NYPD Entrapping Homeless Addicts With Felony Drug Charges

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Xandu: Feb 19, 2006; It's hard to be humble when you're as great as I am.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/05/nyregion/undercover-officers-ask-addicts-to-buy-drugs-snaring-them-but-not-dealers.html?_r=0

quote:

Brian L., a 21-year-old heroin addict, was arrested after the police said he bought drugs for an undercover officer who approached him in a McDonald�s. Credit Karsten Moran for The New York Times
The 55-year-old crack addict counted his change outside a Harlem liquor store. He had just over a dollar, leaving him 35 cents short of the cheapest mini-bottle.

The 21-year-old heroin addict sat in a McDonald�s on the Lower East Side, wondering when his grandmother would next wire him money. He was homeless, had 84 cents in his pocket and was living out of two canvas bags.

Each was approached by someone who asked the addict for help buying drugs. Using the stranger�s money, each addict went to see a nearby dealer, returned with drugs, handed them over and was promptly arrested on felony drug-dealing charges. The people who had asked for drugs were undercover narcotics officers with the New York Police Department.

A review of the trials in those cases and two others illuminates what appears to be a tactic for small-scale drug prosecutions: An undercover officer, supplying the cash for the deal, asks an addict to go and buy $20 or $40 worth of crack or heroin. When the addict � perhaps hoping for a chance to smoke or inject a pinch � does so, he is arrested.

In the case of the 21-year-old at the McDonald�s, the undercover officer was an unkempt woman who gave the impression she was about to experience withdrawal, the 21-year-old testified. In one of the other cases, an officer allowed an addict to use his cellphone to call a dealer.

It is impossible to determine how widespread this law enforcement tactic is, but the four recent cases reviewed by The New York Times raise troubling questions about the fairness and effectiveness of the way the Police Department uses undercover officers. Officers neither arrested nor pursued the dealers who sold the drugs to the addicts. Instead, the undercover officers waited around the corner or down the block for the addict to return with the drugs before other officers swooped in.

The department�s tactics and prosecutors� pursuit of such cases have drawn criticism from defense lawyers and juries. In interviews � and, in one instance, in a letter to prosecutors � jurors have questioned why the police and prosecutors would so aggressively pursue troubled addicts. The 21-year-old man and the 55-year-old man were both acquitted of the felony charges.

The tactic would seem at odds with the public positions of some of the city�s top politicians and law enforcement figures, including Mayor Bill de Blasio, a Democrat, and the Manhattan district attorney, Cyrus R. Vance Jr., who have expressed support for reducing prison and jail populations by finding ways to treat mental health problems and addiction.

�We all talk a lot in this city about the public health crisis of drug addiction, and yet we take a very regressive approach to locking people up,� said Tina Luongo, who heads the Legal Aid Society�s criminal practice.

The McDonald�s on the Lower East Side of Manhattan where Brian L. said an unkempt-looking woman, who was an undercover officer, asked him to buy drugs for her. Credit Michelle V. Agins/The New York Times
Last year, nearly 5,000 people were charged in New York City with dealing small quantities of heroin or cocaine, and in 2014, just over 6,000 people faced such charges. But the number of those that involved buy-and-bust cases against addicts is unknown. A vast majority of drug-dealing charges end in plea deals, so there are few trials during which such distinctions might emerge.

The 55-year-old crack addict, Reginald J., agreed to speak to a reporter on the condition that only the first letter of his surname be used when identifying him. In an interview, he articulated one of the issues with these sting operations: It is tough for addicts to say no.

�For him to put the money in my hands, as an addict, let me tell you what happens,� he said. �I like to think I could resist it, but I�m way beyond that. My experience has shown me that 1,000 times out of 1,000 times, I will be defeated.�

At one trial in January, a defendant testified that he had shown an undercover officer track marks on his arm. At another trial, in December, the defendant testified that he had even told an undercover officer about his desire to get clean. �You know what? We got to stop getting high,� the man, Mitchell Coward, testified. �That�s what I told him.�

Joan Vollero, a spokeswoman for the Manhattan district attorney�s office, which prosecuted three of the four cases reviewed by The Times, declined to say whether the office considered such sting operations to be appropriate. But she did say that in some cases, addicts who pleaded guilty to felony drug-dealing charges were steered toward treatment instead of prison.

Law enforcement officials said that undercover stings remained a necessary and sensible response to neighborhood complaints about drug dealing and narcotics use.

