Video - War on Drugs as money earner for police and the Prison Industrial Complex

[JohnyCanuck]

This is a 10 year old documentary from Dutch TV explaining how the war on drugs in the USA has turned into a big money earner for governments, police departments and the "prison industrial complex", but has not appeared to have had any significant impact on the illegal drug industry. The first minute or two is in Dutch but then it switches to English with Dutch in subtitles for the remainder of the video. (1hr 32min)

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=864268000924014458&ei=buWOSYLJOoqsrAKL3_C8Cw&q=dnw+war+on+drugs

[ixion]

1. That, and greasing the path to the Police State are the ONLY reasons

for these so-called 'wars'.

They have done nothing but destroy our society and ransack civil liberties.

End the drug 'war' now.

[JohnyCanuck]

2. "Greasing the path to the police state"

I believe you are right about that.

Blog entry linked below includes an embedded video of the mayor's interview with CNN following his home invasion and pets' execution by SWAT team.

Police State Keynesianism: Stimulating Tyranny

SNIP

Johnson, a private on the local police force, was making his accustomed rounds in the neighborhood when he saw a swarm of heavily armed men laying siege to the Calvo home. Inside, Cheye and his mother-in-law, Georgia Porter, were being held face-down at gunpoint with their hands tied behind their backs. The Calvo family's two black Labradors, Chase and Payton, were dead from gunshot wounds. The assailants who killed the dogs were leaving bloody bootprints throughout the home.

This home invasion was, of course, a law enforcement operation, typical of "no-knock" drug raids conducted practically every day across the country. The most significant difference wasn't that Cheye Calvo was completely innocent of involvement with narcotics; innocent people are terrorized and killed by drug raiders all the time. The key distinction here is that Mr. Calvo is Mayor of Berywn Heights. That's one reason why Officer Johnson intervened to help.

"That guy in there is crazy," one of the stormtroopers complained to Johnson as he emerged from the crime scene (that is, the scene of a crime committed under color of state "authority"). "He says he's the Mayor of Berwyn Heights."

"That is the Mayor of Berwyn Heights," Johnson told assailant, a member of the Prince George's County police department (which has overlapping jurisdiction with the town police). Johnson quickly contacted Berywn Heights Police Chief Patrick Murphy to tell him that a SWAT team had just laid waste the the Mayor's home and killed the family's dogs. Glancing around, he couldn't see any evidence of a search warrant. Inquiries about this omission were greeted with the assurance that the document was "en route."

SNIP

"Not that I don't trust the police," Johnson later commented to the Washington Post. "But I wanted to personally witness what was going to happen to my mayor, so if they (the SWAT team) say this guy went for a gun -- and he didn't -- it's not going to happen on my watch."

Roll that comment around in your mind for just a second.

http://freedominourtime.blogspot.com/2009/02/police-state-keynesianism-stimulating.html

[crikkett]

4. I remember this story. I think it was just last year.

Pvt. Johnson probably saved his Mayor's life, and the life of the Mayor's mother-in-law.

[Baikonour]

3. It's not a war.

Wars end.

[crikkett]

5. They also have real opponents and objectives. But- remember the 100 yrs war

between France and England.

The Church had to end that one, by the way.

[JohnyCanuck]

6. Cop Guilty of Kidnapping and Robbing Dealers, Reselling Drugs

WASHINGTON --- A federal jury in Memphis, Tenn., today found Arthur Sease IV, a former Memphis Police Department officer, guilty on forty-four counts of civil rights, narcotics, robbery and firearms offenses, Acting Assistant Attorney General Loretta King of the Civil Rights Division and U.S. Attorney Lawrence J. Laurenzi for the Western District of Tennessee announced.

The evidence at trial showed that from November 2003 through April 2006, Sease conspired with other Memphis police officers to use their authority as law enforcement officers, including their service weapons, to rob suspected drug dealers of cash, cocaine and marijuana. Sease and his co-conspirators would then resell the stolen drugs for their own profit. The government introduced proof of 16 separate robberies, as well as one attempted robbery. In each robbery, Sease or another uniformed Memphis police officer, would pull over a car containing suspected drug dealers and steal whatever drugs and cash that they found.

According to evidence presented at trial, Sease conspired with other Memphis drug dealers to arrange drug deals so that he could rob the other dealers when they arrived. On one occasion, evidence showed that Sease had a co-conspirator resell cocaine that Sease had stolen from one drug dealer to another drug dealer. Sease then pulled the buyer’s car over, stole the cocaine again and resold it. Sease and his co-conspirators kidnapped several drug dealers in an effort to get them to set up additional drug deals for Sease to rob.

Sease was a Memphis police officer from 2001 through 2005. He was discharged in 2005 for misconduct relating to one of the robberies. After he was fired, one of Sease’s co-conspirators, Andrew Hunt, became a Memphis reserve police officer and the two continued to rob drug dealers while pretending to be police officers, according to evidence presented at trial.

http://www.opposingviews.com/articles/news-cop-guilty-of-kidnapping-and-robbing-dealers-reselling-drugs

[leftstreet]

7. Reagan: "illegal drug and alcohol problems" wtf?

Video shows Raygun speech where he adds alcohol to drugs as being illegal substances. Freudian slip? Longing for the profit$ made from Prohibition?

Weird.