forfeitures from both criminals and innocent owners are combined; for example, one report was that in 2010, government seized $2.5 billion in assets from criminals and innocent owners by forfeiture methods,[16] and the totals of assets seized incorrectly from innocent owners was not separated statistically. Further, since the United States is a federal republic with governments at both the national and state level, there are civil forfeiture seizures at the state level, which are not tracked and recorded in any central database,[12] which make it difficult to make assessments, since state laws and procedures vary widely."
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_forfeiture_in_the_United...
Torture might be an effective way to get most criminals to confess and getting a slam dunk conviction when going to trial where a jury may mistakenly exonerate them, but that doesn't mean that it's the _right_ or even _moral_ way to do so.
Further, ask yourself this - what is a crime? Answer - it's whatever the legislature says it is, and as a political body they are influenced by what the dominant group in power wants.
Of course, I guess, fentanyl et al. are a thing because more benign drugs were criminalized for so long. However in no way does that make hard drugs comparable to caffeine though... Do you believe that all substances must be legalized and widely available?
I think most of the popular drugs should be legalized with various levels of access and greater restrictions for the drugs we known are most prone to serious abuse, such as opioids and speed (along with nicotine and alcohol). There's simply no reason a grown adult shouldn't be able to smoke a joint or eat some mushrooms or do some lines of coke in their own home - and buy them safely and legally without undue fear of impurities.
Under what circumstances do you think fentanyl could be legalized?
Opioids are already legal to some degree, it's just over-prescribing them had a massive backlash and shifting to a completely opposite direction (not that addiction was ever technically a valid reason to get a prescription).
> There's simply no reason a grown adult shouldn't be able to smoke a joint
Yes, but you still agree we have to draw a line at some point. How do we handle substances that end up being on the other side of it? Do we just ignore them and their distribution not to "curtail civil liberties"?
> who do have serious addiction problems and ruins lives, mostly of more vulnerable people, with fines and criminal records and jail time
That's awful and should not happen. But is it still that widespread these days? Many(most?) places just seem to ignore addicts and abandon them without providing any real support.
> along with nicotine and alcohol
What's wrong with nicotine? It's mostly harmless (even if quite addictive) in it's pure form...
Anyway if you actually consider even alcohol to be on the other side of that line, I'm not quite sure what you're proposing? If weed and mushrooms are legalized we're still left with 95%+ of all drugs related problems we had before that.