�They are going to a location where there are prior incidents,� Brian McCarthy, an assistant chief who commands the narcotics division, said in an interview. �And at the same locations, where there are community complaints,� he added.

He acknowledged that the line between users and dealers was not always fixed. �It is common that the people we arrest are also using the narcotics they are selling,� Chief McCarthy said, but he added that his team was after the dealers. �I believe that we attempt to do our jobs in a planned manner with the utmost integrity where we do get people who are selling narcotics.�

Jurors and a judge expressed skepticism in the four cases. One juror, Seth Silverman, wrote a letter to prosecutors after the trial of Mr. Coward in December, saying he felt it was �approaching absurd that you would use the awesome power of your office to represent the people of New York County, along with it and the court�s limited resources, on such a marginal case.�

Since December, juries and judges in Manhattan have acquitted men of the main charge in three of the cases and deadlocked in the trial of a fourth. In each episode, an undercover investigator had approached men, largely at random, at locations where the police believed drug dealing was occurring.

Reginald J., a 55-year-old crack addict, said it was difficult for drug users to reject offers like the one made to him by an undercover officer. �My experience has shown me that 1,000 times out of 1,000 times, I will be defeated,� he said. Credit Karsten Moran for The New York Times
The 21-year-old heroin addict at the McDonald�s, Brian L., also agreed to be interviewed on the condition that only the first letter of his surname be used. He described how an anxious, unkempt-looking woman approached the table where he and a friend were chatting. The woman, an undercover officer, would later testify that she approached the table at random.

Brian L. �was telling me how he was homeless and he didn�t have a place to stay, small talk,� the officer, identified only as No. 279, testified in January.

Brian L. said that the undercover officer told him she was staying with her grandmother in Brooklyn and was worried she would soon go into withdrawal.

�I said I would help her,� he testified. They walked from the McDonald�s, at Delancey and Essex Streets, toward East Sixth Street, where Brian L. said he often bought heroin. About a block away, he told the woman and his friend to wait, at the steps of an elementary school. The undercover officer handed him $20. He returned with two bags, which he gave the officer. Minutes later, he was arrested.

He had less than a dollar in change with him and no drugs, a police officer later testified. After the arrest, officers logged the dozens of possessions, including toothpaste, winter hats and stuffed animals, that Brian L. carried in his two canvas bags.

His lawyer, Sam Roberts of the Legal Aid Society, asked Detective David Guevara, an investigator working on the case, whether any officers of the nine-member field team on the case followed Brian L. to see where he bought the drugs. The answer was no.

That was a common theme in the three other trials. In one, the addict, who owned no phone himself, had to use an undercover detective�s cellphone to call his drug dealer. But after the addict was arrested, the undercover officer testified he could not remember whether he ever followed up and called the drug dealer�s number, which was logged in his phone, to try to track the dealer down.

The jury took less than an hour to acquit Brian L. of felony charges of dealing narcotics near a school. Most jurors then remained behind to chat with him after the trial.

One juror said that what troubled the jury the most was that a nine-person narcotics squad � which included two undercover officers, several investigators and supporting officers � would bring a case against a single addict.

�The big underlying question is why a nine-person buy-and-bust team did not follow him to the dealer where he got it from,� the juror, Scott Link, said in an interview. �Everyone was scratching their heads, wondering what the heck is wrong with our system.�

I'm not against police stings generally, but this is just so hosed up and pointless. Really glad to see juries and judges aren't buying it and are acquitting these people.

# ? Apr 4, 2016 22:34

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# ? Apr 29, 2024 06:13

peengers: Jun 6, 2003; toot toot

I wonder if the NYPD has one of those "the more you bust, the more likely you are to get a raise and/or a promotion" policies.

# ? Apr 4, 2016 22:41

Xandu: Feb 19, 2006; It's hard to be humble when you're as great as I am.

There's absolutely some sort of problematic incentive system at play here encouraging these sorts of busts. Not sure if it's tied to promotions or funding or what, though.

This idea of going after some random homeless person instead of the dealer he walks over to is just so absurd though.

# ? Apr 4, 2016 22:44

Coolness Averted: Feb 20, 2007; oh don't worry, I can't smell asparagus piss, it's in my DNA

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That's real slimey law enforcement and the worst way of trying to deal with the problem, especially not using it to find supply networks or catch dealers.
That said, I don't see entrapment here, if anything I'd say these examples were down right predatory in finding perps that would fail entrapment standards. How does an addict argue they wouldn't normally buy drugs if not for the police intervention?

peengers posted:

I wonder if the NYPD has one of those "the more you bust, the more likely you are to get a raise and/or a promotion" policies.

