Some are now wondering whether fentanyl will eventually displace heroin almost entirely. Will prohibitionists be willing to accept 50,000- 100,000 overdoses per year as the new normal, or will they realize that prohibition kills? HOSTILE AND INEFFECTIVE POLICING Prohibition fundamentally changes the relationship between law enforcement and citizens. Traditional police work relies on the assistance of victims and would-be victims in both solving and preventing crimes. A robbery victim typically invites the police into his home, lets them take evidence, and assists in other ways to help find the criminal. People also take steps to prevent crime by installing security systems, carrying weapons for personal protection, and reporting suspicious activity. Without citizens’ assistance in crime solving and prevention, effective policing would be nearly impossible. But everything changes when the criminal and victim are supposedly the same person – as is the case with drug users during prohibition. Policing becomes less collaborative and more antagonistic. Because drug users are not going to call the police and ask them to take evidence, police must find other ways of solving and preventing this “crime.” If the user or dealer is not going to invite them in to look for evidence, they’ll just break their door down with a “no-knock” warrant. If the user is not going to assist police in reporting the crime, then they’ll have to use various surveillance technologies to find out what the “victim” is unwilling to divulge. More often than not, the Supreme Court
has held that the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition on unreasonable searches and seizures does not prevent police from using invasive and hostile methods to search for drugs. Police can use helicopters and airplanes to surveil backyards from the air. They can bring drug-sniffing dogs to traffic stops that seem to always magically “alert” whenever the officer has a hunch. They can even seize that car and have it forfeited to the government on the mere “say-so” of a dog hoping to get a treat from his handler. And, as many Americans found out during the riots in Ferguson, Missouri, our police now resemble soldiers doing street sweeps in Fallujah. That resemblance is more than coincidental. Surplus American military gear, including armored personnel carriers, heavy weaponry, and body armor, has been given to local police departments around the country for decades. Those SWAT teams are then using that gear to violently enter residences, often by using battering rams, flash grenades, and shooting the family dog. But these paramilitary police units are not usually kicking down the doors of kidnappers, murderers, or weapons traffickers. They’re usually – 62% of the time – searching for drugs. It should come as no surprise that these heavy-handed policing tactics tend to be disproportionately used against racial and ethnic minorities. Although it has long been known that blacks and whites use drugs at about the same rate, blacks are roughly ten times more likely to be arrested for drug crimes. In almost every interaction with police, blacks and Hispanics are more likely to be searched and harassed. The Department of
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March 2019
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