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This topic has me really outraged lately, just today, I saw a young man in Boone County, Indiana who was arrested for being what police described as a mid level marijuana dealer, apparently the police had been investigating him for the past year and finally made the arrest yesterday.
Another poster on another drug related thread here on CD, mentioned that "police are only doing their jobs, enforcing laws"...but just a few decades ago, police in the south were also 'just doing their jobs, enforcing the laws' in relation to where black people could go, eat, sit down, etc....more recently, police were again, just doing their jobs, enforcing laws in relation to sodomy/ gay laws.
I think this is a perfect fit for the Great debates board.
Its time more people disobey/ refuse to comply with drug laws, Ive said this before in other threads and usually many people will say things like "yeah and watch how fast you end up in jail"...but they dont stop to think, people fighting for civil rights went thru the same thing, MANY people were arrested numerous times in those days...but eventually, they were honored and recognized for doing these things.
Rosa Parks was a lady who REFUSED to obey the law about where she could sit down, police considered her a common criminal back then... Not the case today though!
I think we need to start holding police responsible for 'just doing their jobs' in relation to drug crimes.
We can all start doing our part, by NOT calling police if we see drug activity/ dealing/ using, etc. calling police on drug activity is pretty similar to those people in the south, that would call police if they saw black people doing something they were not supposed to be doing or being somewhere they shouldnt.
Another poster suggested juries to stop handing down guilty verdicts in drug cases, this is a good start too.
Can anyone else think of some good ideas how we can refuse to comply or disobey?
mod note - the OP advocates for citizens to disobey current drug laws. Agree or disagree and provide supporting evidence for your assertions.
I could disobey the drug laws. But are YOU willing to pay my mortgage, make sure the electricity stays on and my family gets fed because I wouldn't be able to pass a drug screen or arrested, losing my career job?
Some drug laws are there for reasons. The only drug law that should be abolished is marijuana. There's many people that are willing and able to work but can't get a job due to marijuana on drug screens.
Although most states that allow medical and/or recreational are dropping it from the testing. Also clearing the names and releasing offenders. Which I applaud with a standing ovation. Companies and people are hurt because of the test and are trying to alleviate that problem.
I'm one of those people that are looking to move out of this state to where that is happening. I shouldn't have to worry about being punished for doing something while off. Not just "to get high", but mainly medicinal due to PTSD and chronic pain that I endure. I've had surgeries and chiropractic visits. Nothing seems to help and I'm tired of hurting. My Dr won't prescribe opiods, which can be a good thing, and OTC meds like Tylenol and Ibuprofen takes the edge off. Only for a little while.
One of the biggest fallacies in the Drug War is that the police are just doing their jobs enforcing drug laws. That is simply not true. Not only does law enforcement advocate for the continuance of the current drug laws, as witnesses or lobbyists, they advocate for more of them. State legislatures and governors are willing to listen to law enforcement, no matter how biased or self serving their testimony actually is.
As far as disobedience of citizens to unjust laws, you have to look at the possibility that you could be caught and incarcerated for a long period of time, because in America, it's all about punishment, for life if possible. Even if you do your time, most of America is not going to give you a second chance.
So unless you are prepared to face the consequences, most people are going to remain sheep. That may not be how they really want to live, but they may have others that depend on them, or circumstances where they've decided this is not their fight.
I also don't understand how those that think that the drug war didn't work against marijuana, but somehow that it will eventually work against the harder drugs. If you make something illegal, we've seen with marijuana, that it just makes it's use out of control, with questionable quality/safety, and MORE dangerous.
The only real solution is to legalize AND REGULATE all drugs. We should be treating addiction as what it is, a medical problem, not a legal one.
Until America recognizes these truths, we're not going to make progress on dealing with the consequences of all the hard drugs that are killing people, and affecting countless others related to and/or dependent on them.
If you don't like the laws then change them. It takes a daring individual to fly in the face of law enforcement and it generally does not end well for the "criminal". Once again if a law is unpopular than it needs to be changed through legal channels as what happened in my state a few years ago. I live in Mass. and in 2016 we were asked on the ballot if we the voters would approve of recreational marijuana. We already have medical weed. The measure was voted in and just last week (it took awhile) 2 pot shops opened with more to come.
You cannot blame Police for doing what we pay them for. Rosa Parks did break the law and her stand (actually a sit) eventually led to civil rights laws being changed. Marijuana use and possession is still a crime according to the Feds but in Mass you can possess up to one ounce legally.
