Last year, a friend of a friend was pulled over by the police for a minor traffic violation. They wrote her a ticket and, despite lack of evidence, requested to search her car. She complied, and after literally tearing apart the interior of her car, the officers found a small amount of marijuana and a pipe; this lead to a mandatory court appearance and, thankfully, no jail time. This young woman, intimidated by police officers, consented to a vehicle search because she did not know she had the right to refuse. I feel as though I would have done the same thing in her situation out of anxiety and a fear of what could happen if I said no.
I simply do not understand why the federal government continues to offer incentives to local government to increase drug crime arrests. Why would a politician wanting to appear “tough on crime” choose drug crime over every other possibility? I would much rather politicians be tough on violent crimes like murder, rape and domestic violence than petty drug crime. It is also completely ridiculous that 80% of drug arrests are of users, not dealers. I can only hope that someday the government will adapt the Harm Reduction Coalition’s stance that ensuring drug users are using safely is more important than incarcerating them with little means to effectively curb addiction. Ideally, our government would go Portugal’s route and legalize all drugs; I highly doubt it would cause worse circumstances than the War on Drugs already has.
