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Drug-War: "America's drug war is so stupid that if you pay close attention to just how stupid it is... it'll drive you to use drugs." - Jim Hightower Drug prohibition doesn't work. In 1914 when drugs like cocaine were available on grocery shelves, 1.3% of the population was addicted. In 1979, before the so-called "War on Drugs" crackdown, the addiction rate was still 1.3%. Today, while billions of dollars are being spent to reduce drug use, the addiction rate is still 1.3%. Yet America imprisons 100,000 more persons for drug offenses than the entire European Union imprisons for all offenses. The European Union has 100 million more citizens than the U.S. Drug prohibition is a waste of money. Local, state and federal governments now spend over $9 billion per year to imprison 458,131 drug offenders. Incarcerating all cocaine users for a year would cost $74 billion, but only after constructing 3.5 million more prison beds at an initial cost of $175 billion. It would cost $365 billion to jail everyone who smoked marijuana last year � five times the total state and local spending for all police, courts and prisons. We would need a cadre of guards and other prison employees larger than all of our military forces. A 1994 National Bureau of Economic Research study found that when the price of marijuana rises, youth drink more beer and that directly correlates with an increase in traffic fatalities.A National Institute of Justice study reported a precipitous increase in the use of methamphetamine during 1985-86 after a crop destruction program eviscerated the marijuana supply in Hawaii. Making marijuana more difficult to obtain also causes an increase in cocaine consumption. When efforts to interdict marijuana are successful, the danger to our youth is increased by a rising consumption of alcohol and cocaine. When the supply of beer is reduced, the consumption of hard liquor increases. Interdiction increases production and consumption of drugs. A 1992 United States House Judiciary Crime Subcommittee reported that the massive effort to destroy the Medellin Cartel resulted in an increase of cocaine transshipment points from 11 to 25 and an expansion of cocaine processing to as many as 13 more countries. Researchers have also found a statistically significant correlation between higher incarceration rates of drug offenders and greater, not less, drug use. The biggest cocaine shipment ever discovered on its way into America was caught by the DEA at the airport in Mexico City. On reporting the would-be bust of $1 Billion worth of cocaine, the proud agents were informed that the plane was part of a White House operation (under Bush senior), and to let it go. Is that the real meaning of White House? When the CIA began 'fighting the Russians' in Afghanistan, there was almost no heroin getting to American streets from that source. Within a couple years of CIA operations, about 40% of America's heroin was flowing from there. Meanwhile, DEA agents were told to keep their hands off of any leads relating to drugs from Afghanistan. Wen the crops were later destroyed, American troops were sent in under cover of a war against Saudi terrorists, and within a year, the heroin flow was back to full throttle, under protection of American troops. Meanwhile CIA and FBI were ordered to stop any investigation of the Saudi funding for the terrorism-show. Drug addiction is a health problem. A 1994 Rand study shows that treatment of heavy cocaine users is seven times more effective than asset forfeitures, arrest and imprisonment. The same study shows that the cost of treatment is one-fourth that of police enforcement. But if the purpose of the drug war is to provide funding for covert actions around the world by the CIA while promoting a police state at home, it has been famously successful and this explains why it is not only continued but continually strengthened. In fact it is the single greatest source of covert funding. Asset forfeiture (theft) is becoming a major source of funding for the federal gestapo, police and informants. The Justice Department says that from October 1996 through March 1999 it accepted $208,454,000 in seizures from state and local police. But that figure is almost certainly low, its still being audited because the Justice Department has not published an annual forfeiture report since '96, although the law requires a report each year. The Police State takes the goods of people accused of victimless drug crimes, before due process, leaving the true victims unable to fight back. The DEA was set up to protect the CIA drug
monopoly, since certain therapeutic drugs like Cannabis, DMT and
LSD act as truth serums, revealing the structure of the fictitious
matrix of the modern machine world. The U.S. Justice Department has an Asset Forfeiture Fund which paid $24 million to informants in 1990 as their share of the loot. "One Hell's Angel became a millionaire by informing." "Airport-counter clerks, operators of security x-ray machines report "suspicion" persons paying tickets in cash. Many are minorities. Clerks for carriers such as UPS and Continental Airlines' Quik Pak have been known to open "suspicious" packages and report their findings to the police. Rewards to informants amount to ten percent of the value of confiscated property," according to Otto Scott. "The Pittsburgh Press produced 40 tabloid-sized pages of them. The seizures have included planes, boats, cars, houses � all from average citizens without criminal records, amounting to millions of dollars." The Pittsburgh Press reported, "80 percent of the people who lost property to the federal government were never charged. And most of the seized items weren't the luxurious playthings of drug barons, but modest homes and simple cars and hard-earned savings of ordinary people." Jarret B. Wollstein wrote "More and more government agencies are joining in this feeding frenzy. You and I are