Re: The Bigger, Badder, Even More Serious Thread

[Orwell]

I guess this all stands on where you morally place Law and Order. There are things you can agree and disagree with, but if you're sworn to uphold the laws of the juristiction, then aren't you bound to uphold them? As to drugs, Petty, at the moment the "unlicensed" manufacture and selling and supply of drugs is a criminal offence, the "use" here is substantially decriminalized. We don't kick a door in unless we have solid evidence of trafficking in illegal drugs. In my current line of work warrants usually entail knocking on a door, showing a warrant, then searching a premises. This does not involve an orc-like destruction of people's properties. The badder the drug trafficker the more dangerous the job. I don't approve of traffickers. If drugs were legalized, the police would still have to kick doors in for illegal manufacturers btw. Even you guys are not suggesting ALL drugs should be legal, and ANYONE can sell them without restriction?

Btw the constant suggestion that I might be a good cop, one of some minority, is just ridiculous, and I'm not saying I'm dishonest. The dishonest cop is in the minority where I come from. The cop who breaks the law is in the minority. "Good" cops hate "Corrupt"cops more than even you can, Petty and GB, for they give us all a bad name, which flows onto our husbands, wives and children, who, being married to such an evil species, wear the "splatter-shot" criticism some folk have generally for police.

Every cop and every cop involvement needs to be checked on its merits - and fairly. Unfortunately, it's easier to be an ideologue than "critique" events with "clear thinking" rather than emotion because of a bad involvement or two someone has with police and ill-informed gossip.

I agree that police, with the role and power we have in certain circumstances, must be under constant scrutiny. I hate the idea of Police States. Always will. If I ever had to do something contrary to my ethics, like killing Muslims, or Socialists, or peacefully protesting Scotshobbits, for no other reason than the State trying to shut them up, then I'd be reaching for my claymore - most cops I know believe we're the thin blue line between order and chaos. We have to obey the laws. If change is required, then you guys need to continue to change the law.

Sorry Petty, if you're growing or selling drugs (or just using, if that's unlawful where you are) then expect I have to do my job. Nothing personal. I don't see it as of such a high moral status that I would resign to avoid doing it. I can't put you before or after anyone else - that would be corrupt! As things stand, illicit drugs do a whole mountain of harm. Some greedy rich people trade on the suffering of others - which might be my kids. Morally, I would seek to protect my kids from drugs that are untestted, unregulated and, of course, illegal. Legalized, I would have to put up with it, like I do alcohol and prescription drugs. Even so, there will always be people who manufacture and grow "without" a licence. What do we do with them?

Just another thought, Petty. Where I come from, police corroborate each others evidence. So I might take notes and make a statement and my partner/s are allowed to read them like their own - if they are a party to the same event and were present - and "adopt" them as they're own notes. It's actually lawful where I come from. They can disagree with them also, and perspectives can be different. So long as no one has done the wrong thing we have nothing to worry about. Stories that match up too close may in fact sound dodgy at court. Unless you're deliberately setting someone up you wouldn't bother - and no one I know has ever personally hated someone enough to involve me or those with me at any given time to unfairly screw someone over. Again, why would I? Usually, you have the evidence or you don't. I'm a street cop mind, so how it is with those cops dealing with the really bad boys (and girls), I couldn't say. I'm outside of all that and only have the media (and cop shows) to inform me of the facts of any given event, no direct experience. Each case on its merits I would think to be the best way to deal with any allegations. Tested. Maybe by fair trial?

[Pettytyrant101]

Don't mistake me Orwell, I am not advocating drugs it seemed to be a good example of what I was trying to say as worldwide there is huge consumption and huge criminalzation. And much of the major problems, the trafficking, the impurity, the lack of testing and the money ending up in the hand of seriously dangerous peoplewith small armies at their command can be suarely laid at the fee tof politicians. I have lost track of the number of politicians who after they left office said they were against the drug laws but upheld them whilst in office (Koffi Anan being the latest of them). But I did not mean this to be sidetracked into a discusiion on the merits of drug laws rather to demonstrate that if you join the police then you agree to uphold the law, and there must be occasion when you find yourself soing something that under any other circumstances you would not normally have acted or even necessarily viewed it as crime, but the law says it is. And the other point I wa trying to make is that when the police are called upon to enforce a law which is either unpopular or criminalises very large numbers of society they are setting themselves up to be hated. The consequences of which is not good for society as I do actually believe in a rule of law and that ideally a partenership between the citizen and the people who police society. Whereas here at least the very opposite of that seems to have happened over the course of my life. There must be a reason for this.

