cannabisnews.com: Time to Look at Government's Drug Policy!





Time to Look at Government's Drug Policy!
Posted by FoM on July 03, 1999 at 12:20:46 PT
Letters To The Editor
Source: The Seattle Times
Drug WarTime to take a hard look at government's drug policy. The Seattle Police Department should seriously reconsider its unethical war on drugs.
If the mistreatment of Medical Marijuana patient Mark Means was not bad enough ("Marijuana law trips up patients and police," June 14), SPD officers have been giving narcotics to addicts in exchange for information. This tactic, known as a "buy-bust," is a shameful way to uphold the law. The citizens of Washington should be outraged that such a tactic is legal ("Drug bust tactics ethical?" June 20). In addition, Seattle City Attorney Mark Sidran, who has prosecuted "buy-bust" cases, claims that the civil liability of these tactics are not much of a concern. Imagine an addict dying from an overdose from narcotics provided by the Seattle Police Department. With his statement, Sidran condones controlled-substance homicide, as mentioned in state law. When a public official condones homicide in the name of the war on drugs, it is time to take a hard look at our government's drug policy. When police give out narcotics to society's most vulnerable members while at the same time implementing policy that denies legitimate patients the right to grow their own medicine, something is terribly wrong. Tyree Callahan, Bellingham Drugs, Sex No Big Deal I have been reading a number of articles in your paper with growing alarm and astonishment, culminating with the one in The Times titled "Drug busts tactics ethical?" (June 20). We are told that the police use unsuspecting "clucks" to bring together the drug dealer and the policeman. The "clucks" are then rewarded for their unwitting betrayal with enough money to buy drugs for themselves or else the police just cut out the middleman and simply hand over a portion of the drugs they just purchased. I was shocked to learn that state law specifically allows police to violate some laws in order to enforce others. I have just returned from Amsterdam where both marijuana and prostitution are legalized and regulated by the government, and guess what? It's no big deal! I expected to see the streets filled with spaced-out hippies and slovenly streetwalkers. We like to say that America is the land of the free but the ratio of people in prison to population here is second only to Russia, and most of those citizens are incarcerated for drug offenses. My friends, I am here to tell you that sex is natural and a smoking gun is a lot more dangerous than a smoking pipe. Marshall Dunlap, Kent Pubdate: Saturday July 3 1999 The Seattle TimesLetters to the Editor 
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