DEA Agent Speaks Out: We Were Told Not to Enforce Drug Laws In Rich Communities
Washington DC – As the lies that keep the drug war alive begin to come unglued, many of the police officers and government agents who made it possible are now going public with the truth of their experience.
Matthew Fogg, a former US Marshal, and DEA agent is one of those people. Ever since leaving law enforcement he has been speaking out against police brutality, profiling, and the drug war.
Fogg appeared in an interview for Brave New Films, where he discussed the drug war and how race and class play a part the enforcement of drug laws.
In the interview, Fogg said, We were jumping on guys in the middle of the night, all of that. Swooping down on folks all across the country, using these sorts of attack tactics that we went out on, that you would use in Vietnam, or some kind of war-torn zone. All of the stuff that we were doing, just calling it the war on drugs. And there wasn’t very many black guys in my position.
So when I would go into the war room, where we were setting up all of our drug and gun and addiction task force determining what cities we were going to hit, I would notice that most of the time it always appeared to be urban areas.
That’s when I asked the question, well, don’t they sell drugs out in Potomac and Springfield, and places like that? Maybe you all think they don’t, but statistics show they use more drugs out in those areas than anywhere. The special agent in charge, he says 'You know, if we go out there and start messing with those folks, they know judges, they know lawyers, they know politicians. You start locking their kids up; somebody’s going to jerk our chain.' He said, 'they’re going to call us on it, and before you know it, they’re going to shut us down, and there goes your overtime.'"
In 2014, I met up with Fogg after a panel on police militarization at the Cato Institute in Washington DC.
Although Fogg was a former law enforcement officer, he had some of the most radical opinions on the panel when it came to solving the problem of police accountability. Fogg was outspoken about the extreme changes that need to be made to the entire criminal justice system, and was not convinced that body cameras would honestly keep police in check.
I wrote this on my blog @ http://thefreethoughtproject.com/dea-agent-drug-laws-intentionally-rich-communities/
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY:
My name is John Vibes and I am an author and researcher who organizes a number of large events including the Free Your Mind Conference. I write for numerous alternative media websites, including The Free Thought Project @tftproject and The Mind Unleashed. In addition to my first book, Alchemy of the Timeless Renaissance, I have also co-authored three books with Derrick Broze @dbroze : The Conscious Resistance: Reflections on Anarchy and Spirituality, Finding Freedom in an Age of Confusion and Manifesto of the Free Humans
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Not enforcing drug laws - not opposed to that, but id prefer to get rid of those laws.
Change is coming!!! I love hearing about this stuff. More and more need to be less afraid to speak, to tell the truth. And what that guy said was true, "...they know judges, lawyers...". Meaning loopholes in the legal system would be exploited for the gain of criminals all while the pocketbooks of the officers of the courts are getting nice and fat!!
Change is coming!
the pocketbooks of the officers of the courts are getting nice and fat?
Lawyers by extension, are considered officers of the court legally. So when I say officer of the court I also mean lawyers.
Our criminal justice system was designed by and for criminals to some degree.
To be fair, this might not be as nefarious as one might think. Yes, the discrepancy in how they are enforced shows prejudice against lower income demographics. However, the drugs in the lower income areas cause more crime. For whatever economic or socioeconomic reasons drugs in lower income neighborhoods directly correlates to more crime and destruction of the neighborhood. People in rich neighborhoods don't tear up their neighborhoods. Drug use in higher income neighborhoods isn't directly contributing to crime.
Of course we can go into a slew of underlying reasons for the issue. However, as an agency already struggling and failing miserably at their job a choice needs to be made. An attainable choice providing the set of circumstances and their limited ability to change them. A DEA agent arrests some high school kids in a rich neighborhood they just took out some drug dealers. Sure, a good win, dealers off the street. However, taking down that drug gang that's been in a neighborhood has much more of an impact. Crime rates go down. Neighbors feel safer. So they focus on the most bang for their buck.
I dont think a causal relation is shown there. Do drugs lead to crime in any case or does being a criminal lead to you being more likely to access drugs? Could it be that a gang offering you drugs might entice you more to join them if you cant buy these drugs in the corner store(which does however provide one of the if not the most harmful drug out there, alcohol)?
This doesn't surprise me one bit. The police don't want to deal with the rich parent's if the kids get caught, and they certainly don't want to have to deal with good lawyers. On top of that, in the US rich people can basically give as much money as they want to politicians and their campaigns, so some of these rich people have a politician in their pocket who can give the police department shit.
It's the same reason that laws are not enforced as strictly on most college campuses.
That sux...
Rich privilege.
And I'm both money and cash challenged.... D'oh
The problem never was drug usage but the people who can't afford but want them anyway. They are the problem about drugs and so they have good reasons to handle like this.
Why enforce stupid laws where it does not help anybody?
Always the US Government, since ever. Like over in Switzerland, cannabis was banned in 1951 under pressure from the United States of America. One of the main reasons was that US soldiers, stationed in Germany, went in their free time to Switzerland to smoke marijuana.
But the whole change came with the introduction of cotton in the 20th century. Cotton was much cheaper and easier to process than cannabis. Together with the synthetics emerging at that time, it displaced the hemp products from the market.
At the same time, the state in the US created strict laws to ban cannabis. This is called "prohibition." It was directed primarily against the poor, often colourful population, in which marijuana was widespread.
So thanks USA, again I guess...
How can we stop the stand-down orders?
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