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- Thread starter Nittany Ned2
- Start date
I get that if you're LE and stumble on to some weed during your normal course of the day, you feel some pressure to act (after all, it is the law, even if stupid law).
But to go out of your way, and spend valuable resources (PDs always cry that they're under staffed and funded), to find and bust people for weed-related offenses? To me, that's the PD sending a message to its municipality that it's got cash to burn, and I would want their appropriations cut.
These are lifetime consequences. A drug arrest and the kid can forget about something like 200 careers. If it's selling heroin or meth, ok, but weed...
I've talked about this with my kids, I think it would be really good if pot could not only be legalized but replace alcohol as the drug of choice among college students. We'd see a lot fewer dead fraternity brothers, we'd see a lot fewer drunk driving incidents and people jumping off buildings and getting in fights. We'd see a lot less vomit in alleyways and drunk students uriniating in people's yards in State College.
And we'd see a lot fewer very difficult sexual assault cases involving young women who were either raped while passed out or willingly had sex while so drunk they can't remember in the morning what happened. If pot were the drug of choice, most of this stuff just would not exist. Yeah, stoned people still make bad decisions, but it usually involves excessive ice cream, not crime.
I know police have their job to do, but as a public health policy, arresting people for pot is just a phenomenal waste of resources in order to basically ruin a young person's life. The cost is extremely high and it is hard to see any benefit whatsoever.
I've talked about this with my kids, I think it would be really good if pot could not only be legalized but replace alcohol as the drug of choice among college students. We'd see a lot fewer dead fraternity brothers, we'd see a lot fewer drunk driving incidents and people jumping off buildings and getting in fights. We'd see a lot less vomit in alleyways and drunk students uriniating in people's yards in State College.
And we'd see a lot fewer very difficult sexual assault cases involving young women who were either raped while passed out or willingly had sex while so drunk they can't remember in the morning what happened. If pot were the drug of choice, most of this stuff just would not exist. Yeah, stoned people still make bad decisions, but it usually involves excessive ice cream, not crime.
I know police have their job to do, but as a public health policy, arresting people for pot is just a phenomenal waste of resources in order to basically ruin a young person's life. The cost is extremely high and it is hard to see any benefit whatsoever.
I'm not sure why they wouldn't try to bust people for weed. They bust people for selling cigarettes to minors... even sending kids into stores to purchase and deliberately trying to take advantage of cashiers.
They shut down bars on St. Patrick's Day count people and force everyone to show ID before they can leave.
They bust people for going 10 MPH over the limit on open stretches of highway with no other cars in sight.
Seems this fits right in. Weed is illegal. It's time for people to understand that and not think it deserves special treatment. Police will do anything to make a buck.
LdN
It's a really good point. I used to have this civics textbook idea about law enforcement. But then came the Ferguson MO protests -- and the subsequent reporting really exposed how much of the law enforcement activity in the St. Louis suburbs (i.e. most of it) was simply, at its core, a racket to shake down poor people for what little money they had. Had absolutely nothing to do with making those communities safer. The other one that got me was that poor guy shot in his car in front of his girlfriend outside Minnesota -- he was just a law abiding working stiff and he'd been pulled over something like 56 times over the last 10 years to get 3 minor traffic tickets. But he was black and drove the wrong kind of car that signaled to police he'd be a good target. The guy died basically for ticket quotas.
The numbers don't add up. 1) not enough pot arrests over the years to make a dent in any election and 2) a lot of pot smokers didn't/don't vote anyway.
Are you saying you should be allowed to sell your own prescription? That makes no sense and makes your argument on weed appear you just want everything legal.
Legalizing marijuana - and immediately releasing all persons currently imprisoned for marijuana offenses and commuting the sentences of those who were previously imprisoned - is as much a moral issue as it is a legal, economic, and financial issue.
Without getting too political, both sides of the aisle benefit from it being illegal. It’s a galvanization tool. If it’s legal the left loses enthusiasm from a core constituency. Claiming it’s a dangerous drug, immoral, and should be prosecuted gets the right riled up. Win win for politicians, loss for the people.
I kind of laugh that you think our tax dollars are scarce.
But more importantly I laugh that you think they are scarce enough that we shouldn't combat kids sharing prescription meds like Aderall as if it's skittles.
And some of you wonder why we have an opioid epidemic.
LdN
