The longest and most expensive non-military “war” this nation is involved with is the ongoing “war on drugs”. By any definition, cost-benefit analysis, or similar metric, this endeavor has been a huge and costly failure. It’s been going for nearly five decades, and any cop will tell you illicit drugs are more available now than ever before.
Especially when you’re talking about highly addictive and extremely dangerous marijuana, a gateway drug which almost always leads to heroin addiction and death.
I’m being sarcastic, of course. But that’s the definition of pot, espoused a couple years ago by a county sheriff just north of Madison, in proudly announcing he’d eradicated about thirty bucks worth of ditch weed. He and a phalanx of deputies pulled the ditch weed up by the roots and proudly displayed a card-table laden with it, to the media.
They gave it an absurdly high “street value”, but nobody would try to sell ditch weed, much less smoke it. In return for a negligible “high”, you’d get a crashing headache.
Two days ago, 78 law enforcement officials from eight agencies, including the feds, spent the day slogging through the Navarino Wildlife Refuge up in Shawano County. They started at first light - 6AM - and claim to have uncovered “one of the largest marijuana grow operations ever discovered in Wisconsin”. I quote from Attorney General J.B. VanHollen’s press release, which escaped from his office yesterday afternoon.
Some hunter who’d wandered into the pot patch phoned in an anonymous tip, and the bust was on!
The narcs involved in the operation included regular cops from the Oconto, Waupaca, and Shawano County Sheriff’s Department, the Clintonville Police Department, the State Patrol, the state Justice Department, the DNR, and the DEA.
Holy overkill, Batman!
They laid waste to thousands of marijuana plants at a dozen separate “grow sites” in the refuge, and dismantled campsites and worksites they believe were related to the operation.
One small fly in the ointment.
By their own admission, most of the highly addictive and extremely dangerous gateway drug from this king-sized operation had already been harvested. It’s the middle of October, fellas; we’ve had a hard freeze; the growing season is over; but I’m sure there was plenty of low-quality weed left to seize and destroy.
The good stuff is probably already on the streets in Wisconsin cities, bending minds and causing madness. And the munchies.
78 cops, 624 man-hours, eight federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies, plus their vehicles, gas, and hard work, to do away with a few crappy encampments and some left-over weed.
You decide if it was worth it.
same as all the authorities regarding a chance to be the heroes ,or make a name for themselves; got to love that adrenaline rush when they get the opportunity to flash their badge. I suppose for them its better than sex ...of course I suppose any thing would be better than sex with one of them....anyway join me , while I bend over this twenty dollar bill and pick up this dime( because it shines)
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