How about if I’m not bothering anybody then don’t even arrest me?
I misunderstood that comment above. My bad.
What do you mean? People get arrested for possession of weed for example that they plan to consume by themselves, not bothering anybody. Then they get locked up. You rather lock them away, than try to rehabilitate them? This applies to so many cases. Of course there are cases where the verdict says prison but at least try to keep people out of prison. But wait the prison system is a corporation trying to make money.
And not only is the first part necessarily the worst, but once you’re in the system they make it hard to get back out by throwing all sorts of arbitrary requirements on you to fulfill, with little to no flexibility. 10-week class that occurs right in the middle of your work-day? Fuck you. It all serves to essentially keep you in the system as it keeps on fucking with your life. Not to mention prison/jail, which brands you with a permanent scarlet letter that bars you from even working at many jobs even after you’ve gotten out.
Same thing with having one of those breathalyzer things on your car. You have to pay to have it installed, pay a monthly fee in addition to all the other shit you've already paid for. And then you can only go a very few certain places. Makes it incredibly difficult to recover from that. It's not to punish you or keep you off the road after a DUI, it's so they can extract more money from you
Our entire bar/nightclub economy would collapse if nobody drank and drove. Not defending it, just pointing out America has terrible public transportation and very little means to access these places without driving.
In the other article linked by that one it says it's just a recommendation. Seems weird.
A federal advisory board recommended yesterday that safety regulators require “alcohol impairment detection systems to be included in all new vehicles.” The move is just a recommendation, but it has the weight of law behind it.
I’ve unfortunately had the pleasure of needing one of these interlock devices installed on my car back in 2010. It’s definitely been awhile but the device only limits where you could go if you had alcohol in your system, and that limit would be NOWHERE. If you were sober you just had to blow clean every 5-20 minutes and I could drive as much as I pleased. The option without the device was no driving except to and from work and maybe the grocery store 1-2 times a week.
I’ve had one before and without it you can only go to work and the grocery store. With it you just have to blow sober and you are free to drive as you please, it’s like having the judge in the car to make sure you don’t fuck up.
And then they charge you hundreds to thousands of dollars for those classes so that once you do find a job, they just garnish your wages.
They charge you for drug tests and "renting" ankle monitors, and if you don't pay they just throw you back in jail. Which sometimes has its own fees. Even public defenders can have fees depending on your state/county, and they will threaten to take you to small claims court over the $50 they billed you without telling you. For counsel that literally exists to represent poor people. Ask me how I know.
I mean it's stupid, but that's what the supporters think.
The thing they are missing is that no one commits a crime thinking they will get caught. So ever increasing the deterrence doesn't help.
Drugs is a public health issue, no really criminal. Prohibition doesn't work with things done at scales like drugs and alcohol. You're just feeding the criminal gangs.
The logic is subjugation. These laws are applied largely to a specific group of people, and even if they don't spend life in prison, their ability to build a life for themselves afterwards is neutered, and they lost the right to vote.
The logic is it also ruins other peoples lives. No one exists in society in a nut shell or as an island. If your choice to use drugs would expose, entice, or otherwise encourage a person to use drugs then it is reasonable in my opinion for the state to protect people from it.
That being said clearly our approach isn't working. There shouldn't be laissez-faire drug use all over but there shouldn't be life in prison immediately consequences either.
The most succesful drug rehabilitation programs are mandatory rehab facilities that are a choice alternate to going to jail for an equal amount of time.
Also housing first models are incredibly effective. But... the entire western world uses housing as an investment vehicle and commodity so it is diametrically opposed to housing first initiatives. If the average citizen is paying 50% of their income for housing and then "junkies" get given free housing the political party that implemented it would be booted so fast.
That's because it's not logic - it's propaganda. The war on drugs was always built on a solid bedrock of oppressing minorities, black people in particular.
What? White people like smoking weed? Well its probably ok then. What? White people enjoy opioids? Oh no, it's a crisis we better get people the help they need. Don't worry big pharma drug dealers, you can keep your fortune, just say sorry.
Don't forget that drug laws are often racist e.g. cocaine possession carries a lesser punishment than crack, cannabis is a schedule 1 substance, etc. This goes some way to explaining the legal rationale.
How is this racist? I don't doubt that you're right but I'm not understanding what makes that racist. Are black people significantly more likely to have crack than cocaine or something? At first glance it seems logical to me that cocaine has less of a punishment than crack, but that's based off of a somewhat limited understanding of the effects of the two drugs.
They are the same pharmacologically, but the effects between snorting and smoking vary greatly.
