Sheriff Trades Meth for Sex

Corruption at its worst.

 

IMO, crystal meth is the worst drug out there, because it can be made by anyone in their kitchen, the labs are incredibly toxic, it's highly addictive, and it literally rots your body from the inside out.

We haven't seen too much of it around here, mostly because heroin is so cheap, which is fine with me.

 

I agree and if we had legalized cocaine, meth would cease to be.

 

That would be kind of like trading the firing squad for lethal injection, and in any case, as long as people can make meth in their kitchens, it's going to be popular. For whatever reasons, addicts around the Boston area prefer to be heroin zombies rather than out-of-control meth heads.

 

Cocaine does not have nearly the physiological impact that meth has, not as destructive or addictive ....plus the making of it is non-toxic. In fact if you just grew the plant and chewed the leaves you'd get pretty much the same effect. Lastly, being a plant it would end the violence and mayhem associated with drug use and the drug market. Meth on the other hand is a nightmare on a body, instantly addictive (almost) difficult and costly to make (when compared to cocaine), etc. More like trading the firing squad for a stern scolding.

 

I wish you could have seen the crackhead I transported for someone else the other night, then tell me there's no psychological or physical impact from cocaine.

And yes, crack is cocaine, even according to the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, who ruled as much when lawmakers tried for enhanced penalties for crack vs. powder cocaine 20+ years ago.

 

Crack and cocaine are chemically different and even used differently. Crack is ultra concentrated and cut (as you know) and for all purposes of argumentation...a man made substance. Unaltered cocaine has (and may continue to be in some cases) been used in a natural state for decades. Oddly, Brazil for example did not have "crackheads" until their American style prohibition on drugs began. Even barring that, when I spent a summer there I was able to take a boat to a native village where cocoa leaves were chewed by the locals as both an energy drink and also pain killer as it was more available and cheaper than aspirin. The only downside was it turned their teeth black.

I'm not saying cocaine is not addictive, there are people addicted to shopping, alcohol, gambling, sex, etc. Of course people can be addicted to cocaine. But when your addicted to something you can grow in your own back yard, which has less physiological impact than a shot of whiskey, then maybe it's not the villian we all have been taught to think it is. I remember feeling scandalized when I first saw someone chewing a cocoa leaf openly, then I realized it's because I've been taught that it is somehow not moral to do so. But if I want to run down and drink a 5th of gin in an evening, that's okay. Somehow I just don't see the logic. BTW if you legalized cocaine, you'd kill the crack market too. Don't forget, our war on drugs created crack and meth as a readily available substitute. Prohibition never, ever works but it does lead to some fairly destructive innovation.

As for lawmakers classifying substances...aren't these the same bunch of goons who called a pizza a vegetable?

 

Most likely, because they got started with Oxycontin. The amount of prescription drug use among teens and young adults is staggering. IIRC, abuse of prescription drugs has overtaken abuse of traditional illegal drugs in the US. Oxycontin is the perfect gateway drug to heroin. Hell, depending on where you are, heroin is cheaper than Oxycontin, so a lot of Oxy addicts switch to heroin because it gives them a similar type of high.

Then again, being in MA law Enforcement, you already know this and have seen it on the front lines.

 

In the eyes of the law, at least in Massachusetts, they're the same drug, so it would be impossible (besides being a really stupid idea) to legalize powder cocaine while banning crack cocaine.

I saw way more people I grew up with lose their way with cocaine than with any other substance, including alcohol (it was the 70's/80's).

The only reason why the war on drugs hasn't been a great success is because it's being fought half-assed. If we adopted some of the strategies used in the Tom Clancy book Clear and Present Danger, you would see improvements.

 

For me I've see far more lives ruined by alcohol than anything else. I suppose we could just execute all druggies and drug dealers and then "win" the war on drugs but at what point is it worth it? To me the war on drugs has been a financial, political and humanitarian disaster and it needs to be ended.

 

The sad thing is it's the prohibition on substances that makes the trade in them lucrative to small operations and results in a lot of the negative outputs.

Will you have addicts regardless of prohibition, yes you will.

Legalization shifts the market from the dangerous dealers to the corporate ones, and the corporate ones can be taxed and otherwise monitored because they're operating above board.

It would also lower unit costs. We went through this once with alcohol prohibition.

 

In 23+ years, I've never seen anyone steal from their family & friends or commit crimes of violence, such as armed robbery, in order to get alcohol. I see it almost every day with opiates.

 

MC, I'm so sorry to hear this. My condolences and my prayers are with you.

 

Could this be a function of the higher cost of opiates? If you could get a "Milwaukee's Best" version of opiates from your local Walgreens for a lower price, I would think that some of this behavior might be reduced.

 

Maybe, but then you were not a cop during prohibition when Capone and the rest were creating organized criminal empires, moonshiners ran stills in rural areas and frequently had fire fights with cops. Otherwise I'm sure you'd feel different. Also how many domestic violence calls have you answered to that involved alcohol? How many babies have been born with birth defects due to alcohol? How many people die and are injured every year due to drunk drivers? So maybe the cheapness and availability of booze no longer requires you to steel coins from car ashtrays to get a fix, guess what, legalizing drugs would have the same economic result and cut down on those pesky thefts. But other related crimes (DUI, etc) would likely increase.

 

You can buy a bag of heroin around here for $3-$5, the problem is that hardcore junkies build up their tolerance so high that it starts costing them over $100 per day just to avoid getting sick, never mind getting high. There's a young man in my patrol area who's into his parents for over $50,000 in forged checks, stolen money/property, and credit card fraud, all in the name of opiates.

In the case of Prohibition, it was the bootleggers who were violent, not the users (those drinking the booze). I happened to be looking in my medicine cabinet the other day, and found a prescription bottle of Oxycodone (the generic name for Percocet and the active ingredient in Oxycontin) I was prescribed when I tore my Achille's tendon earlier this year, but didn't use any. I was thinking about how there are many people who would literally kill me to get their hands on that bottle; not so for the 30-pack of Miller Lite sitting in my garage right now.

Show me a neighborhood in decline, and there's likely a junkie(s) residing there.