Of all the people under investigation for possession of drugs, most people wouldn’t expect the ones enforcing the laws to be the ones that are breaking them.
Ironically, that’s the case for three Houston police officers who arrested a man from Atascocita in May for possession of marijuana. But get this — before putting 19-year-old Nicholas Hill in cuffs, the cops allegedly ate brownies found in Hill’s apartment that they suspected of containing illicit substances.
Of course, it’s a pretty strong allegation to make against officials that have taken an oath to protect our city, but records from their in-car computers show a conversation between the two officers in which one writes, “So high… Good munchies,” according to a report by ABC.
Not only is this misconduct from our law-enforcement officials, it’s destruction of evidence, which is a felony charge.
It’s also appalling to think that the men and women who are fighting the drug war in America are also the ones to partake in the activities they arrest people for daily.
The problem here isn’t the use of marijuana — the problem is the use of marijuana while supposed to be protecting and serving our city.
If they’re allegedly using the drugs they stumbled upon while on the clock, that’s a dangerous use of city funds, time and equipment. It also puts these officers in a position in which someone could potentially get hurt.
How the tables have turned. These trusted officials have been accused of participating in the kind of activity that the city and the nation have been fighting against in the war on drugs for years.
Maybe this is a sign that America needs to take a step back and re-evaluate what we consider to be criminal activity. If the federal government is spending $15 billion each year to circumvent the use of marijuana and other illicit substances, cases like this should never occur.
However, if our law enforcement officials are the ones breaking the law, maybe that’s a sign that those tax dollars should be spent elsewhere.
Mandatory minimum sentencing for first-time, nonviolent offenders is bankrupting this country. More than half of all the inmates in federal prison today are exactly that, mostly arrested for marijuana possession charges. These mostly young people often get expelled from school and are prevented from taking any government jobs for the rest of their lives. Imprisoning them and depriving them of an education only turns them into more hardened criminals. On top of that, the privatization of our prison system has turned marijuana arrests into a massive profit-making industry, which our government subsidizes with billions of dollars every year. We have the largest and fastest growing prison population of any modernized nation in the world due to drug possession arrests, and yet our own police officers are guilty of the very same crime. Over half of the country now supports marijuana decriminalization, when will we wake up and smell the ganja?