The prosecutors and higher brass certainly love being able to cite these sorts of inflated numbers to prove their tough on crime bona fides, so stings like this are helping advance some people.

# ? Apr 4, 2016 23:09

Xandu: Feb 19, 2006; It's hard to be humble when you're as great as I am.

Coolness Averted posted:

That's real slimey law enforcement and the worst way of trying to deal with the problem, especially not using it to find supply networks or catch dealers.
That said, I don't see entrapment here, if anything I'd say these examples were down right predatory in finding perps that would fail entrapment standards. How does an addict argue they wouldn't normally buy drugs if not for the police intervention?

It's entrapment in the sense that these people aren't (necessarily) normally dealers, even if they are users. They aren't charging them with drug posession. Also

"�For him to put the money in my hands, as an addict, let me tell you what happens,� he said. �I like to think I could resist it, but I�m way beyond that. My experience has shown me that 1,000 times out of 1,000 times, I will be defeated.�"

# ? Apr 4, 2016 23:11

Coolness Averted: Feb 20, 2007; oh don't worry, I can't smell asparagus piss, it's in my DNA

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Xandu posted:

It's entrapment in the sense that these people aren't (necessarily) normally dealers, even if they are users. They aren't charging them with drug posession. Also

"�For him to put the money in my hands, as an addict, let me tell you what happens,� he said. �I like to think I could resist it, but I�m way beyond that. My experience has shown me that 1,000 times out of 1,000 times, I will be defeated.�"

Oh I completely agree it's morally repugnant, and I wasn't trying to go for the pedantic " *ahem* technically your thread is misleading, it's not entrapment because..." I think law enforcement in this case is specifically doing their best to get away with skirting it through technicalities or their perps being too honest for their own good (and too poor for adequate legal protection). Saying "Well, yeah I did go buy this for him, but users do this all the time and here's why..." is a reasonable/person on the street way of explaining away the absurdity of these folks being 'dealers' but ends up being an admission of "yes I meet the legal definition of a drug dealer, and committed the crime you're accusing me of."

I'm glad the two listed in the article had sensible juries, but as the article pointed out most of these cases don't ever make it to juries.

# ? Apr 4, 2016 23:46

Condiv: May 7, 2008; Sorry to undo the effort of paying a domestic abuser $10 to own this poster, but I am going to lose my dang mind if I keep seeing multiple posters who appear to be Baloogan.

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i think the issue lies with the drug dealing charge

would addicts of their level usually deal? no, they'd likely use their whole supply on themselves. so the entrapment comes from the police creating a situation that turns them into temporary "dealers'

plus charging these people as dealers doesn't get rid of the real dealers, nor does it rehabilitate them in the least.

# ? Apr 5, 2016 00:19

TROIKA CURES GREEK: Jun 30, 2015; by R. Guyovich

Entrapment would be more concerned with what exactly the officers said to the defendants I would think.

quote:

Entrapment is a complete defense to a criminal charge, on the theory that "Government agents may not originate a criminal design, implant in an innocent person's mind the disposition to commit a criminal act, and then induce commission of the crime so that the Government may prosecute." Jacobson v. United States, 503 U.S. 540, 548 (1992). A valid entrapment defense has two related elements: (1) government inducement of the crime, and (2) the defendant's lack of predisposition to engage in the criminal conduct. Mathews v. United States, 485 U.S. 58, 63 (1988). Of the two elements, predisposition is by far the more important.

Inducement is the threshold issue in the entrapment defense. Mere solicitation to commit a crime is not inducement. Sorrells v. United States, 287 U.S. 435, 451 (1932). Nor does the government's use of artifice, stratagem, pretense, or deceit establish inducement. Id. at 441. Rather, inducement requires a showing of at least persuasion or mild coercion, United States v. Nations, 764 F.2d 1073, 1080 (5th Cir. 1985); pleas based on need, sympathy, or friendship, ibid.; or extraordinary promises of the sort "that would blind the ordinary person to his legal duties," United States v. Evans, 924 F.2d 714, 717 (7th Cir. 1991). See also United States v. Kelly, 748 F.2d 691, 698 (D.C. Cir. 1984) (inducement shown only if government's behavior was such that "a law-abiding citizen's will to obey the law could have been overborne"); United States v. Johnson, 872 F.2d 612, 620 (5th Cir. 1989) (inducement shown if government created "a substantial risk that an offense would be committed by a person other than one ready to commit it").