Regular cocaine powder is cocaine hydrochloride. Crack is made by mixing cocaine hydrochloride with ammonia and then burning off the hydrochloride which makes it a freebase. People don't smoke regular cocaine until it has been turned into freebase. Smoking cocaine powder is just wasteful compared to snorting it.
Smoking crack results in a more rapid absorption into the bloodstream—compared to snorting the powder. Therefore, the effects are more rapid and quicker to dissipate than if someone just snorted cocaine.
Crack is cheaper than powder cocaine, because crack has less cocaine per dose, and is still very potent. So poorer areas get flooded with crack, as no one can afford to be addicted to cocaine powder in the lower class.
So, in conclusion, it is absolutely discriminatory to have harsher punishment for crack than cocaine. Even if crack is more potent, it has less illegal substance in it by weight than cocaine powder does.
The racist associations between crack and black people are rumored to actually be an intentional thing. The US government says the allegations have no merit, but the CIA has been accused of funneling large amounts of crack cocaine into the black neighborhoods of LA. Here's one article about it on a .gov but you can find many other sources on google: THE CIA-CONTRA-CRACK COCAINE CONTROVERSY
Relevant quote from the original source accusing them:
For the better part of a decade, a San Francisco Bay Area drug ring sold tons of cocaine to the Crips and Bloods street gangs of Los Angeles and funneled millions in drug profits to a Latin American guerrilla army run by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, a Mercury News investigation has found.
This drug network opened the first pipeline between Colombia's cocaine cartels and the black neighborhoods of Los Angeles, a city now known as the "crack" capital of the world. The cocaine that flooded in helped spark a crack explosion in urban America . . . and provided the cash and connections needed for L.A.'s gangs to buy automatic weapons.
I'm from the city this cop was from and if I remember correctly he was shot in the head and survived but obviously not the same. Maybe he died I don't really remember.
I'm not a fan of the police but on a human level some awful stuff happened to this guy.
Edit: looked it up because I was curious he underwent brain surgery and survived.
That's the rub, ask yourself why doesn't it happen more often that a "good cop" calls out a "bad cop?" It just seem so rare. I don't understand why, these are people from the same community. 🤷♂️
Not Portuguese myself but my understanding is that since 2001 most drugs are decriminalised for possession (the rule is like 10 days’ worth or something) but they can still confiscate your drugs and levy fines in rare cases. These offences carry no criminal record and can never carry a sentence of incarceration. Basically kinda illegal but not really.
Just a reminder that cops exist simply to uphold the status quo! Our first police squads were created to hunt down escaped slaves! Fuck - and I really mean this - the police.
It didn't say what mechanism would be used for the drugs to ruin your life. Prison works just as well as turning tricks for smack as far as life ruining goes.
I'm all for caging money making dealers that kill when they are threatened with prison. I've seen too many people get killed because some cunt that already has enough money is scared to get caught.
I know. It's so sad. Know gang members I figure out they call the cops on their enemies alto get their enemies pissed at the police until the shoot out and usually their victim dies and the cops like gets fucked up.
They use the cops to get away with murder... just like rich people and companies do.
Trap jaw affiliates and the AX graffiti crew do it in New Hampshire/Boston/RI/CT/NYC/Epping/Manchester
They got two people I know killed and even the cops don't want to hear it.
That's why I have this username.
I'm starting to think a lot of the 2020 black deaths were staged to help Trump, who is probably controlled/in the mob. (Roger stone/oath keepers/bloods)
Giuliani "got rid of crime" in NYC... i think he was either a part of masking the organized crime or he got owned for fighting it and now they control him.
Enough to rent and live in a studio apartment. (If they are single)
Im mainly talking about anyone willing to murder innocent people to scare off people that figured out their drug/burglary/pimp game.
I think drugs and prostitution should be legalized.
I've known too many criminals that are complete tyrants and fascists. They are heartless and will take from anyone. They are just as worthless as materialistic rich people.
It's the same logic as when Republicans claim Government doesn't work....
It's not ignorance or stupidity, it's a mission statement.. Republicans are trying to make Government not work and Cops are actively trying to fuck you over
Contribute or perish!
Drug users are arrested because they are not contributing and there is no way person could just be a person and not a nice productive bee
Do you think imprisoning somebody because they have an addiction messing with their life is too easy? Or is that just for the dealers? The previous post mentioned drug users.
Which highlights that making drug use illegal is far more about "You using drugs is unpleasant Tobe near, so I'm going to send you to jail" than anything else.
Making drug sales illegal unless through mandated sources make a lot of sense because of the harm it can bring.