Police and the job they do is a direct result of the laws they are told to enforce.
I'm not willing to break laws in order to point out that they should be changed but if someone else wants to then go right ahead but get ready for the consequences.
One of the problems with disobeying drug laws as a form of protest is that in some states, like Oklahoma, they would say: Bring it on!
That's because "The System", which consists of numerous government agencies, which range from local to county to state level, gets a chunk of money for each and every arrest made. When my brother got arrested for DUI, for example, the paperwork generated from that arrest had 3 or 4 pages which listed every agency that got money (dozens of them), how much they got, and a total owed at the bottom. The person arrested is responsible for paying that total.
So some (most?) state governments love drug laws and the fodder they create for the justice system machinery, which chews up citizens and spits out criminals.
As far as NOT disobeying drug laws and changing them instead, well, changing them is what we have been trying to do for 50 years now. But The System has become very addicted to all the money prohibition is generating, with some agencies not being able to meet their monthly budget if drug arrests and asset forfeitures were to wane. Not to mention, as a previous poster did, these laws also offer a way for law enforcement personnel to practice selective enforcement. They LOVE that kind of control.
So Corruption (with a capital C) has placed a TIGHT lid on even researching cannabis, for example, to the point of making it so illegal that it could land you in jail with your business permanently closed if caught researching it without a permit. It is exceedingly difficult to change the law with such corruption so firmly entrenched.
But even with all that said, 25,000,000 people in just the last month in the USA alone used cannabis, with 99.9% of them not thinking twice about the legality of it. So in that sense, civil disobedience has been happening on a wide scale, daily basis for decades.
In my view, the OP is mistaking legitimate reasons for civil disobedience versus just breaking the law.
I find it insulting that the OP tries to equate the struggle for civil rights guaranteed by our Constitution with the sentiment that I wanna do drugs.
Should we allow NAMBLA-thinking people to break the law because they wanna have sex with underage persons?
Should we allow a man who doesn't like the laws about reckless driving just drive as he wants?
There are ways to amend laws that are legal. And over time, these laws do evolve. I live in Colorado where we have very relaxed MJ laws. I don't like that, but it happened in the legally prescribed manner.
Some thoughts on the drug trade, from a book I wrote (I was a police officer for 41 years), but, due to rules on the forum, I'm not allowed to mention its title. The book is about the police use of force. Some parts of the chapter on the War on Drugs below:
I don’t like drugs. I don’t care for people who abuse drugs. I am not pleased with the too wide use of drugs for entertainment or social purposes. Those are my personal opinions, based upon my having dealt with addicted personalities for so much of my law enforcement career. Chemicals used for recreational purposes rarely serve either their user, or the larger society, in a positive way. There are numerous types of drugs used for amusement and/or enjoyment by Americans today, ranging from the lawful –tobacco, coffee and alcohol– on through mild hallucinogens, to the opiates, synthetics and even the sniffing of glue and gasoline. There are so many substances used and abused by people in the United States that this chapter, and my comments herein, must be viewed in a very general way. After all, the purpose of this book is to examine the people who live and work along our southern border, it was not intended as a detailed overview of our drug laws. None the less, I have found it remarkable how much damage and danger human beings are willing to subject themselves to for them to attain some degree of physical pleasure, or how much money they are willing to pay in order to secure such a diversion. Even if it kills them.
The dilemma our nation faces is, we’ve created a set of draconian laws, often promulgated for reasons of racial stereotyping, perceived issues of morality and bogus science, that has gotten us, and much of the world, into a terrible bind. The shorthand for this self-created conundrum is, the “War on Drugs.”
Drug abuse is a serious business, of that I am certain. I only wish we went about dealing with the issue in a rational, productive, non-destructive manner. To date, all we have done with our draconian and poorly thought out laws is to encourage the creation of the largest, best funded, and incredibly dangerous organized crime groups our world has ever seen.
You cannot legislate against habituation or long entrenched social customs and habits. This simply does not work and holds with it unintended consequences which create more problems than would be the case of simply getting addicted people on to maintenance level drug usages.
Unbiased, objective scientific studies should be conducted to evaluate which currently controlled substances pose the greatest dangers to society (and their users) and deal with them based on those findings. Our current drug laws are largely founded on morality, custom and whether or not some substances, especially those which have been traditionally consumed by members of the dominant culture, are more socially acceptable than others. Alcohol is thought to be fine for general use, a chemical that is terribly damaging to the human body, even fatal when taken in excess, yet a mild, relatively harmless hallucinogen such as marijuana is under strict sanctions, with the result that some people have been incarcerated for years for possession of this weed.
