Their job is to enforce the law. It doesn't seem quite right to denigrate them and call them not bright for doing their job. Shouldn't you be blaming someone else and not the people in the trenches? Also, I'm not sure its so black and white about how drug prohibition has caused more harm than good. I definitely wouldn't want to live in Portland or SF and some of the people stuck in the throws of inescapable addiction might disagree with you.
alan-hn|2 years ago
Drug prohibition is the entire reason that fentanyl is now in the drug supply and prohibition where supply is unregulated is a large reason for overdose deaths. Most overdose deaths are due to inconsistency in potency which would not be a problem if the supply were regulated. Compound that issue with the harm that the legal system does to someone with an addiction, essentially barring them from normal life if they have a conviction, and we have the recipe for disaster which is the current state of affairs. People with drug convictions are generally seen as having a scarlet letter of unemployability which generally keeps them in a state of addiction and/or homelessness and there is a massive stigma attached not only to drug addiction but mental health issues which usually go hand in hand. That makes it incredibly difficult to get proper treatment.
anigbrowl|2 years ago
Here's you're equating cops' default behavior with doing their job of law enforcement, while overlooking the fact that they often don't perform that job well because they discount reasonable possibilities that initially suspect activity is not actually illegal, and reflexively waive issues like presumption of innocence, 4th amendment limitations and so on. Read up on police training, which is terrible in the US.
bostonsre|2 years ago