Failure to enforce drug prohibition resulted in Qing China having a nationwide addiction epidemic for British opium, resulting in the opium wars, the country's bankruptcy, partial European colonization as well as the so-called "century of humiliation". The effects of this addiction epidemic are still being felt nowadays, e.g. in widespread racism towards Asian people as well as the current opioid epidemic where Chinese-made fentanyl is exported worldwide with the unofficial sanction of the Chinese government.
This is the reason why drug prohibition is a thing, and why many Asian countries have death sentences even for simple possession of narcotics.
Yeah... Racism has nothing to do with the historical opium epidemic in China. Racists just racist. Anyone different from them too, like LGBTQ, and intellectuals.
There are racists everywhere that's true, but people who are naturally racist are rare because racism is something that is taught. The lack of a strong voice for minority races is what allows racists in power to normalize their discrimination against them, eventually making it a systemic and widespread phenomenon.
You argue that the opium epidemic has absolutely zero effect on racism towards Chinese people. However I say that the opium epidemic directly started a chain of events that led to the downfall of the Chinese government, which enabled racist people to teach their racism to the government and the rest of society without fear of repercussions, therefore enabling widespread and systemic racism against Asians.
I'm sorry, I've never seen any mention linking racism to be caused by the Chinese opium epidemic. Because it's not true. Racism is the belief that one's own race is superior to others. In order for the opium epidemic to have caused it initially, the common person would have had to know about it at some point.
Due to the speed at which information traveled, hardly anyone was aware, let alone understood, that there was an entire country being controlled by opium sales from Britain.
What I'm trying to point out is that a racist individual will be racist no matter the cause, they were predisposed to think their race superior.
Why not? The opium wars are a dark spot in Chinese history and the fascist CCP government is hell bent on "revenge" against the west for that. That's why the CCP is exporting fentanyl to the west via shell companies and causing the modern opioid epidemic. I would like to see how decriminalization can deal with a targeted attack like that.
This approach is 100 years after prohibition. Hopefully it can overcome the institutional momentum of current drug laws and get implemented in more places.
You know, that sounds like a convenient bullshit story by statists and other mobster to justify their never ending violence. Also, Britain weaponizing drugs, big cringe. You guys deserve thermonuclear armageddon so bad.
I mean, its a good start, but it really should be coming from governmental policy.
Its tragic that the government of the UK is so ass-backwards that the enforcement jackboot of the government is the thing going "hey, wait, this feels wrong".
I feel like this attitude and generalized hatred towards every person working as police will make it worse because no one will want to do that job anymore. It has already happend in the USA. This activism against police in general swaps to other countries via internet culture and European countries as well struggle to get anyone work as police. This will make it necessary to lower standards and additionally, more police will be on edge since there aren't enough people.
I've never seen a crime deterred or solved by the cops. You know what prevents crime? Improved standards of living. Secure housing. Gainful employment. Future prospects.
There will always be inequalities, there will always be unhappiness/unrest, there will always be crime to some degree, and thus there will always be the need of some responsibility to deal with it. The important thing is that this group is selected and actively monitored according to strict requirements. The current situation is bad, especially in the US, something needs to change. But saying we don't need cops is just as stupid as the right-winger's "I don't dial 911 🔫🔫" door sign...
I feel like this attitude and generalized hatred towards every person working as police will make it worse because no one will want to do that job anymore.
Sure, but the world is too grey to always follow laws exactly as written. If someone is sitting on a beach smoking some weed, they are not going to damage society or others by doing so. Arresting them for drugs that only harm themselves, costs society money for the arrest and provide no benefit to anyone.
Unless our laws are perfect (likely impossible) there will always need to be some leeway for interpretation of the spirit of the law. Cops should not blindly follow laws but understand their intent to prevent harm towards others.
Also, laws are slow to change and don't often stay up to date with societal changes.
So what you are advocating for is police making their own decisions on a whim, instead of following the rules. I actually thought that behaviour was the problem.
Which part? Understanding how they should follow the law in the real world and the responsibility that brings? They could be wrong or right in any situation (they aren't lawyers and the world doesn't conform to laws) and they should be aware of that.
If the law says by possessing marijuana you are a dealer, but a cop finds someone with a small amount, it's likely for recreation and their possession brings no harm to society or others (what the law wants to prevent). Arresting them may be following the letter of the law, but not the intent (to stop distribution).
Another invented situation: cop pulls over someone driving erratically and too fast, then the driver is a woman who escaped being raped by her date. She was driving erratically because she was emotionally and physically distraught. Is giving her a ticket helping anyone? The cop could say "okay, take it easy and slow while I follow you to make sure you're out of danger and feel safe getting home".