Even if inducement has been shown, a finding of predisposition is fatal to an entrapment defense. The predisposition inquiry focuses upon whether the defendant "was an unwary innocent or, instead, an unwary criminal who readily availed himself of the opportunity to perpetrate the crime." Mathews, 485 U.S. at 63. Thus, predisposition should not be confused with intent or mens rea: a person may have the requisite intent to commit the crime, yet be entrapped. Also, predisposition may exist even in the absence of prior criminal involvement: "the ready commission of the criminal act," such as where a defendant promptly accepts an undercover agent's offer of an opportunity to buy or sell drugs, may itself establish predisposition. Jacobson, 503 U.S. at 550.

https://www.justice.gov/usam/criminal-resource-manual-645-entrapment-elements

Condiv posted:

i think the issue lies with the drug dealing charge

would addicts of their level usually deal? no, they'd likely use their whole supply on themselves. so the entrapment comes from the police creating a situation that turns them into temporary "dealers'

I'm guessing this wouldn't work because addicts dealing part time to fuel their habit is a very common thing. It probably isn't technically entrapment, so good on the juries acquitting because the case is obvious bullshit instead.

# ? Apr 5, 2016 01:59

peengers: Jun 6, 2003; toot toot

Reminds me of Miami Gardens:

quote:

Earl Sampson has been stopped and questioned by Miami Gardens police 258 times in four years.

He�s been searched more than 100 times. And arrested and jailed 56 times.

Despite his long rap sheet, Sampson, 28, has never been convicted of anything more serious than possession of marijuana.

Miami Gardens police have arrested Sampson 62 times for one offense: trespassing.

Almost every citation was issued at the same place: the 207 Quickstop, a convenience store on 207th Street in Miami Gardens.

But Sampson isn�t loitering. He works as a clerk at the Quickstop.

There's an excellent this american life episode about this, they basically incentivized arrests and the department was so corrupt and useless that everyone did it. Their old police chief resigned over this, and the new police chief was arrested in a prostitution sting.

Why did he solicit two prostitutes for a threesome? �The stress overwhelmed me, and I made a very bad decision to deal with that moment I�ve never experienced before.�

# ? Apr 5, 2016 02:23

teardrop: Dec 20, 2004; by Pragmatica

peengers posted:

I wonder if the NYPD has one of those "the more you bust, the more likely you are to get a raise and/or a promotion" policies.

NYT posted:

His lawyer, Sam Roberts of the Legal Aid Society, asked Detective David Guevara, an investigator working on the case, whether any officers of the nine-member field team on the case followed Brian L. to see where he bought the drugs. The answer was no.

That was a common theme in the three other trials. In one, the addict, who owned no phone himself, had to use an undercover detective�s cellphone to call his drug dealer. But after the addict was arrested, the undercover officer testified he could not remember whether he ever followed up and called the drug dealer�s number, which was logged in his phone, to try to track the dealer down.

Uh ok genius who do you want to arrest for drug dealing, that big drug dealer with the pitbull and the shotgun or that emaciated homeless guy with seventy five cents and a bag full of hats? You're gonna go far on the force

# ? Apr 5, 2016 02:36

LorneReams: Jun 27, 2003; I'm bizarre

Why would you arrest the dealer in this situation if your goal is to arrest homeless people? You need the dealer. They probably used the same dealer every time and they were probably in on it.

# ? Apr 5, 2016 05:37

Coolness Averted: Feb 20, 2007; oh don't worry, I can't smell asparagus piss, it's in my DNA

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LorneReams posted:

Why would you arrest the dealer in this situation if your goal is to arrest homeless people? You need the dealer. They probably used the same dealer every time and they were probably in on it.

You joke, but I think this is one of the ways Bratton is technically complying with his promise to reduce broken window policing.
The public would be angry about another few thousand arrests for petty misdemeanors like possession or loitering.
So stings like this help push the stats on misdemeanors down and up the stats on felony drug dealers taken off the street, which the public is usually more sympathetic towards, plus you still get to 'clean up the streets.'

