Drug use fix

[Bruce Tuncks]

There was news today about lots of drug use in SA. The cure was presented as the need for more drug rehabilitation clinics. 

While I don't mind these, I reckon the solution is to give rewards ( and protection if asked for ) to those who betray their suppliers.

Now I know that one response to this is that it is already being done, while I say it is not being done effectively.

Most of the pensioners I know, as well as the high-school kids, would be out there trying to buy drugs if they stood to get a grand from the deal. The whole industry would implode.

Why is this not being done?

 

.

[onetrack]

The most effective method of dealing with illegal drugs is for the Govt to produce drugs of high quality and purity and issue them at low cost, along with drug-use health advice, to those wishing to experiment with drugs.

This will have two immediate effects - One, it totally ruins the profitability of the drug-selling business, which is the main reason people become drug dealers. Two, it makes drug-using less attractive, because it's no longer illegal, and is Govt-supported.

 

I was just wondering earlier this morning, how Duterte's programme of shooting every drug dealer on sight is working? Haven't heard a thing about it lately, has the Philippines totally eliminated drugs and drug dealers, by now? 

[red750]

I don't know about drug dealers, but Duterte has a unique way of dealing with smugglers.

 

 

 

[red750]

And as for drug use,

 

[Bruce Tuncks]

I sure agree that decriminalization would be better, but I reckon our voting public are too stupid to vote for that.

It would be like how Al Capone cashed in on prohibition...  bootleggers would have been stuffed without prohibition.

So if you insist on having drugs illegal, why not use the power of capitalism against the trade? My suspicion is that the police would be hostile to losing so much business. I don't think that either they or the pollies are actually accepting bags of drug money, but I recall how the Down's Syndrome lot were horrified by the idea of using genetic testing to get rid of the disease.

Edited October 9, 2020 by Bruce Tuncks

[Yenn]

I think Portugal has decriminalised drug use and found no ill effects. We of course never hear of that, but I saw it in a Michael Moore video.

Our pollies love to push the Lorn n order platform at election time and that would be one less thing for them to prattle on about. They could really look at the legality of some of the things done by government, to advantage.

[spacesailor]

BUT  !

Just like smoking, it,s harder to quit if easily obtained.

AND 

Why should self inflicted drugies get FREE NEEDLES , & methodone, when diebetics have to pay for their needles

And cancer patients have to pay for cancer drugs ? .

I had to go Cold turkey,  after leaving hospital, with their opiat drugs.

So it can be beaten. 

spacesailor

[old man emu]

3 hours ago, Bruce Tuncks said:

My suspicion is that the police would be hostile to losing so much business. I don't think that either they or the pollies are actually accepting bags of drug money,

How can you say one thing, then diametrically oppose it in the next?

 

Actually I find that generalisation highly offensive to me as a person who spent several decades of his life serving the community in policing. (Note that I don't call it "law enforcement". That's the description of the oppressive methods used in the USA.) The generalisation implies that every person serving their community in blue is a criminal. Dare you say that about Ambos who actually carry drugs of addiction with them as part of their tools of trade? What about nurses in our A&E wards? They have first access to the possessions of patients who may be in possession of drugs, money or other valuables at the time of admission.

 

Just because you don't like being directed to meet your responsibilities to Society, don't malign every person who has the duty to do that directing.

[Bruce Tuncks]

OME, I don't think that the police in general are corrupt. What I said was that they would be giving away a lot of their territory if the idea of using rewards was implemented. And that territory covers a lot of jobs and promotions. To say that I said that everybody in blue is a criminal is complete nonsense.

 

I don't like the attitude of yours. It is fascist to glorify police and seek to give them unlimited powers. If you look at the world objectively, you will see that the most civilized countries are those which have the smallest police powers.

 

I well remember before police in SA carried guns. I think I detected a difference in their gait after being given guns, they began to swagger. And the police person who achieved this guns carrying business ? He was later sent to jail for armed robbery and for being a drug criminal.

[old man emu]

46 minutes ago, Bruce Tuncks said:

that they would be giving away a lot of their territory if the idea of using rewards was implemented

By "territory" do you mean "scope of employment"? If information was received through the stimulus of reward, the police still have to go out and collar offenders.  Their workload would increase dramatically. Life is not like TV. You don't just whisper into the crook's shell-like ear, 'You're nicked, Sunshine." Every arrest can involve hours of work preparing Briefs of Evidence and court appearances. So when police increase drug-related arrests, all the other tasks that they are meant to deal with - domestic violence; neighbour disputes; thefts of all kinds and traffic accidents - go by the wayside. 

 

It is an indictment on our society that in order to obtain the information necessary to apprehend these drug dealers who are the scourge of the community, rewards have to be paid. 

 

59 minutes ago, Bruce Tuncks said:

It is fascist to glorify police

Who glorified the police? There's more who will vilify the police after the person has been directed to meet their responsibilities to Society because the person hasn't the moral fibre to admit that they have failed in that duty. 

