Why would police do something like that? Well more busts (stats) mean more money.I liked this comment: http://reason.com/reasontv/2013/10/09/r ... nt_4055475
From the linked article: "The Los Angeles Police Department pioneered undercover drug busts in high schools decades ago. But the department discontinued its program in 2005 after Los Angeles Unified School District officials noticed an increasing number of students arrested were in special education and that police typically found very small amounts of marijuana. District officials feared the program was failing to catch the serious drug dealers."
EVEN the authorities in the public corruption ridden agencies of LA think these "busts" are a bad idea...
I like this neuroscientist's take on Drug Hysteria http://reason.com/archives/2013/10/10/t ... for-decrim. The anti-drug anecdotes are endlessly recycled. Beware of the "new menace". It is the same as the old menace. Too much government. But those in the so called "anti-government party" are suckers for these stories. "Only government can protect us from this menace" is ever their refrain. Wait. Isn't that the refrain of the "pro-government party"? Yes. It is. Too funny.
The whole modern world has divided itself into Conservatives and Progressives. The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of Conservatives is to prevent mistakes from being corrected. Even when the revolutionist might himself repent of his revolution, the traditionalist is already defending it as part of his tradition. Thus we have two great types -- the advanced person who rushes us into ruin, and the retrospective person who admires the ruins. He admires them especially by moonlight, not to say moonshine. Each new blunder of the progressive or prig becomes instantly a legend of immemorial antiquity for the snob. This is called the balance, or mutual check, in our Constitution. — G.K. ChestertonAnother story that was recounted was that methamphetamine was like no other drug that law enforcement had ever seen. This particular cop said he had more than twentysomething years experience on the force and had never seen anything like methamphetamine-and he had seen crack users and that sort of thing. This drug methamphetamine, he claimed, exerted unique pharmacological effects. Finally, when I challenged some of the claims that were being made, he turned to me and said: "Dr. Hart, when you see a parent cut the head of their child off and throw it at you then maybe perhaps you will become a believer."
I tried to explain that these types of stories, these anecdotes-particularly about drugs-weren't new. We had heard them before. The stories about drug users developing superhuman strength, the stories about some new drug being like no other drug we've ever seen, and the stories about drugs causing this sort of wide range of cognitive disruption.
What I'd like to do is evaluate these three sorts of claims that seem to be pervasive in our history when it comes to drugs.
The first [is] these individuals developing superhuman strength. If you go back to The New York Times, for example, on February 8, 1914, what you find is a huge editorial: "Negro Cocaine Fiends Are New Southern Menace." In this piece the author argued that black people, when they have cocaine, they develop superhuman strength. So much so that southern police forces had to increase the caliber of their weapons. They moved from the .32 caliber weapon to the .38 caliber weapon because the .32 caliber weapon or bullets didn't affect black people on cocaine.
I ought to note that Prohibition as the solution to our drug problems was a Progressive invention. Now championed by "Conservatives". Too funny. And the "Conservative's" excuse for doing this conserving of Progressive errors? "This time it is different. The this time the menace is real. ONLY. GOVERNMENT. CAN. SAVE. US."