# ? Apr 5, 2016 05:47

KomradeX: Oct 29, 2011

The level of human scum the NYPD continually find new ways to sink too never ceases to amaze and anger me

# ? Apr 6, 2016 06:52

Condiv: May 7, 2008; Sorry to undo the effort of paying a domestic abuser $10 to own this poster, but I am going to lose my dang mind if I keep seeing multiple posters who appear to be Baloogan.

With love,
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TROIKA CURES GREEK posted:

Entrapment would be more concerned with what exactly the officers said to the defendants I would think.

https://www.justice.gov/usam/criminal-resource-manual-645-entrapment-elements

I'm guessing this wouldn't work because addicts dealing part time to fuel their habit is a very common thing. It probably isn't technically entrapment, so good on the juries acquitting because the case is obvious bullshit instead.

if they were dealing they wouldn't have needed to call a dealer in every one of these cases. also you can't presume they're dealing just because they're addicts (innocent till proven guilty). as for "what they said" there was that one undercover officer who claimed she was going through really nasty withdrawal. i think that counts on the verbal side of things, even if giving penniless addicts poo poo tons of money to buy drugs with doesn't for some weird reason. and I'm still iffy on how that's not entrapment. would it be entrapment if you offered money to a starving person to rob a house for you? i think yes, and a drug addiction can get so bad as to have the drugs be nearly as necessary to the addicts as food.

# ? Apr 6, 2016 07:02

Liquid Communism: Mar 9, 2004; Out here, everything hurts.

It isn't even a ton of money. The article quotes $10-$20 scores.

I mean, that's gotta be pocket change to any actual dealer, not something you have to go hit up a supplier for.

# ? Apr 6, 2016 11:53

Helsing: Aug 23, 2003; DON'T POST IN THE ELECTION THREAD UNLESS YOU JOE BIDEN

It's remarkable how the US maintains the fiction of legal equality while having what are de facto parallel legal systems depending on how much money you have. If you're wealthy enough almost any charge is beatable, if your middle class you probably have a decent shot at beating charges but you'll have to dip into your pocket, and if you're poor then often you live in the equivalent of a third world kleptocracy, complete with a massively corrupt police force that treats you as a source of income and an archipeligo of (often privatized, since it's "Murica) gulags where you can look forward to stamping license plates or working in a call centre when you're not busy being raped or conscripted into one of the numerous and powerful prison gangs.

It's like somebody created 21st century America by stacking the society from 'Gattaca' on top of a foundation made from Robocop and the Running Man.

# ? Apr 6, 2016 18:08

Vermain: Sep 5, 2006

Helsing posted:

It's remarkable how the US maintains the fiction of legal equality while having what are de facto parallel legal systems depending on how much money you have.

I struggle to think of a place where this isn't the case with how modern legal systems are established.

# ? Apr 6, 2016 18:18

CommieGIR: Aug 22, 2006; The blue glow is a feature, not a bug; Pillbug

Xandu posted:

There's absolutely some sort of problematic incentive system at play here encouraging these sorts of busts. Not sure if it's tied to promotions or funding or what, though.

This idea of going after some random homeless person instead of the dealer he walks over to is just so absurd though.

They play a lot of these drug sting systems on Cops too, and yeah it seems very much unfair to addicts and just a sick way for cops to pad their total.

# ? Apr 6, 2016 18:19

ToxicSlurpee: Nov 5, 2003; -=SEND HELP=-; Pillbug

The American legal system is not geared for preventing crime or punishing criminals. It's geared toward shoving as many people into prison as possible. It has successfully disenfranchised millions of people. In many places once you get in the system you never, ever get out; prisoners are deliberately set up to fail once released.

Once you understand that the system makes a lot more sense.

# ? Apr 6, 2016 18:28

Helsing: Aug 23, 2003; DON'T POST IN THE ELECTION THREAD UNLESS YOU JOE BIDEN

Vermain posted:

I struggle to think of a place where this isn't the case with how modern legal systems are established.

Any justice system is easy to manipulate when you have money and going to prison will tend to suck anywhere in the world for most people but Americas penal system still stands out in terms of how awful and corrupt it is. For instance, every existing police force has some issues with corruption, but I don't think most first world police forces have been blatantly re-purposed into a money grab from the racialized underclass to quite the extent that many towns in America have done.

# ? Apr 6, 2016 19:00

Ytlaya: Nov 13, 2005

This sort of thing just seems so depressing and pointlessly cruel. Addicts need treatment, not punishment. The only thing separating me from people like those in that article is the fact that I have a supportive family and stable income stream with which to maintain my addiction* (which is arguably a bad thing, since it indefinitely prevents me from hitting the "rock bottom" that is usually necessary for addicts to quit). When I think of how physically and emotionally devastating my addiction is and how much worse it must be for poorer addicts like those in the article, it just seems insane to make their lives even shittier.

