Breonna Taylor and the Moral Bankruptcy
of Drug Prohibition
Creators,
by
Jacob Sullum
Original Article
Posted By: zoidberg,
6/24/2020 9:56:35 AM
Last Friday, three months after Louisville, Kentucky, police officers gunned down a 26-year-old EMT and aspiring nurse named Breonna Taylor during a fruitless drug raid, acting Police Chief Robert Schroeder initiated the termination of Detective Brett Hankison, who he said had "displayed an extreme indifference to the value of human life" when he "wantonly and blindly fired 10 rounds" into Taylor's apartment. But Hankison's recklessness is just one element of the circumstances that led to Taylor's senseless death, which never would have happened if politicians did not insist on using violence to enforce their pharmacological prejudices.
Reply 1 - Posted by:
DVC 6/24/2020 10:00:17 AM (No. 455132)
Drugs kill. Pretending otherwise is just stupid. Legalizing deadly substances is the stupidest possible move.
11 people like this.
Reply 2 - Posted by:
bgarrett 6/24/2020 10:03:24 AM (No. 455138)
You are sound asleep when the police whisper outside your door, "Police"
... no-knock search warrant, they say they nevertheless announced themselves before breaking in the door with a battering ram...
7 people like this.
Reply 3 - Posted by:
Californian 6/24/2020 10:04:13 AM (No. 455140)
Drugs are bad but raids into apartments are stupid and useless. If they worked there'd be no drugs on the streets.
They need to get serious about a real declaration of war on drug lords. The producers need to die. Find them, drone them like the terrorists they are. You'll see a lot less drugs on the streets.
If some knuckleheads wants to grow a few plants at home for personal use, so what? Let em. They're only hurting themselves.
7 people like this.
Reply 4 - Posted by:
bgarrett 6/24/2020 10:09:05 AM (No. 455151)
History proves that people will get what they want even if its illegal. If they want to kill themselves with drugs, let them! But what if its your daughter? Legalize all drugs so the stuff doesnt contain impurities and poisons and so that your daughter doesnt have to go into the worst neighborhoods among the scum of the earth to get the drugs
7 people like this.
Reply 5 - Posted by:
Jethro bo 6/24/2020 10:14:03 AM (No. 455156)
Let me get this straight. We are in an 'opioid epidemic' that is kills thousands and we want to stop 'pharmacologic prejudices' becasue of one death? Obviously some leftist logic involved that I don't understand
11 people like this.
Reply 6 - Posted by:
MDConservative 6/24/2020 10:30:11 AM (No. 455181)
The "War on Drugs" has been a booming success for all involved. The police get big money and surplus military equipment, even fancy cars and trucks through civil forfeiture laws. The drug lords slough it off as the cost of doing business. They lose a few customers and street peddlers, even some inventory along the way while the party continues unabated down in Mexico and Latin America, and around the world, the hands of those necessary greased like Louis Renault. Politicians can show they are tough on crime. And then we come to the public, most of whom are unaffected by all this but "support the badge".
We need to fight this war to the death...
2 people like this.
Reply 7 - Posted by:
Ida Lou Pino 6/24/2020 11:01:44 AM (No. 455226)
Drugs don't kill people who don't take them. And the people who take them do it voluntarily. They may be stupid, short-sighted, and reckless - - but what law has ever prevented stupidity?
Where does the government get the power to prevent free citizens from ingesting any substance they want to? There are lots of deadly substances out there - - and 99% of them are legal.
The "War On Drugs" is now 50 years old - - and despite trillions of dollars, thousands of deaths, massive crime and corruption, and massive intrusion on personal liberty - - not a single dent has been made in addiction or its consequences. Prohibition has been a total failure. It's way past time to decriminalize all narcotic drug usage.
"Drug cartels" will disappear overnight. Narcotic drugs will be de-glamorized - - and the rest of us will not have to waste our wealth on trying to prevent stupid people from doing stupid things.
13 people like this.
Reply 8 - Posted by:
zoidberg 6/24/2020 12:55:06 PM (No. 455409)
The War on Drugs is a war against our citizenry, destroying life, liberty and property in its prosecution. And if you think Breonna Taylor is the only innocent victim here, think again. Civil asset forfeiture lets the cops seize cash because they claim it may be connected to drug dealing, without showing any evidence of that. No-knock raids in the middle of the night endanger all involved. And police are not soldiers, so they do not need military weaponry. All because some people like to alter their consciousness in ways that Richard Nixon didn't like.
3 people like this.
Reply 9 - Posted by:
fishbone 6/24/2020 12:57:39 PM (No. 455413)
I remember this story from earlier reporting. The cops didn't have ANY probable cause to enter. There is no evidence that she or her current boyfriend were involved with anything illegal. I relegate this to a stupid detective.
Read the F'ing Article before you post. So, all these commentary threads about the young lady's drug involvement or the rants about legalizing vs full assault drug wars are totally missing the point of the article. To me, the primary take-away is that no-knock warrants are extremely dangerous for innocent people (especially at midnight-30) and should be stopped. That, I agree with. Stop them.
4 people like this.
Reply 10 - Posted by:
fishbone 6/24/2020 1:14:27 PM (No. 455442)
Apologies for second post and my heated rant. I can see where commenters got the impression that this young lady and her boyfriend were involved with drugs. The title is somewhat misleading about the couple. I knew about this from earlier articles and went off half-cocked. Which just goes to show that I should not type in hot-blood but wait until I've calmed a bit.
2 people like this.
Reply 11 - Posted by:
DVC 6/24/2020 1:49:58 PM (No. 455499)
Clarification: I thought people understood that this was a horrific miscarriage of justice.
I totally agree that the way this warrant was handled and served should result in police officer in jail. No doubt about that. I am a big fan of giving the police credit for a difficult job. But I also expect them to
follow the laws and to make damned sure of their information and addresses before they do one of these entries. And I would fully support the ending of no knock warrants. They are a very bad thing, and the
"war on drugs" shouldn't also be a war on the 5th Amendment.
And if they come breaking down my door in the middle of the night under similar circumstances, I expect similar results, except I'd take a few with me. Cold comfort.
But that does NOT change my view that legalizing poison is beyond stupid, way out into evil.
2 people like this.
Reply 12 - Posted by:
DVC 6/24/2020 3:47:07 PM (No. 455654)
This 'legalize all drugs' is where libertarians go entirely off of the rails. It does seem attractive to let people kill themselves in their own way, but it is a horrible trap.
Or at least, it is one of the numerous ways that libertarians go off the rails. This sort of thing is why Rand Paul is a totaly PITA about 50-70% of the time and a good guy 30-50% of the time.
1 person likes this.
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