[Gandalf's Beard]

Don't have a cow Odo, I was only using you as an example that one shouldn't immediately assume that all cops suck!

GB

[Pettytyrant101]

In Scottish law every policeman has a notebook and they are suposed to fill it out and not let anyone see them, then they have to read out what they wrote at the time, the idea being if they are setting someone up the reports will show this by differing. So the theory goes, if the Court my father worked in is any typical example its a law observed more in the breaching than the honouring.

[Orwell]

If someone had a trafficable quantiy of drugs, I'd arrest them, interview them and charge them (once the brief was authorized). I would probably have some sympathy for a "casual" trafficker ie some kid getting some for his mates re cannabis. ((((((((((Indeed, the eye can sometimes be turned away so long as the small amount of illegal stuff is destroyed before me. Hope this encryption is strong enough!))))) Heroin, not knowing it's source, scares me. If cannabis was legalised, I'd lose no sleep. Though surely it would need regulation. To make sure the smoker was ONLY getting cannabis in the mix. They would have to have those horrid pictures they put on cigarette packets nowadays - to dissuade us from taking up a cancerous habit!? Anyhow, I don't think it immoral to arrest someone for having an "arrestable" quantity of cannabis. Magistrates can be quite lenient on fines, and convict only repeat offenders in my experience. Those arrests are always well mannered - though sometimes you get a lecture on Human Freedom. Personally, I don't mind a good debate on the rights and wrongs of the Law - but I still do my job. And cannabis is not as safe as folk make out so I don't believe "strongly" that it should be legalised. Maybe it should, maybe it shouldn't. It certainly would require regulation, as I said. Even panadol is regulated - to avoid dangerous mishaps.

I would not risk my life to legalise cannabis, but I would to support you're right to lobby! I'm a namby-pamby democratic type, after all.

[Orwell]

Sorry posting at the same again. (I updated my first post re note taking while you posted your first reply, Petty!) Obviously, our laws on that differ. As I said, we can adopt each others notes as "corroborators." Most of my interviews are on audio visual at the station nowadays. It gives the interviewee his/her best opportunity to say what their version is of what happened close to the time of the happening. Also, most times there are independant witnesses who are NOT allowed to be coached. Cops could get into big trouble for doing that! Not worth the risk. Witnesses don't like lying at court. Nor would I. Go to jail for that. Do not pass Go. Why would you risk it?


Did you call me a cow, GB? (Don't know what that is - sounds defamatory though!)

[Pettytyrant101]

"I don't see it as of such a high moral status that I would resign to avoid doing it."- Odo

I suppose its how you view it whether its of a high enough moral status. If the polce were to come thorugh my door again now, in my later years it would no lnger matter as I am doing nothing wrong, howver in my youth, at the time of the bust it was a different matter and I was a cannabis smoker (and just a smoker, a low level one at that). It was luck as much as anything which meant there was nothing there in my tobacco tin that night. But lets assume there was. What would have happened? Well I would have spent 3 nights in jail without charge for a start as it was a Friday night and in Scotland you can only be charged by the Prosecuter Fiscal and they don't work weekends so you have to wait till the Monday to go up and see them so its the cells until then. Then I would have been charged and a court appearence set. I would have been found guilty and most likely for small personnal use fined about £500 (I had a friend about that time I used to work with got a fine that size for being caught in the stret with 0.8 of a gram of cannabis). However I was then, as I am now a care worker, so it would have cost me my job. Had I just been turning up at work every day reeking of alcohol I would have been suspended with councilling and pay. But not only would I have lost my job I would have been unable to get another one in care. To get a job in care work you need a Disclosure, which is a list for your employers of any criminal charge you have ever had. A drug charge (and the Disclosure does not say which drug, just that it was under the MISuse of Drugs act) means no job. I've always done care so no other skills, no qualifications that would really help. I could have tried to get more qualifications but at the end of it same problem, a drug charge. And as more and more legitiamte ways of being a member of society are needlessly cut off necessity may have led to more criminal ones. And rather than being the contributing member of society I ended up it could have been very different. And if you are the copper who arrested me and started it all off are you entirely morally exonorated from the consequnecse the person you arrest may face? I don't know the answer to that. I suspect its individual.