Sorry I can't be more specific, I haven't gotten years of training on such situations.
The logic, whether or not you agree with it, is that drugs in general are hazardous and can kill or disable you, and they contribute to a black market and all the related crimes of drug trafficking and addiction. So punishments aren’t for drug use but for possession and trafficking.
Edit: to all the downvoters, I’m not advocating for draconian drug laws, I’m just answering OP’s question on why cops and lawmakers have such a policy and the logic behind it.
Not true in general, and certainly not true in specific cases. There are over 16,000 drugs used by humans, and very few of them are hazardous at the correct dose. Are they hazardous at incorrect dosage? Some are, some are not, but then almost anything, water included, will kill you at inappropriate dosage. Many illegal recreational drugs such as LSD, psilocybin and DMT have no known lethal dose.
they contribute to a black market and all the related crimes of drug trafficking
That's simply a function of them being illegal. If they were not illegal, they would not "contribute to a black market and all the related crimes of drug trafficking".
It is true that some drugs are very dangerous and can ruin people's lives. One of the most dangerous ones is alcohol, which is legal. One of the least dangerous ones is cannabis, which is still illegal in most places and at a federal level in the USA.
So maybe (just maybe) this is not about protecting people at all and never was?
Dont get me wrong, im all for legalisation of weed and maybe some other lighter stuff. But it should be regulated, similar model to alcohol. Strict punishment if you get caught selling anything addictive to a minor.
There barely is a punishment for selling alcohol to minors. It isn't even a crime. You might just get your license revoked and pay a little fee. At least that how it is in Germany.
Edit: Lots of people not understanding how that's exactly what cops and shitheads in power think about sending people on drugs to jail. That's scary.
They are more than happy to send your ass to jail for decades because of minor charges that don't hurt anyone but yourself. You're just a number to these assholes. They will make an example out of you if they can.
rehabilitation instead of prison..
How about if I’m not bothering anybody then don’t even arrest me?
Edit:
I misunderstood that comment above. My bad.
What do you mean? People get arrested for possession of weed for example that they plan to consume by themselves, not bothering anybody. Then they get locked up. You rather lock them away, than try to rehabilitate them? This applies to so many cases. Of course there are cases where the verdict says prison but at least try to keep people out of prison. But wait the prison system is a corporation trying to make money.
Uh did you misread it? That's exactly his point, people getting arrested when they weren't even bothering anyone.
My bad, I did indeed. English is not my native language 🙈
And not only is the first part necessarily the worst, but once you’re in the system they make it hard to get back out by throwing all sorts of arbitrary requirements on you to fulfill, with little to no flexibility. 10-week class that occurs right in the middle of your work-day? Fuck you. It all serves to essentially keep you in the system as it keeps on fucking with your life. Not to mention prison/jail, which brands you with a permanent scarlet letter that bars you from even working at many jobs even after you’ve gotten out.
Same thing with having one of those breathalyzer things on your car. You have to pay to have it installed, pay a monthly fee in addition to all the other shit you've already paid for. And then you can only go a very few certain places. Makes it incredibly difficult to recover from that. It's not to punish you or keep you off the road after a DUI, it's so they can extract more money from you
They don't arbitrarily hand those things out... Don't drink and drive and it's not a problem.
Our entire bar/nightclub economy would collapse if nobody drank and drove. Not defending it, just pointing out America has terrible public transportation and very little means to access these places without driving.
Human beings make mistakes.
Eh, yet. There's talk of mandating them for new cars.
Where?
America and it already passed in 2021 to be effective 2025 source: https://www.kbb.com/car-news/new-law-will-require-in-car-breathalyzers/
In the other article linked by that one it says it's just a recommendation. Seems weird.
EU.
Lmfao not at all
They ended up requiring only ease of installation but it's definitely something that was on the cards.
Source?
My bad, they only ended up mandating ease of breathalyzer installation https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/better-regulation/have-your-say/initiatives/12799-Road-safety-easy-installation-of-alcohol-interlocks-in-vehicles_en
If they become mandatory, they're probably not going to restrict where you can go.
Hopefully, but it's still a device to maintain and check at special government approved companies.
They limit where you can go? Like with GPS reporting to somebody?
I’ve unfortunately had the pleasure of needing one of these interlock devices installed on my car back in 2010. It’s definitely been awhile but the device only limits where you could go if you had alcohol in your system, and that limit would be NOWHERE. If you were sober you just had to blow clean every 5-20 minutes and I could drive as much as I pleased. The option without the device was no driving except to and from work and maybe the grocery store 1-2 times a week.
Isn’t that kind of the point of such a device?