 

1 hour ago, Bruce Tuncks said:

seek to give them unlimited powers

Every power which police exercise has been bestowed on them either through historical precedent (the Common Law) or by the elected representatives of the people in Parliament. It is the Parliament that sets the limits, not the police. If you want to understand the limits of police powers, put on a blue suit for a week or two and find out how much police cannot do.

 

I can't comment on a before and after scenario about going armed. I carried a pistol on duty for 28 years. Before I was issued with one I had the law on the usage of it drummed into me. I was even required to submit a report of teh circumstances if I fired a round to euthanise an injured animal.

[Yenn]

OME I applaud your standing up for the police force. Theirs is a very hard job and no doubt the majority of them try to do a good job. But and it is a big But. There were a lot of them that couldn't tell truth from lies and would lie before the magistrates to get a conviction. The magistrates were even more evil, in that they condoned the practice.

As far as I can see now a lot of that has been cleaned out, but it left a very nasty taste in my mouth.

All my recent dealings with the police leave me thinking they are trying to do a good job and I even wonder how they can keep on trying so hard, when life is stacked against them.

Maybe I was just unlucky to live in Qld during the police corruption years, but it started at the top with the top dog politicians.

[Bruce Tuncks]

I know several police and retired police , and they are good mates of mine and I reckon they must have been good at their jobs too. Good guys.

This does not mean that the rules under which they had to operate could not be improved. Sometimes well-meaning but stupid orders got in the way of common sense. I well remember a SA police commissioner ( Harold Salisbury) who tried to inflame an anti-Vietnam war protest by seeking a confrontation with massed police against 10,000 mainly peaceful demonstrators. I felt sorry for the police rank and file, many of whom would have secretly agreed with the protesters. The labor government of the time were clearly planned to be arrested, but they wisely got out of town and were conspicuous by their absence from the march.

Salisbury was ( much later) conspicuously not renewed and sent back to where he had come from, with a few protests from the extreme right at his "treatment".

Now even Harold was not corrupt. A corrupt person would have seeded the crowd with agents provocateurs who would have thrown firecrackers under the horses  of the stupidly-deployed  mounted police. Harold was a stupid  man, but he was not wicked.

Personally, I was not there, but the protesters were right as was eventually shown.

[spacesailor]

"  seeking a confrontation with massed police against 10,000 mainly peaceful demonstrators "

Not as bad as that Pome " coalminers strike ",  when the army shot the marching strikers, killing a lot of unarmed civilians !. 

A lot of northern English, would like the Scot's to bring their boarder down to southern Wales.

spacesailor

[old man emu]

Crowd control at demonstrations is a nasty job. Obviously the participants in the demonstration have disagreements with one Government policy or another and are fired up. Police as supposed to be present to ensure that the participants follow the conditions agree upon for freedom of movement of non-participants. Police were also present to prevent fights between followers of opposing points of view. However, hot-heads amongst the participants feel that their grievances can be better aired by taking action against employees of the government and the closest ate the police. Even before COVID, spitting on a person was considered really offensive (and an assault), so it  is no wonder that when hot-heads spat on police they were puled out of the procession, usually with a great deal of resistance and cliches of "police brutality".

 

Would the best approach police could take would be to keep well away from these demonstrations and let the participants do - in anonymity - whatever they liked to do? What if your wife happened to be in the vicinity going about shopping or other business and was prevented from doing so by demonstrators. Would she complain that the police were not there to protect her Rights?

 

 

[Bruce Tuncks]

Just today there was a story about 2000 negros in one of the Carolinas  who were going to vote until they were attacked by massed police. Why? " For public safety" said the police superintendant.

( the story did not use the word negros. That is my doing.)

And yes, OME, safety of all concerned in that Adelaide march would have been better if the police had not come at all.

[Marty_d]

On 11/10/2020 at 8:29 AM, old man emu said:

...and the closest ate the police.

 

 

Really???

[old man emu]

10 hours ago, Marty_d said:

Really???

It's one thing to be pedantic about grammar, but being pedantic about misspellings is another typo pedanticism.

[Marty_d]

I'm not normally pedantic about spelling mistakes OME, it was just that the meaning got totally changed.  My twisted mind found it amusing.

[Yenn]

So OME left off the "h", or was it something else, maybe "be"

[spacesailor]

ARRE

I didn't notice at first and had to go back to check it.

ARE 

spacesailor

[old man emu]

3 hours ago, Marty_d said:

My twisted mind found it amusing.

Going back to find the mistake, I can see how it would amuse. And Yenn's way of changing the meaning by adding "h" to "ate" also changes the meaning.

 

 

The correct wording should be: the participants feel that their grievances can be better aired by taking action against employees of the government and the closest are the police.

 

 

[Bruce Tuncks]

OME, in this case the government ( Dunstan at al ) were on the side of the demonstrators. It was the police commissioner who, against the wishes of the government,  decided to do this thing of pitting the police against the demonstrators.

At the time, I thought he was hoping to arrest a bunch of government MP's, including the premier. I reckon they thought this too so they got out of town and were conspicuous by their absence from the demonstration.

They got even much later and sacked that police commissioner.