Posting at same time again Orwell! I agree, cannabis is not completely safe, no drug is, but relative to other legal ones it is safer. And of course it would require monitoring and checks exactly the same as any other consumable product does and illegal trrafficking, as happens with cigarrettes and alcohol would still be illegal. But at least if it was legal it could be regulated and the tax raised used to aid society rather than to aid crazy warlords somewhere.

[Orwell]

Why was it so important to you that you would risk your livelihood to smoke? Have the laws softened since?

[Pettytyrant101]

I was young!

edit add- not really, it swung towards decriminilisation, they moved it down a band to class C the tabloids declared it was armegedon and the politicians, as always backed off and reinstated cannabis as class B.

Class A Ecstasy, LSD, heroin, cocaine, crack, magic mushrooms, amphetamines (if prepared for injection). Up to seven years in prison or an unlimited fine or both. Up to life in prison or an unlimited fine or both.
Class B Amphetamines, Cannabis, Methylphenidate (Ritalin), Pholcodine. Up to five years in prison or an unlimited fine or both. Up to 14 years in prison or an unlimited fine or both.
Class C Tranquilisers, some painkillers, Gamma hydroxybutyrate (GHB), Ketamine. Up to two years in prison or an unlimited fine or both. Up to 14 years in prison or an unlimited fine or both.

Ive never understoof what magic mushrooms are doing in class A! Tey grow everywhere around here and I don't know how people can exist in this universe without having at least once had a first hand expercience of how perception works!! This is an anti-shamn law! Its discriminatory.

[Orwell]

Class A Ecstasy, LSD, heroin, cocaine, crack, magic mushrooms, amphetamines (if prepared for injection). Up to seven years in prison or an unlimited fine or both. Up to life in prison or an unlimited fine or both.
Class B Amphetamines, Cannabis, Methylphenidate (Ritalin), Pholcodine. Up to five years in prison or an unlimited fine or both. Up to 14 years in prison or an unlimited fine or both.
Class C Tranquilisers, some painkillers, Gamma hydroxybutyrate (GHB), Ketamine. Up to two years in prison or an unlimited fine or both. Up to 14 years in prison or an unlimited fine or both.


Is this trafficking, or just "use"?

[Pettytyrant101]

First by use, second trafficking. So cannabis is 'Up to five years in prison or an unlimited fine or both.' for use. And 'Up to 14 years in prison or an unlimited fine or both.' for dealing and trafficking.

[Gandalf's Beard]

Sorry Odo, I should have said Orwell.

I have actually had a very positive experience in regards to being caught with a small quantity of cannabis. Some cops were on the prowl for a burglar, and I was walking to a bus-stop. There were a couple of patrol cars, that pulled up. One of the officers (a rather attractive female one at that) approached me and said they were looking for a burglar in the area, and that I possibly fit the description. She asked me to consent to having my backpack searched, which I did. I prayed to the Goddess that she would overlook my stash, but I fully expected to be caught out and arrested and was shaking in my boots (sneakers actually).

Of course she found my stash, it was hard to miss. She looked over her shoulder at the other cops to see if they were looking our way. Then she quietly put my stash back in my backpack and said that i didn't have the burgled goods and that I was free to go.

GB

[Orwell]

Magic Mushrooms? Aren't they things you need to know quite a bit about before you even try them?