Yes, I was explaining to the person I replied to because they clearly didn’t have a true understanding of how the device works.
Okay, then I misunderstood the tone of your comment.
how comes you had to have this installed?
I’ve had one before and without it you can only go to work and the grocery store. With it you just have to blow sober and you are free to drive as you please, it’s like having the judge in the car to make sure you don’t fuck up.
And then they charge you hundreds to thousands of dollars for those classes so that once you do find a job, they just garnish your wages.
They charge you for drug tests and "renting" ankle monitors, and if you don't pay they just throw you back in jail. Which sometimes has its own fees. Even public defenders can have fees depending on your state/county, and they will threaten to take you to small claims court over the $50 they billed you without telling you. For counsel that literally exists to represent poor people. Ask me how I know.
The logic is deterrence.
I mean it's stupid, but that's what the supporters think.
The thing they are missing is that no one commits a crime thinking they will get caught. So ever increasing the deterrence doesn't help.
Drugs is a public health issue, no really criminal. Prohibition doesn't work with things done at scales like drugs and alcohol. You're just feeding the criminal gangs.
The logic is subjugation. These laws are applied largely to a specific group of people, and even if they don't spend life in prison, their ability to build a life for themselves afterwards is neutered, and they lost the right to vote.
The logic is it also ruins other peoples lives. No one exists in society in a nut shell or as an island. If your choice to use drugs would expose, entice, or otherwise encourage a person to use drugs then it is reasonable in my opinion for the state to protect people from it.
That being said clearly our approach isn't working. There shouldn't be laissez-faire drug use all over but there shouldn't be life in prison immediately consequences either.
The most succesful drug rehabilitation programs are mandatory rehab facilities that are a choice alternate to going to jail for an equal amount of time.
Also housing first models are incredibly effective. But... the entire western world uses housing as an investment vehicle and commodity so it is diametrically opposed to housing first initiatives. If the average citizen is paying 50% of their income for housing and then "junkies" get given free housing the political party that implemented it would be booted so fast.
That's because it's not logic - it's propaganda. The war on drugs was always built on a solid bedrock of oppressing minorities, black people in particular.
What? White people like smoking weed? Well its probably ok then. What? White people enjoy opioids? Oh no, it's a crisis we better get people the help they need. Don't worry big pharma drug dealers, you can keep your fortune, just say sorry.
It's perfectly circular, like this man's dome.
Don't forget that drug laws are often racist e.g. cocaine possession carries a lesser punishment than crack, cannabis is a schedule 1 substance, etc. This goes some way to explaining the legal rationale.
The rest can be found on the Nixon tapes. :)
How is this racist? I don't doubt that you're right but I'm not understanding what makes that racist. Are black people significantly more likely to have crack than cocaine or something? At first glance it seems logical to me that cocaine has less of a punishment than crack, but that's based off of a somewhat limited understanding of the effects of the two drugs.
Crack and cocaine are the same drug! From https://americanaddictioncenters.org/cocaine-treatment/differences-with-crack: "Pharmacologically, cocaine and crack are the same substance."
They are the same pharmacologically, but the effects between snorting and smoking vary greatly.
Regular cocaine powder is cocaine hydrochloride. Crack is made by mixing cocaine hydrochloride with ammonia and then burning off the hydrochloride which makes it a freebase. People don't smoke regular cocaine until it has been turned into freebase. Smoking cocaine powder is just wasteful compared to snorting it.
Smoking crack results in a more rapid absorption into the bloodstream—compared to snorting the powder. Therefore, the effects are more rapid and quicker to dissipate than if someone just snorted cocaine.
Crack is cheaper than powder cocaine, because crack has less cocaine per dose, and is still very potent. So poorer areas get flooded with crack, as no one can afford to be addicted to cocaine powder in the lower class.
So, in conclusion, it is absolutely discriminatory to have harsher punishment for crack than cocaine. Even if crack is more potent, it has less illegal substance in it by weight than cocaine powder does.
The racist associations between crack and black people are rumored to actually be an intentional thing. The US government says the allegations have no merit, but the CIA has been accused of funneling large amounts of crack cocaine into the black neighborhoods of LA. Here's one article about it on a .gov but you can find many other sources on google: THE CIA-CONTRA-CRACK COCAINE CONTROVERSY Relevant quote from the original source accusing them:
Air America is a decent movie about another CIA drug ring.
Makes more sense when you consider that the "justice" system profits greatly from the war on drugs.
Gotta love private jails
13th amendment (which means we can guillotine it right away) for the plantation win boys!
I'm from the city this cop was from and if I remember correctly he was shot in the head and survived but obviously not the same. Maybe he died I don't really remember.
