August 12, 2003

Legal loopholes: The ends justify the means?

Jed at newly blogrolled Boots and Sabers points to this story in which the use of threatened phony unlawful drug checkpoints along an Interstate Highway as a subterfuge so as to make those who are carrying drugs decide to make an illegal U-turn to avoid being checked. The Sheriff's Department then uses the illegal U-turn as a reason to stop the driver and then search the vehicle for drugs. Don't ya just love the way the War on Drugs is causing all this thinking on how we can get around the laws by the law enforcement agencies? See, you can't just stop everyone and search their car for drugs, because that is illegal. The Supremes have said so. So, how do you get around that ruling? You say you are going to do it, you put up a big sign saying you are going to do it, and those who think you are going to do it and don't want you to find anything will try to avoid letting you do it and turn around and go the other way. Guess what? Now they can do it, because you broke a law which allows them to stop you and search you incident to that arrest.

I don't know. I can see a very good fruit of the poisonous tree argument there. The check point is illegal, therefore advertising the checkpoint is illegal, therefore any action taken by the police resulting from activity associated with their illegal action should be illegal. The story says they have not netted any big fish in their efforts, but you can bet if they continue such and do net someone with some bucks, SCOTUS may be looking into this activity at some later point. What really concerns me is that law enforcement is so gung ho to use any means possible to stop something that has been shown to be unstoppable.

As I have said before, there has not been a decrease in drug supply or drug use; there has only been a movement from one drug to another, and with each succeeding movement, the drugs get more dangerous and more addictive. When can we get this damn drug mess out of the shadows and out into the open when we can deal with the real root of the drug problem? Where are the jobs? What sort of life can we offer people?

A nation full of McDonald's and Wal-Mart employees is not a nation where opportunity exists. Bring back the factories, bring back production, bring back construction. Take all those tax dollars spent on the damn War on Drugs and start using them to repair and rebuild the infrastructure. Give people a life worth living and maybe they will not find so many ways to block out the pain accompanying the one they have.

Posted by Tiger at August 12, 2003 08:55 PM
Comments

I hear ya. It really makes me sick to see all the money spent to net drug dealers. Not to mention the police officers put in harms way every day. How many cops got shot or killed over a few ounces of marijuana because the guy carrying it didn't want to go back to jail. Sick Sick sick. And everytime they nab someone of any scale of importance, that just creates an opportunity for someone else, which will be filled.

Ugh, I'm sick again.

Posted by: jaboobie at August 12, 2003 09:19 PM

oh yeah, the government can't even keep drugs out of maximum security federal prisons. so...

Posted by: jaboobie at August 12, 2003 09:20 PM

~!~

Posted by: Susie at August 12, 2003 09:30 PM

I think there's a disconnect here. The war on drugs is stupid and a waste of money, but either apply the money to the national debt or give it back to the taxpayers. We do not need new factories sitting empty and idle because the products they make can and are produced cheaper overseas.

We've become a service and tech oriented economy. Our steel industry is healthier now than it was 20 years ago because it shrank and modernized, but our steel is still more expensive than most of the imports. And it will be so until steelworker unions quit screaming for higher wages every year.

End of ramble, because I'm starting to wander. Hahahaha, too late.

Posted by: Ted Phipps at August 12, 2003 09:51 PM

Reminds me of the RAVE act. It was too much hassle to bust the kids for taking Ecstasy, so they criminalized little glow sticks and WATER, and made the club owners liable.

Posted by: Eric Scheie at August 21, 2003 01:06 AM