*Adding further to this, the opioid I use is actually more expensive than, for example, heroin, but it's also legal. So I'm basically able to legally maintain my addiction due to having a stable income stream. Poorer addicts have no choice but to break the law to maintain their addictions.

edit: As a side note, the idea of being arrested and going into withdrawal while in jail (where you have no medical aid or support) is probably one of the most terrible things I can imagine, yet it routinely happens.

Ytlaya fucked around with this message at 20:05 on Apr 6, 2016

# ? Apr 6, 2016 20:02

Farmer Crack-Ass: Jan 2, 2001; this is me posting irl

quote:

One juror said that what troubled the jury the most was that a nine-person narcotics squad � which included two undercover officers, several investigators and supporting officers � would bring a case against a single addict.

I hope there's some kind of investigation on these guys' work habits, because I can't help but wonder if there's officers who are actually sitting at home jerking off while they're "supporting" this case.

# ? Apr 6, 2016 21:47

My Imaginary GF: Jul 17, 2005; by R. Guyovich

teardrop posted:

Uh ok genius who do you want to arrest for drug dealing, that big drug dealer with the pitbull and the shotgun or that emaciated homeless guy with seventy five cents and a bag full of hats? You're gonna go far on the force

I think it depends upon the neighborhood the individuals are in, does it not? I am sure an officer in NYC would much rather arrest an individual in possession of PCP in a gentrifying neighborhood than they would organize an inter-agency taskforce to go after some mid-level addict/dealer in Rochester who sources from Syracuse drugs which originate in Toronto due to mislabeled shipping logs of chemicals which would appear to originate in Shandong.

I've never heard of any in NYCPD getting promoted for involving Treasury in an investigation which could otherwise be handled via arresting an individual in a manner pleasing to Hizzonah's yuppy base.

Farmer Crack-rear end posted:

I hope there's some kind of investigation on these guys' work habits, because I can't help but wonder if there's officers who are actually sitting at home jerking off while they're "supporting" this case.

This is a narc squad, crack rear end. Why sit at home jerking it when ya got a legal sanction to utilize whores for investigative purposes?

# ? Apr 6, 2016 23:02

Rent-A-Cop: Oct 15, 2004; I posted my food for USPOL Thanksgiving!

peengers posted:

I wonder if the NYPD has one of those "the more you bust, the more likely you are to get a raise and/or a promotion" policies.

It's called CompStat.

# ? Apr 6, 2016 23:51

duck monster: Dec 15, 2004

Vermain posted:

I struggle to think of a place where this isn't the case with how modern legal systems are established.

Here in West Australia we used to have a crazy amount of corruption, poo poo I even had a cop confiscate my weed and then *sell it back to me* (with the provisio that if I didnt pay, I'd get charged), back in the 90s. But after the press started howling about it, and with the downfall of the state gov...ernment to the "WA INC" corruption scandle, they put in a corruption commission that really did a good job of clearing out a lot of the garbage.....

..Until we started hearing about the corruption commission itself being stacked with dodgy fucks on the pay.

Good times. West Australia is a billionaires playground and the rest of us proles can get hosed, it seems. We're basically Dubai with white people.

# ? Apr 7, 2016 12:02

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# ? Apr 29, 2024 06:13

Whitlam: Aug 2, 2014; Some goons overreact. Go figure.

duck monster posted:

Here in West Australia we used to have a crazy amount of corruption, poo poo I even had a cop confiscate my weed and then *sell it back to me* (with the provisio that if I didnt pay, I'd get charged), back in the 90s. But after the press started howling about it, and with the downfall of the state gov...ernment to the "WA INC" corruption scandle, they put in a corruption commission that really did a good job of clearing out a lot of the garbage.....

..Until we started hearing about the corruption commission itself being stacked with dodgy fucks on the pay.

Good times. West Australia is a billionaires playground and the rest of us proles can get hosed, it seems. We're basically Dubai with white people.

Hey (I'm assuming) Perth buddy! I moved to a non-garbage state and can confirm that it's a great choice. The weed possession laws are way better and the police actually aren't complete tools. In short, get as far away from Barnett as you can.

# ? Apr 7, 2016 14:50

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