I'm not a fan of the police but on a human level some awful stuff happened to this guy.
Edit: looked it up because I was curious he underwent brain surgery and survived.
Fuck the police as a whole tho
I used to have that same belief but watching "good" cops cover for bad ones made me realize they're all scummy.
I agree even this guy but life has nuance and I felt this was info that is pertinent to the meme.
There is always some nuance, but in general most morally upstanding people drop out of training or are pushed out of the force in some way.
That's the rub, ask yourself why doesn't it happen more often that a "good cop" calls out a "bad cop?" It just seem so rare. I don't understand why, these are people from the same community. 🤷♂️
Good cops are usually punished for calling out bad cops. The system is broken.
If only it was like in Portugal…
Or literally most western countries
I was comparing to America
Which tbf is a really low bar (except for weed in some states. Still find that fascinating)
Why what you got over there?
Not Portuguese myself but my understanding is that since 2001 most drugs are decriminalised for possession (the rule is like 10 days’ worth or something) but they can still confiscate your drugs and levy fines in rare cases. These offences carry no criminal record and can never carry a sentence of incarceration. Basically kinda illegal but not really.
Wow yeah no way that would fly in the USA. Prisons make too much money.
Guess what, it happened in Oregon! (it’s a trainwreck)
Cops do not, never have and never will "protect and serve" a regular person. They protect and serve the elite.
There is a good reason we say ACAB, fuck the police and call them class traitors
They don't protect people at all, they protect capital
Just a reminder that cops exist simply to uphold the status quo! Our first police squads were created to hunt down escaped slaves! Fuck - and I really mean this - the police.
Also, ACAB. Yes even your friendly neighborhood school pig. ALL COPS
ACAB
all cats are biutifull
"They'll ruin your life cause I'll ruin your life!"
It didn't say what mechanism would be used for the drugs to ruin your life. Prison works just as well as turning tricks for smack as far as life ruining goes.
I'm all for caging money making dealers that kill when they are threatened with prison. I've seen too many people get killed because some cunt that already has enough money is scared to get caught.
If only those were the people that US cops actually arrested.
I know. It's so sad. Know gang members I figure out they call the cops on their enemies alto get their enemies pissed at the police until the shoot out and usually their victim dies and the cops like gets fucked up.
They use the cops to get away with murder... just like rich people and companies do.
Trap jaw affiliates and the AX graffiti crew do it in New Hampshire/Boston/RI/CT/NYC/Epping/Manchester
They got two people I know killed and even the cops don't want to hear it.
That's why I have this username.
I'm starting to think a lot of the 2020 black deaths were staged to help Trump, who is probably controlled/in the mob. (Roger stone/oath keepers/bloods)
Giuliani "got rid of crime" in NYC... i think he was either a part of masking the organized crime or he got owned for fighting it and now they control him.
What's the threshold of income that would meet your criteria? Do you normally base jail time off of someone's income, legally or illegally?
Enough to rent and live in a studio apartment. (If they are single)
Im mainly talking about anyone willing to murder innocent people to scare off people that figured out their drug/burglary/pimp game.
I think drugs and prostitution should be legalized.
I've known too many criminals that are complete tyrants and fascists. They are heartless and will take from anyone. They are just as worthless as materialistic rich people.
self fulfilling prophecy
I believe the legal repercussions are part of that "can ruin your life", not just the addiction and/or health concerns.
Though that still makes it an entirely artificial consequence that does not need to and should not exist.
It's the same logic as when Republicans claim Government doesn't work....
It's not ignorance or stupidity, it's a mission statement.. Republicans are trying to make Government not work and Cops are actively trying to fuck you over
JUSTICE
Contribute or perish!
Drug users are arrested because they are not contributing and there is no way person could just be a person and not a nice productive bee
But drugs can make you more productive like it's the case with many stimulates like Amphetamine, Methylphenidate and CAFFEINE (which, yes, is a drug)
Do you think imprisoning somebody because they have an addiction messing with their life is too easy? Or is that just for the dealers? The previous post mentioned drug users.
Which highlights that making drug use illegal is far more about "You using drugs is unpleasant Tobe near, so I'm going to send you to jail" than anything else.
Making drug sales illegal unless through mandated sources make a lot of sense because of the harm it can bring.
You contribute far below what is required to maintain society.
Failure to enforce drug prohibition resulted in Qing China having a nationwide addiction epidemic for British opium, resulting in the opium wars, the country's bankruptcy, partial European colonization as well as the so-called "century of humiliation". The effects of this addiction epidemic are still being felt nowadays, e.g. in widespread racism towards Asian people as well as the current opioid epidemic where Chinese-made fentanyl is exported worldwide with the unofficial sanction of the Chinese government.