the prey." Federal pirates include the FBI, DEA, Coast Guard, the FDA, Treasury Dept., the U.S. Post Office, the Bureau of Land Management, the SEC, and the Department of Housing-- plus thousands of state and local police departments. "According to the Washington Post, the U.S. Marshall's Service alone, now has an inventory of over 30,000 confiscated, homes, cars, boats, and businesses." Bovard(9) said, "Police sometimes "settle" the forfeiture cases by allowing the auto owners to buy back their car for half the car's value." Albuquerque politicians gave the police the license to seize entire homes if underage kids have a party in it that includes alcohol. Mr. Wollstein described (6) how "In 1989, police stopped 49-year old Ethel Hylton at Houston's Hobby Airport and told her she was under arrest because a drug dog had scratched at her luggage. Agents searched her bags and strip-searched her. They found no drugs. They did find $39,110 in cash, money she received from an insurance settlement and her life savings. Ms. Hylton had accumulated this money through over 20 years of hard, physical work, as a hotel housekeeper and hospital janitor. Ethel Hylton completely documented where she got her money. She was never charged with a crime. But police kept her money anyway. Nearly four years later, she has little hope of ever getting her money back." "Hundreds of similar home confiscations without trial are taking place every week. To confiscate your home, all police need is a tip from an anonymous informant that a family member or friend once had drugs, pornography, or unregistered guns in your house. Once the accusation is made, they can confiscate your home at their discretion. The burden of proof is then on you to prove that the government's charges are false." It said in the article. (6) Mr. Wollstein wrote (6) about an incident "In December 1988, Detroit police raided a supermarket to make a drug bust, but did not find any drugs. When police dogs reacted to traces of cocaine on three $1.00 bills in the cash register, they seized the entire contents of the store's registers and safe, totaling $4,384. Using "drug residue" as a criterion, police could seize all of the cash in the country. According to a seven year study by Toxicology Consultants, "An average of 96 percent of all the bills we analyzed from 11 cities tested positive for cocaine." "A series of studies recently completed for the U.S. Bureau of Engraving and Printing reveal that rollers in 15-27% of the government's presses that print our currency, are also contaminated with cocaine." Wollstein (6) tells of "A new offense that can trigger total confiscation of your assets is the crime of "structuring." Structuring is arranging your bank deposits or withdrawals to avoid filing an IRS Currency Transaction Report (CTR). If you have recently deposited or withdrawn as little as $3,000 in cash in your bank account without filing a CTR, you are probably guilty of structuring. The penalty is a fine of up to $250,000 and five years in prison. "A few years ago, a 65-year-old Alabama physician had his life savings seized by the IRS because of alleged structuring. The doctor got into trouble when he consolidated his savings at a new bank opened by a friend. The banker made the mistake of suggesting that the doctor deposit his funds gradually, so he wouldn't have to file CTRs and attract IRS attention. But according to the government, simply acting in a way that falls outside their reporting requirements is itself a crime! Using money-laundering statutes, a United States Attorney seized this elderly doctor's entire savings. The doctor is now a pauper, and could still be imprisoned for five years." "If you have a party at your house, and one of your guests gives a single marijuana cigarette to another guest, that is enough for police to confiscate your home. If you own a business and one of your employees uses the company telephones or fax machine to place an illegal, off-track bet, that is enough for the government to confiscate your business." Warns Jarret B. Wollstein. (6) If the thieves with badges covet your property and they can't steal it with court orders or anonymous informants, they may just kill you to to get it. In Malibu, California, the National Park Service tried repeatedly to buy the 200-acre home of retired rancher Don Scott (61), to incorporate it into a surrounding national park. Scott refused to sell. On the morning of October 2, 1992,(1) a task force of 26 LA county sheriffs, DEA agents and other cops broke into Scott's living room and shot him to death. Police claimed to be searching for marijuana which they never found. Ventura County DA Michael Bradbury concluded that the raid was "motivated at least in part, by a desire to seize and forfeit the ranch for the government. [The] search warrant became Donald Scott's death warrant." A Sixty Minutes report of April 2, 1993, uncovered police planning documents for the raid that make it clear that police were searching for evidence to justify confiscating Scott's ranch. Piracy has become the preferred method of getting additional revenue for police departments across the country. "Financially strapped states and municipalities are now making next year's planned confiscations a growing item in their budgets. As government regulation and taxation destroy productive enterprise, government at all levels will rely more and more on direct confiscation of property for revenue." "A whole industry is evolving around asset confiscation. Police and government agencies love it because it is a cheap and easy way to increase their revenues. Informants and crooks love it � some of them now make up to $780,000 a year entrapping and turning in neighbors and former friends. Judges love it because they typically get 20% of the forfeited property for their courts. Sheriffs and DEA agents love it because they get first pick of confiscated assets." Says Mr. Wollstein.