As a tangent, when I was young my mate dropped a tab of LSD. He had such a bad experience he never touched illicit drugs again - including cannabis - though he continued with alcohol for many years. I had a puff here and there myself when young, but I stopped doing it long before I thought about persecuting young people over smoking it. I had it once or twice when pissed and maybe once or twice when sober. Really, didn't do much for me. When I was writing songs or music I was happiest. Alcohol and canabis never helped with that. The greatest highs I ever got was playing my songs - either to friends, or at gigs, or even just in my room. Still do.

(((((Maybe I should send my DVDS to you, Petty. Though they might make you turn to harder drugs! )))))

[Orwell]

I'll have that girl's badge, GB!!!!

It happens ---- err --- quite a lot -----

[Orwell]

Cannabis use, Petty! My god! That sounds harsh! First use - or repeated?

[Pettytyrant101]

You've had a better time of it than I had then GB. As well as the bust and the stops within a week or two of each other I was taken off the street and strip searched in the station, where they quite delibrately left the door half open, it overlooked the recipoin desks where the two female receptionists sat. I assume it was an attempt to humilate or embarass me. But way I saw it one of them was about to crouch down part a strangers bum cheeks and stare up their a**e-hole with a torch, and that such a person was in no position to humilate anyone. So I emphatically whipped off my clothes, gave the reciptionists a cheery grin and didn't bat an eyelid. I also ran into trouble during the intervew. Given what had been happening it seemed useless to me to deny I smoked cannabis as I reckoned they must already know that and I'd only be insulting them denying it. But it got this agrresive response "So you're a drug abuser then?" To which I replied, "No, I'm a drug user." "No, you're a drug abuser." "No, I use cannabis, I've never abused it. I'm not even sure how you could." "No, youre a drug user." This went on in increasing aggression and pointlesness for far too long and did nothing to persuade me that jokes about police IQ's were amiss. (A notion not helped years later in an unrelated incident when I had been up the hill behind town looking at the stars. I came back down about 2am as the midgies were eating me alive, and just as I did a police van went by, slowed and reversed. I was asked not unreasonably what I was doing and I explained I was looking at the stars to which the cop said "And you have to that at 2 in the morning do you?" Do her credit his partner didn't know where to look and I didn't know what to say to that in reply and eventually said something along the lines of "Its easier to see them at night" To which he retored "If you want to be a smart-a**e you can easily find yourself in the back of the van." To this day I have no idea what sort of answer would have satisfied him!)

Orwell in practice how it works is a first offence will get you a fine proportional to what you can afford (if your unemployed this can be as little as £5 a week until its paid up). Fines are the normal even for persisent use for the good reason all the jails are already overcrowded and with the cuts the government can't easily justify building more. And in general even judges see no point in sending someone to jail for smoking a joint in their own home. By far in practice the bigger problem is giving so many people a criminal record greatly effecting their future prospects.

As to magic mushrooms- its expercience is not like LSD, I have tried them both in my youth, a lot during one crazy summer and Autumn (the mushrooms bloom in Autumn roughly). LSD is a chemical high. Mushrooms is a natural high and the two are not the same expercience at all. LSD is darker than mushrooms in mood often but mushrooms are more out there, for want of a better phrase. If you hear someone recounting a drug trip and the tv was alive and trying to eat them, or they say they could fly or they were chased by monsters they have never actually done it- its not at all like what you expect it will be before you do it. From my own expercience and as objective a view o f it as I can take I would say it stops your brain from perceiving in the normal order. Normally light is seen with the eyes, not felt as an emotion, but on mushrooms it could well be expercience dthat way, almost like a random rewiring of how your brain is interpreting the infromation and through which senses. Experiencing this taught me in a very practical way that the world of everyday life is no less a construct of the brain than a trip is, only difference its been made permenant. The only way I know of to understand that is by tripping and briefly seeing it from the outside. Its one thing to intellectually understand the concept, its another when your body has a phyical memory of it.
It has helped me immensly over the years in understanding the patients with mental health an ddementia I have helped to care for. I honestly believe everyone should do mushroom once in their lifetime or they will never really know what sort of world they are really in and how each of us constructs it.

edit- you can not only send me them Orwell- I can make you a music video to go with them!

[Orwell]

edit- you can not only send me them Orwell- I can make you a music video to go with them!