This is the reason why drug prohibition is a thing, and why many Asian countries have death sentences even for simple possession of narcotics.
This is such a bastardization of history. Shame on you for spreading this nonsense.
Yeah... Racism has nothing to do with the historical opium epidemic in China. Racists just racist. Anyone different from them too, like LGBTQ, and intellectuals.
There are racists everywhere that's true, but people who are naturally racist are rare because racism is something that is taught. The lack of a strong voice for minority races is what allows racists in power to normalize their discrimination against them, eventually making it a systemic and widespread phenomenon.
You argue that the opium epidemic has absolutely zero effect on racism towards Chinese people. However I say that the opium epidemic directly started a chain of events that led to the downfall of the Chinese government, which enabled racist people to teach their racism to the government and the rest of society without fear of repercussions, therefore enabling widespread and systemic racism against Asians.
I'm sorry, I've never seen any mention linking racism to be caused by the Chinese opium epidemic. Because it's not true. Racism is the belief that one's own race is superior to others. In order for the opium epidemic to have caused it initially, the common person would have had to know about it at some point.
Due to the speed at which information traveled, hardly anyone was aware, let alone understood, that there was an entire country being controlled by opium sales from Britain.
What I'm trying to point out is that a racist individual will be racist no matter the cause, they were predisposed to think their race superior.
There is no way you just compared modern drugs and war on drugs on the fucking Qing China.
Especially when there are MODERN examples of drug decriminalisation that work, like Portugal or Switzerland.
You are either completely ignorant or stupid to ignore it and use a fucking ancient example instead
Why not? The opium wars are a dark spot in Chinese history and the fascist CCP government is hell bent on "revenge" against the west for that. That's why the CCP is exporting fentanyl to the west via shell companies and causing the modern opioid epidemic. I would like to see how decriminalization can deal with a targeted attack like that.
there are better solutions:
https://www.northcarolinahealthnews.org/2019/01/21/switzerland-couldnt-stop-drug-users-so-it-started-supporting-them/
This approach is 100 years after prohibition. Hopefully it can overcome the institutional momentum of current drug laws and get implemented in more places.
Yeah, it's not about empathy for you at all
You're a cog in the machine and they're protecting the machine, not you.
Faulty premises lead to faulty conclusions.
You know, that sounds like a convenient bullshit story by statists and other mobster to justify their never ending violence. Also, Britain weaponizing drugs, big cringe. You guys deserve thermonuclear armageddon so bad.
The fact that people who can produce brain farts like you are allowed to vote, should tell everyone why pure democracy cant work.
You do know it's not police who make these laws, right? It's the politicians that get elected by the people who create these laws.
Police unions and private prison system lobbyists have entered the chat
They chose to make their career of enthusiastically enforcing these laws with extreme violence. They chose this. Fuck the police.
https://ukleap.org/about/
I mean, its a good start, but it really should be coming from governmental policy.
Its tragic that the government of the UK is so ass-backwards that the enforcement jackboot of the government is the thing going "hey, wait, this feels wrong".
Not just the UK either:
https://lawenforcementactionpartnership.org/
I feel like this attitude and generalized hatred towards every person working as police will make it worse because no one will want to do that job anymore. It has already happend in the USA. This activism against police in general swaps to other countries via internet culture and European countries as well struggle to get anyone work as police. This will make it necessary to lower standards and additionally, more police will be on edge since there aren't enough people.
Good.
I've never seen a crime deterred or solved by the cops. You know what prevents crime? Improved standards of living. Secure housing. Gainful employment. Future prospects.
There will always be inequalities, there will always be unhappiness/unrest, there will always be crime to some degree, and thus there will always be the need of some responsibility to deal with it. The important thing is that this group is selected and actively monitored according to strict requirements. The current situation is bad, especially in the US, something needs to change. But saying we don't need cops is just as stupid as the right-winger's "I don't dial 911 🔫🔫" door sign...
Not everything is about absolutes, everything has nuance, and to say what you've just said is to miss the wood for the trees.
You believe that there would be no crime if just everybody had a home and a job? Are you for real?
Crimes of poverty, deprivation, desperation? Significantly less than currently.
But yes, there would still be plenty of white collar crime that we don't currently tackle either, and in some cases encourage by policy.
If heavy handed policing worked, it would have worked by now.
thatsthepoint.jpg
How can you possibly rationalize that less people working as and apply to be police will somehow make the situation better? The opposite is true.
Less authoritarian pigs, more support workers.