(6) "More and more police chiefs these days are driving around in confiscated Jaguars, BMWs and Mercedes. Confiscated country clubs have been turned into "police training facilities." Confiscated cash and expensive stereos and TVs tend to disappear quickly from police lockers." "It not surprising that civil-asset confiscations are now doubling every year. In 1985, the government seized $27 million in property. In 1992, they seized $1.2 billion. That's an increase of 4,400% in seven years. At the current rate of growth of confiscations, all property in America will belong to the state within seventeen years." It said in the article.(6) "The Crime Control Act of 1993, now before Congress, allows the government to confiscate homes, cars and bank accounts of individuals and groups whose publications, speeches or assemblies might encourage violence or "coerce legislation." A similar law has also been introduced in Arizona." He said.(6) This is an extreme police-state action that threatens to make free speech a de facto "crime" but under asset forfeiture rules, they don't have to charge you with anything, they can just steal your property to punish you for speech they don't like. He wrote, "Modeled on existing drug laws and asset-forfeiture laws, under the new political-forfeiture legislation, all the government would need to confiscate your property is to "suspect" that you or your organization tend to encourage violence. You are then presumed guilty, your property would be confiscated, and you, penniless, would have to prove your innocence." A total of $2.6 billion in U.S. citizens' assets has been seized since 1985, 80% of these seizures never resulted in an arrest or conviction � indicating that most are being taken from innocent people. According to USA Today, there are now 1,000 forfeitures per week in the U.S., or 52,000 per year. In Iowa, a woman accused of shoplifting a $25 sweater saw her $18,000 car, which had been specially equipped for her handicapped daughter, seized as the potential "getaway vehicle."(2) In Portland, Oregon, the police raided a bar and arrested a bartender (not the owner) on suspicion of bookmaking. There was zero evidence pointing to the bar owner's involvement � the police documents didn't even mention him. But the police seized his business anyway. The deputy district attorney in charge said she didn't have evidence to press criminal charges against the owner "so we seized the business." "According to a recent article in USA Today, in 1992, 65 informants made over $100,000 each by simply alleging to police agencies that their friends, neighbors, and/or business associates had committed crimes. And no, when you go to trial, you don't have the right to confront the informant in court. The reason: it's a civil, not a criminal proceeding." Wrote Mr. McAlvany (7) In 1998, the Justice Department seized $449 million of assets linked to supposed criminal activity. Federal agents moved to steal an entire hotel because they claim that the owners (who were not charged with a crime) of the Houston Red Carpet Inn had "tacitly approved" of the drug activities on the premises "by not implementing security measures suggested by police, like raising room rates, adding video cameras to monitor a parking lot and hiring more guards" the Houston Chronicle(8) reported, "Attorneys for the owners said threatening to take property because the owners didn't follow police advice on preventing crimes was outrageous." In some poor minority neighborhoods, the police sometimes stop people, frisk them and steal whatever cash they're carrying -- the cops figure if you're carrying a considerable amount of case in a poor neighborhood then you must be a drug dealer -- but they don't have to prove this. In Detroit, the police robbed a grocery store during a raid after police dogs detected the scent of drugs on some cash. (4) Jarret Wollstein(3) reported, "In Monmouth, New Jersey, Dr. David Disbrow was accused of practicing psychiatry without a license. His crime was providing counseling services from a spare bedroom in his mother's house. Counseling does not require a license in New Jersey. That didn't stop police from seizing virtually everything of value from his mother's home, totaling over $60,000. The forfeiture squad confiscated furniture, carpets, paintings, and even personal photographs." Now the thugs with badges consider speaking a crime. Be careful when giving any advise to anyone, even counseling a friend or a child, the cops might find out about it and come after you. Of course, the "crime" charge is just a front for armed robbery. The United States is quickly becoming an intolerable police state to rival the Soviet Union in its totalitarian tactics. Just like in Nazi Germany, animals have more rights than humans. One farmer had his tractor seized for accidentally running over endangered rats and now faces prosecution and prison for farming his own land. If the farmer had only accidentally run over human beings instead, he would not face any prosecution. References: 1 - USA Today, January 11, 1993, page 1 2 - Gary Fields, "'Robbery with a Badge' in the Nation's Capital," USA Today, May 18, 1992. 3 - The Looting of America - by Jarret Wollstein; May, 1997 4 - Civil Asset Forfeiture - Fred Foldvary; The Progress Report 5 - Laws That Are Criminal - Otto Scott, October 1993 6 - How Police Confiscation is Destroying America: - Jarret B. Wollstein, October 1993 7 - Toward an American Police State - Donald S. McAlvany, November 1993 8 - Government to bear burden of proof in seizures: Red Carpet Inn case brings change in civil asset forfeitures - Michael Hedges; Houston Chronicle; Aug. 19, 2000 9 - Seizure Fever: The War on Property Rights - James Bovard; The Foundation for Economic Education 10 - City Can Seize Homes Where Kids Drink - Olivier Uyttebrouck; Albequerque Journal: Aug. 22, 2000 Based on an article from Liberation Journal by Gregory Flanagan. |
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