'PROHIBITION LAWS CORRUPT INTEGRITY OF POLICE'

Mark Tonner laments the fact that a judge did not believe police officers'
testimony in court regarding a drug case.

It appears that judges are starting to realize that cops sometimes fabricate
evidence.

Such conduct on the part of law enforcers has reached the ultimate in the
Los Angeles police department, where hundreds of arrests and convictions
have been overturned, and a judge has allowed attorneys to use
organized-crime statutes to prosecute members of the police department.

Whether or not some of Const. Tonner's workmates really did manufacture
evidence is not the issue.

What is relevant is that in enforcing our drug prohibition laws police often
have to make "furtive movements" to establish probable cause to search, etc.

Prohibition laws corrupt the integrity of the police -- something recognized
by the late Const. Gil Puder.

That is not the fault of police.

It is the fault of a society that refuses to learn from the mistakes of
alcohol prohibition.

Chuck Beyer, Victoria