Former head of Scotland Yard’s Drug Squad, Eddie Ellison, used to tell new recruits at every induction to look at their colleagues either side of themselves. "If both of them aren't corrupt in two years,” he'd say, “then you will be." That was the expected extent of corruption in police Drug Squads, Ellison explained -- the result of a collision between low-paid law enforcement and huge amounts of illicit money.
The money is the result of the War on Drugs. The corruption of the police is just another example of how the War destroys everything it touches
So it's no surprise to hear that two policemen were part of the group arrested yesterday for running a syndicate said to be the country’s largest supplier of the drug Ecstasy. No surprise, because however much an erstwhile crime fighter is being paid, it's always far, far less than the amount of money washing around as the result of the War on Drugs.
That's just one reason that law enforcement officers like Ellison are now part of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition.
And ironic that while local police are crowing about this drug bust (which simply opens the market up to this group’s competitors to grab the profits from the much higher prices they can now demand) Eddie Ellison’s colleagues in London are calling for Ecstasy to be downgraded to just being a Class B drug, and the whole War on Drugs to wind down. In fact,
Metropolitan Police Commander Brian Paddick told the MPs that arresting people for possessing ecstasy was a "waste of valuable police resources."
Given his views, one wonders what Commander Paddick would think then about the recent use of New Zealand’s valuable police resources?
Here's Heaven 17.
4 comments:
Only losers take drugs. It's a pity they also fuck up their families, commit a disproportionate amount of violent crime and place a drain on medical services in the process.
Two Policemen weren't involved in the arrests, two non-sworn members of Police were.
No oath has been taken by them, they are civilians who do jobs that do not require general policing skills.
Anon...while you first sentiment has a lot of truth to it the rest of your points rest on the results of drug prohibition rather than the drugs themselves. Drug related crime is a misnomer...its "prohibition related crime" that is the issue.
Thank You for honouring Eddie. A career policeman who identified New Zealand's hangup. The failure to apply man101 principals and account for the efficacy of the money spent on drug interdiction. That NZ deficit finances drug policy enforcement makes it an economic black hole with no chance of success even at the margins. It relies on manufactured and misrepresented data as evidence 'they are doing a good job' whereas the truth be told it is perversely the opposite. Cannabis in New Zealand couldn't be more popular if you made it compulsory. Whereas no government is serious about the Alcohol problem (health and crime vote) unless it is serious about fixing the cannabis anomoly.
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