DRUG STINGS LIKELY TO BRING MORE TRAGIC DEATHS

Here's the Drug War body count from the Nov 21 bust by Minneapolis police:
one suspect dead, one badly wounded, passersby slightly wounded, officers
bumped but unharmed. No drugs or guns found.

In due defense of these officers, deadly self-protective force is clearly
justified if a suspect tries to kill them with a car. But were 20 shots and
the driver's death necessary? Details, now sketchy, are important, and any
judgment of officers' response to threats must consider their predicament.
What urgently needs review and repair, however, are the Minneapolis police
policies that created this predicament of deadly confrontation in the first
place.

A drug "sting" is a situation created by police-orchestrated deception to
catch violators of the drug-abstinence code. The abstinence code treats a
pleasure-inducing plant that's objectively safer than alcohol as though its
sale or use is a heinous crime. In its unreasonable severity and inequity,
the law is unjust. Citizens so entrapped seek escape, sometimes with a
force that's as deadly as that used by police to catch them. Inevitably,
people are killed. Over what? Over a relatively benign plant.

Stings do not effectively decrease black marketeering, because 'stung'
sellers are soon replaced. Stings do, however, magnify the worst dangers of
black markets by greatly increasing the likelihood of violence. Having
lived in an East-Coast urban neighborhood more drug-infested than anything
in the Twin Cities, I learned to disdain black markets greatly -- enough to
want them eliminated by the only known means, legalization and regulation.
But since current law institutionalizes a police stalemate with drug
sellers, Minneapolis policy should at least aim to minimize risk, not to
maximize it.

Drug stings clearly endanger the lives of police officers, suspects, and the
public; should they continue, more tragic deaths are likely.

A decision by Minneapolis police management to continue doing drug stings
would bear a chilling implication: that their hatred of drugs outweighs
their love and respect for human life, an attitude contrary to their oath to
"protect and serve." Police have to make many hard decisions. But deciding
whether to quit or continue a pointlessly deadly practice should not be
difficult at all.

Paul M. Bischke, Board Member-Drug Policy Reform Group of Minnesota St.
Paul, MN