Once I know how, I'll send you one. (You're a brave laddie, I ken).

As to you're out-of-body experiences.

"It's a dangerous thing, Frodo, when you step out of your body, for you never know where you'll end up."

Wise words those. I'm not riskin' anything Petty. Too set in my ways. (Could lose my job too!)

[Pettytyrant101]

"It's a dangerous thing, Frodo, when you step out of your body, for you never know where you'll end up."- Orwell



The very first time I took mushrooms with a friend we prepared for a month. We worried over psycological issues, we thought we might have a bad trip and go into some dark place in our pschye. We made plans, one of us would take it first (on the toss of a coin) so the other was ok for the start of it in case it all went wrong. We let my friends mother know (an old hippie who must have been laughing herself silly) about it and gave her instruction on when to check in on us, things to look out for. We even had a medkit. And then I did it and none of that meant a thing because what it was was something else entirely and nothing like I had feared and worried over (in fact fear and worry were no longer viable or even concepts). Nor is it a thing that can be sustained over a long period, you don't want to do it for years and years regularly. It would I think eventually crack you one way or the other. The fear of 'losing control' is the biggest factor, and its true to a degree, once you're on a trip there is no getting off till its done. But as a single expercience I can think of no other that is quite so informative as to the fundamentals of ourselves as things that perceive. I can easily see why the expercience was so highly prized as a rite of passage in 'primitve' tribes and also why the huge rise in its use in universities in the 1960's gave us today physicists and their quantum thinking.

edit add- "Once I know how, I'll send you one."- Orwell. -I think I can give you access to upload stuff to my skydrive. I'll check it out as an option if you don't have a better one.

[Pettytyrant101]

On the side issue of drug laws I found this on the BBC news;

'The designation of drugs in classes A, B and C should be replaced with one more closely reflecting the harm they cause, a committee of MPs has said.
The Science Select Committee said the present system was based on historical assumptions, not scientific assessment.
BBC News has seen details of a system devised by government advisers which was considered by former Home Secretary Charles Clarke but is now on hold.
It rates some illegal drugs as less harmful than alcohol and tobacco.
The new system was based on the first scientific assessment of 20 legal and illegal stimulants used in contemporary Britain.
Alcohol was rated the fifth most harmful drug, ahead of some current class A drugs, while tobacco was listed as ninth. Cannabis, currently rated a class C drug, was below both those legal stimulants at 11th.
The MPs said including alcohol and tobacco in the classification would give the public "a better sense of the relative harms involved".
They also denounced the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs - which provides scientific guidance to the government - for "dereliction of duty"
He went on: "It's time to bring in a more systematic and scientific approach to drug classification - how can we get the message across to young people if what we are saying is not based on evidence?"

Here's the chart of harm based on evidence they have drawn up-



[img][/img]

This report and its findings is dated Monday, 31 July 2006. This is why the UK governments attitude to drugs I find so incredible and hypocritcal. The Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, described in the report as being in derilection of their duty is still advicing the governemnt drug policy. And worse, follwing this report the newly appointed head of the drug advisory committee (Proffesor Nutt) came out three years later saying the same thing about the drug laws- he was of course instantly sacked and then, even more shaming, they tried to blacken his name. This did not go down well.

A senior official from the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs has quit, saying she did not trust the government's use of its advice.

She wrote this letter of resignation;

Dear Secretary of State
I am writing to resign my position as independent scientific adviser on the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD).
When you met the ACMD in November 2009, many of us expressed our grave concern about the way that our advice had been treated by you and your predecessor, culminating in the dismissal of our chairman, Professor David Nutt.
Prof Nutt was dismissed for the content of a lecture he gave in his academic role and which reiterated the advice that the ACMD had given on the appropriate classification of cannabis and ecstasy, advice which the government had rejected. Two of our members, Dr Les King and Marian Walker, resigned in protest.
I feel that there is little more we can do to describe the importance of ensuring that advice is not subjected to a desire to please ministers or the mood of the day's press.
I am very proud of the high standard of work achieved by the ACMD, and I have full confidence in my colleagues on the ACMD and its chairman, Prof Les Iverson, and so it is with regret that I feel the need to express my lack of confidence in the way that government will treat its advice and therefore am unable to continue to serve on the committee.
Yours sincerely
Dr Polly Taylor

Well its 2011 now and nothing has changed- in fact its got more draconian. I have a teenage borther, I am more worried he one day gets caught smoking cnnabis than I am that he might one day try it. Becasue the potentail ong term harm to his future of a record for it is far greater than any health risk from doing it. Surely when the punishment for doing something deemed harmful it potentially more harmful than the thing itself the law has left the path of reason?

