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- "Pusher Corps" thriving
- Good cops put their lives on the line to enforce discredited laws
- SUNNYSIDE (Tuesday, 8-3-99)---When Sunnyside cops saw a man driving erratically in his '88 Honda Accord at around 11 p.m. today, they stopped whom they believed might be a drunk driver. But it soon proved to be more than a routine DUI.
- Pulling over a car is the second most dangerous situation cops are exposed to almost every day (quelling domestic spats is first).
- The guy refused to stop after a half mile car chase. When the driver finally pulled over, he bolted from the car carrying a package, fleeing south along the ditch bank.
- Cops immediately put their lives on the line to chase--in the black of night--a man who might well be armed and willing to turn, drop and shoot them. Cops reportedly saw the driver toss something into the canal. After a half-mile foot race, cops nabbed the driver without--as luck would have it--a fire fight. Then officers retrieved the package floating in the ditch.
- Officers said the package contained almost an ounce of black tar heroin plus a large electronic weight scale.
- What sells for a few cents in South America sells for incredibly eye-popping, C-note-flapping street prices in the U.S. These prices are a direct result of U.S. drug laws.
- Drug laws serve only the posturing politicians who pass them, and a whole industry of federal, single-purpose, DEA cops who are employed with great fringe benefits, who fight for their jobs using the tired drugs-are-bad rhetoric. I wouldn't trade 20 of these home-raider feds for a local, general practitioner cop who knows and loves his community.
- Artificially high drug prices--created and sustained by drug laws--enable big dealers to pay for a universal distribution infrastructure--the "Pusher Corps". This highly paid, untaxed, and highly motivated Corps entices children and childish adults to try drugs. They're more successful than any D.A.R.E. operation. That's because the Pusher Corps' mission is based in reality, with an easy understanding of human motivations.
- The Pusher Corps operates in every community, in every state in the U.S. If the price of drugs was just a few cents, the Pusher Corps would be out of business. Pushing would cease. Drugs would be no more of a problem today than they were in the 1940s.
- Politicians know this. The DEA industry knows this. But they won't admit it. Politicians want to appear "tough on crime." DEA-industry employees recoil at the thought of losing fat-fed jobs and applying for local police work that requires brains, judgment, personality, and search warrants issued by real local judges.
Arrested in connection with the Sunnyside incident was Jesus Jose Lopez, 25, of Grandview.
- Cops reportedly seized an ounce of heroin, a small amount of marijuana and a 1988 Honda Accord, according to Officer James Orth. Lopez was booked at Sunnyside Jail and transported to Yakima County Jail.
- He awaits formal charges of heroin possession with intent to deliver, possession of heroin in a school zone, and driving with license suspended.