Dell on The War on Drugs

Do you believe there is a war on drugs? Is the tough on crime stance legitimate? or propaganda?

I thought it was for real, as the young people say, until I took my blinders off and had a rude awakening.

Consider the following: Local girl in her late twenties who likes her alcohol, doesn't smoke marijuana or use any drugs. She works at minimum wage and sells small amounts of pot to teens, at affordable teen budget prices, for their weekend parties. Everyone in town knows her and her family: local youth came and went from her place without incident for years. Then, her boyfriend gets a cocaine habit. She's not happy about it but talks to her man who lives on the outskirts of town, who supplies her pot...he sells her the coke boyfriend wants but she refuses to sell the coke to others. Her thing is selling marijuana and she doesn't want any trouble. When the boyfriend runs up a tab for his coke habit and doesn't have the cash to cover it, her supplier tells her she can have some time to pay that debt, and he will continue to supply her marijuna, but no more cocaine until the debt is clear. After much nagging by the boyfriend, he talks her into driving to the next city, a couple hours away, to purchase cocaine for him there.

She is arrested, for the first time ever, returning from the city with the cocaine in the vehicle.

What are the mathematical odds of her being stopped the one and only time she goes out of town to purchase cocaine? That's what I thought.

She owed one dealer in one city, she shows up elsewhere with cash, she's arrested on the way home. The lesson to her is this: pay your bill or you won't buy anywhere else and we'll f**k up your life if you try it. The police had to have been in on it as did the other dealer in the other town. That's some networking going on. Her dealer remains untouched.

"The dealer or someone else could have called the police," you say? Just try and call the police on someone selling drugs. Good Luck! Unless you sign an affidavit saying you have seen the drugs, been present during transactions, and so on, they will not be doing a take-down any time soon. More likely, you will be targeted for some harassment thereafter. If you belong to the right circle of friends, the dealer may be quietly relocated elsewhere.

What is true in a small way is usually true in a larger way.

After that incident, I made a point of watching and learning.
Same town: a man in his forties relocates with his family and becomes part of the downtown scene selling his own prescription for oxycontin, his child's Ritalin prescription, marijuana from the same supplier as the first young lady, in both teen and adult-sized quantities. He can also negotiate for hard drugs with the supplier, depending on who is doing the asking. His favourite thing is selling small amounts of marijuana to teens, because this guy likes, according to the young people, to do the grabby, feely thing with either sex, and two different young ladies say he raped them. You want something to smoke? you put up with it. Then come a flood of charges against local teens who get probation, curfews and are subjected to the local police questionning them every time they are looking for another teen to arrest. There is a raid at the local highschool and Mike __ , is arrested for having a couple joints on him. He had only got it the night before from this same man and no one else knew he had it. How did the police know? Bingo! You have guessed it: Mr. Creepy has a deal with the local police: I give you information so you can look like you're doing your job. Some kid complains I've sexually assaulted them, you point to their drug record. Who will believe the teenager? the Crown won't even look at the case.

Another man, on a disability pension, augments his poverty by selling oxycontins bought from others with legitimate prescriptions. They sell their prescriptions because their pensions don't meet their needs, either. This man also sells marijuana and can find ecstacy, date rape drug, meth, cocaine, etc. if the customer wants it: one phone call and its delivered to his door in minutes. This man went on unmolested until he tries the cocaine a few times and gets a habit. Now he's cocaine paranoid: keeps guns, bear spray, brass knuckles, pitbull dogs are adopted...eventually a decision is made that he is just too big a risk, given his paranoia. He gets arrested.

Compassion clubs, providing marijuana to those who use it medicinally, are similarly targeted for big take-down scenes and arrests.

So is there a war on drugs? If you want the answer to that, you have to follow the money and power trail.

That will be the subject of my next post. In the meantime, you might want to read Lies the Government Told You: Myth, Power, and Deception in American History (March, 2010) a thought provoking book, including what you can do to confront the lies perpetrated by your government and its agents.