[Orwell]

I guess, returning to the issue of police morals as to "use" of cannabis, I will still do my job, "using" my discretion when I deem it proper - like most police I know do. We aren't out to get casual users, though some are harder of head about it. I'm not sure people want police NOT upholding Laws. That kind of choice making holds it's own risks, I think. We are meant to be neutral, politically speaking.

[Pettytyrant101]

I don't know how it is in Australia but here it used to be that the Police Federation had quite a strong voice in shaping law and to whether they thought it was a. inforcable or b. likely to upset more people than it helped and cause civil unrest.
But with the social unrest caused by Margaret Thatcher in the 80's and the subsequent fights (literally) with the unions, particularly the miners they were politized. Since then they no longer have anything like a strong say in law making they merely have to do as told. This I believe has played a very large part in turning parts of the public, particularly in the working class against the police, who are often seen as simply the military enforcers of government policy.

[Orwell]

I prefer governments to make law, and voters to agitate (peacefully) to make change where needed. Police are the servants of the people representated by the elected government. If governments ask us to do things that we plainly disagree with, then trouble would be afoot. Our role is to be neutral - as neutral as possible - but still enforce the laws and assist in keeping public order. As a side note, the times I worked during protests rarely became violent, but the ones that did fired up when a minority of extremist protesters started going beyond "peaceful" protesting. When George Bush Senior came to Australia, I was on the front line. It almost became a war. I was amazed at how violent (and sneaky) some agitators were. Opened my eyes considerably. This is the main reason I call for calm and commonsense and clear thinking when it comes to examining any "event" involving police. Not with the view of white washing the police or scape goating others, but with the view of actually finding out what happened and who actually started it. (The actions of a few firing up the many - and sneakily - moved me in one day from Radical to Moderate. I've been that way for more than twenty years now. My political beliefs, though, have not changed).

[Pettytyrant101]

It wasn't that police used to make law, just that they had a stong consulting and advising role in how a law might work before it became law. I don't think its a bad idea for law makers to have some sort of two way discussion with law enforcers about whats best. That seems quite sensible. Its the police on the ground who are going to have to enforce these laws after all.

[Orwell]

I guess that still happens here. Laws need to be enforceable in a practical sense. Maybe we're less Reactionary than some too, if you and GB's accounts are wholly accurate. Our society is not really as rife with centuries old rivalries and hatreds, I know that much. Police here accept Labour Governments as readilly as Tory/Liberal Governments. Our Association likes the Labour side of things - we see ourselves as workers. The majority of Police, however, while supporting our Association, vote Conservative, or so I theorize, judging by the views I encounter at a police station. Split Personality? Or is politics a bit grey nowadays?

[Pettytyrant101]

Just watched Tony Blair being interviewed on BBC breakfast news. At the end of the conversation the subject of the death of Dr Kelly was brought up (he was the whislteblower about the dodgyness of the Iraq documents claiming there were weapons of mass destruction there, he turned up dead from an apparent suicide. There was an enquiry which decided it was suicide, but there is a lot of questions about it including why the report sealed the coroners results and other details for 50 years. Blair's reply was that there had already been an inquiry, he saw no reason for there to be another. Soon the decision will be made if there is enough questions to warrant another investigation or not. Pressed on whether or not he thought the first one answered all the questions he replied "Yes, as far as I know. Unless he (the Judge deciding if it needs reopened) knows something I don't. Which he might." Odd answer. What could there be that as PM he would not have known? Or can our secret service act without the PM's consent? Is that what he is hinting at?