Regrettably, the War on Drugs seems to continue to mainly serve the interests of three groups;
[*] Major illicit drug dealers, with their positions of political power and wealth, are virtually guaranteed immunity from the consequences of meaningful enforcement of our anti-drug laws. Regulation, government control and taxation of illicit substances would reduce the value of their products substantially. Without the continuation of this nation’s prohibition against drugs they stand to lose both wealth and power.
[*] Law enforcement is well served by our current laws. It certainly permitted me to have a long career. Enforcement agencies can appear to be “doing something” when interdicting low level drug mules or when arresting small time sellers and street users. Forfeiture laws permit law enforcement to secure windfalls of wealth with minimal effort, often with little or no evidence to back up their seizures. Corrections, due to the criminalization of what is arguably a medical problem, has become a major industry in this nation. Our rate of incarceration is unlike every other first-world nation on the planet.
[*] Our political leaders share in the benefits as well. They are able to pretend to be doing something positive in the “fight against crime” while at the same time promulgating laws which will ensure the problem will never go away.
If you don't like the laws then change them. It takes a daring individual to fly in the face of law enforcement and it generally does not end well for the "criminal". Once again if a law is unpopular than it needs to be changed through legal channels as what happened in my state a few years ago. I live in Mass. and in 2016 we were asked on the ballot if we the voters would approve of recreational marijuana. We already have medical weed. The measure was voted in and just last week (it took awhile) 2 pot shops opened with more to come.
You cannot blame Police for doing what we pay them for. Rosa Parks did break the law and her stand (actually a sit) eventually led to civil rights laws being changed. Marijuana use and possession is still a crime according to the Feds but in Mass you can possess up to one ounce legally.
Police and the job they do is a direct result of the laws they are told to enforce.
I'm not willing to break laws in order to point out that they should be changed but if someone else wants to then go right ahead but get ready for the consequences.
So Im assuming you think what the civil rights people did, was criminal? Since they refused to comply. Police back then were just enforcing laws too.
Do you think civli rights would have been passed if all those riots and disobedience did not happen? I very much doubt it.
In my view, the OP is mistaking legitimate reasons for civil disobedience versus just breaking the law.
I find it insulting that the OP tries to equate the struggle for civil rights guaranteed by our Constitution with the sentiment that I wanna do drugs.
Should we allow NAMBLA-thinking people to break the law because they wanna have sex with underage persons?
Should we allow a man who doesn't like the laws about reckless driving just drive as he wants?
There are ways to amend laws that are legal. And over time, these laws do evolve. I live in Colorado where we have very relaxed MJ laws. I don't like that, but it happened in the legally prescribed manner.
Drug laws are unconstitutional, this is different from say, sex crimes, or traffic crimes.
One of the biggest fallacies in the Drug War is that the police are just doing their jobs enforcing drug laws. That is simply not true. Not only does law enforcement advocate for the continuance of the current drug laws, as witnesses or lobbyists, they advocate for more of them. State legislatures and governors are willing to listen to law enforcement, no matter how biased or self serving their testimony actually is.
As far as disobedience of citizens to unjust laws, you have to look at the possibility that you could be caught and incarcerated for a long period of time, because in America, it's all about punishment, for life if possible. Even if you do your time, most of America is not going to give you a second chance.
So unless you are prepared to face the consequences, most people are going to remain sheep. That may not be how they really want to live, but they may have others that depend on them, or circumstances where they've decided this is not their fight.
I also don't understand how those that think that the drug war didn't work against marijuana, but somehow that it will eventually work against the harder drugs. If you make something illegal, we've seen with marijuana, that it just makes it's use out of control, with questionable quality/safety, and MORE dangerous.
The only real solution is to legalize AND REGULATE all drugs. We should be treating addiction as what it is, a medical problem, not a legal one.
Until America recognizes these truths, we're not going to make progress on dealing with the consequences of all the hard drugs that are killing people, and affecting countless others related to and/or dependent on them.
That is a great point, the fact that law enforcement even has an opinion on this, is suspect, their job is to enforce laws, NOT to have any say in what should be law or how they should be written. in fact, that should be a very big conflict of interest for them to do so.
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