Less shot dogs, more rehabilitation centers.
Less ex-military APCs, more rehab beds.
Sure, but the world is too grey to always follow laws exactly as written. If someone is sitting on a beach smoking some weed, they are not going to damage society or others by doing so. Arresting them for drugs that only harm themselves, costs society money for the arrest and provide no benefit to anyone.
Unless our laws are perfect (likely impossible) there will always need to be some leeway for interpretation of the spirit of the law. Cops should not blindly follow laws but understand their intent to prevent harm towards others.
Also, laws are slow to change and don't often stay up to date with societal changes.
So what you are advocating for is police making their own decisions on a whim, instead of following the rules. I actually thought that behaviour was the problem.
Not on a whim, based on training on the law and its intent. Not that they get that training like that in the USA, AFAIK.
Police should also be accountable to laws and weigh that responsibility against each situation.
How is that supposed to be possible?
Which part? Understanding how they should follow the law in the real world and the responsibility that brings? They could be wrong or right in any situation (they aren't lawyers and the world doesn't conform to laws) and they should be aware of that.
By weighing the law against each situation, what do you mean in practice?
If the law says by possessing marijuana you are a dealer, but a cop finds someone with a small amount, it's likely for recreation and their possession brings no harm to society or others (what the law wants to prevent). Arresting them may be following the letter of the law, but not the intent (to stop distribution).
Another invented situation: cop pulls over someone driving erratically and too fast, then the driver is a woman who escaped being raped by her date. She was driving erratically because she was emotionally and physically distraught. Is giving her a ticket helping anyone? The cop could say "okay, take it easy and slow while I follow you to make sure you're out of danger and feel safe getting home".
Sorry I can't be more specific, I haven't gotten years of training on such situations.
The logic, whether or not you agree with it, is that drugs in general are hazardous and can kill or disable you, and they contribute to a black market and all the related crimes of drug trafficking and addiction. So punishments aren’t for drug use but for possession and trafficking.
Edit: to all the downvoters, I’m not advocating for draconian drug laws, I’m just answering OP’s question on why cops and lawmakers have such a policy and the logic behind it.
Not true in general, and certainly not true in specific cases. There are over 16,000 drugs used by humans, and very few of them are hazardous at the correct dose. Are they hazardous at incorrect dosage? Some are, some are not, but then almost anything, water included, will kill you at inappropriate dosage. Many illegal recreational drugs such as LSD, psilocybin and DMT have no known lethal dose.
That's simply a function of them being illegal. If they were not illegal, they would not "contribute to a black market and all the related crimes of drug trafficking".
It's supposed to be rehabilitation, but also it's to stop you from ruining other people's lives
What other people have their lives ruined when I take a drug?
The family you ran over while you were drunk
You only get life-ruining time for distribution. Distribution ruins other people's lives, often minors and people who have it rough in life.
All Dealers Are Bastards
Mandatory minimums can make even minor possession carry a long sentence. It's not just dealers.
You say that as if an couple years in prison doesn't have permanent effects.
Or even a few days.
It is true that some drugs are very dangerous and can ruin people's lives. One of the most dangerous ones is alcohol, which is legal. One of the least dangerous ones is cannabis, which is still illegal in most places and at a federal level in the USA.
So maybe (just maybe) this is not about protecting people at all and never was?
Are all merchants who sell alcohol bastards?
Dont get me wrong, im all for legalisation of weed and maybe some other lighter stuff. But it should be regulated, similar model to alcohol. Strict punishment if you get caught selling anything addictive to a minor.
There barely is a punishment for selling alcohol to minors. It isn't even a crime. You might just get your license revoked and pay a little fee. At least that how it is in Germany.
There's strict punishment anywhere for the sale of alcohol to a minor?
It's called making an example out of someone.
Edit: Lots of people not understanding how that's exactly what cops and shitheads in power think about sending people on drugs to jail. That's scary.
They are more than happy to send your ass to jail for decades because of minor charges that don't hurt anyone but yourself. You're just a number to these assholes. They will make an example out of you if they can.
Me? I don't think anyone should go to jail for doing drugs.
Idk man. I was just saying how they think of it.
I think people thought you were defending their stance
That's the only thing I can think of lol
Then maybe stop making examples.
Hopefully they will. But we all know how much they love the war on drugs.
7
How's that working out?
Great. For drug traffickers, prison system and politicians.
Oh you mean drug addicts ... fuck them you don't actually care about those right? /s
And the companies they work for almost for nothing.
Just to be clear, are you asking me as if I'm a cop that thinks like that?
By sending them to
crime school.. I mean jail/prison.