POLICE PRIORITIES ARE MIXED UP

To the Editor:

This letter is in response to the story "Drug bust in Bourne linked to
string of crimes." (The Upper Cape Codder online Jan 25, page 4 this
edition.)

Six months of surveillance by local police of a 17-year-old pot dealer
after complaints from local citizens?

Six months to catch a 17-year-old with less than $5,000 of high grade
on him? And how much did that six months of surveillance cost
taxpayers of Bourne? That's the information I would like to see
disclosed, the questions newspaper reporters should ask but don't.

Six months of paying detectives big money for one small-time pot
dealer sounds like a real bad deal to me. If they would just hire me
I'd have that wrapped up in 24 hours without breaking any civil liberties.

A real serious crime reduction person would go right to the source and
say "end it now or you are going down." And that would likely be an
end to small-time hydro man without the big tax bill!

Or better yet just legalize adult sales and the problem goes away
entirely.

Detective Doble throws in propaganda that marijuana is
addictive.

Addictive like sugar, sex, gambling, yes. Mental addiction however is
not what medical professionals go with. Marijuana, unlike heroin,
alcohol, steroids, nicotine is not physically addictive.

Doble would be well served by attending a training with LEAP (Law
Enforcement Against Prohibition) or NORML to get his science right in
regards to marijuana. Looks like he is halfway there in joining LEAP
with his statement that with the demand being so high and the risk of
getting caught still low, somebody else will just step in to fill the
demand left by this one bust. Sounds like a war that can't be won. He
knows it, and he still prefers his career over helping people.

Blaming this one pot dealer on rising crime in Bourne also seems to be
propaganda stretching the reality of the crime situation in Bourne,
especially since they busted a crack house mentioned in this same story.

It's time for police to stop acting like politicians and time to stop
using busts to justify failed drug policy.

Join LEAP; it's the right thing to do Detectives Doble and
Silvestro.

Michael Collins

Boston