4 ms·

Having police with drug dogs, posted at train stations to catch random people with personal quantities of drugs is straight up fascist in my opinion. Drug use

Having police with drug dogs, posted at train stations to catch random people with personal quantities of drugs is straight up fascist in my opinion. Drug use crosses socioeconomic lines, yet drug dogs at train stations (targeted in the poorer suburbs too) ends up unfairly targeting poor people (who are often minorities), especially as wealthier people tend to drive rather than take public transport. Send some drug dogs through the bank offices on a Friday evening and see how much coke you find. Instead they're busting poor people for having a gram of weed on them. Personally, I'd rather that they didn't have drug dogs at all, they tend to victimise users rather than actually stop the root cause of the "problem" (I'm not a fan of drug prohibition at all), i.e. the dealers and the traffickers. Drug traffickers aren't going to be transporting commercial quantities of drugs on the train, they're going to be driving cars. Drug dogs are also generally ineffective and respond more to their handlers signals than actually detecting drugs by scent and are therefore susceptible to their handlers biases, further victimising minorities.

King-Aaron 8y ago
I smoke pot, and don't like the idea of being targeted at train stations because I smoked a spliff the night before while wearing the same sweater. FYI I am not 'poor' and I do have a small fleet of my own cars, but people with a small quantity of money behind them a) also like to smoke drugs on occasion and b) also do use public transport. Edit: I realize that sounded a bit snide, apologies. I think my point is that it's not so much a fascist thing, and I agree with the GP that calling the draconian drug policies fascist does detract from the legitimately scary/quasi-fascist things that are going on. I fear that the more we misconstrue these kinds of arguments, the harder it will be to make progress.
- toomanybeersies 8y ago
  I guess calling it all-out fascist is perhaps a hyperbole. But it's creeping authoritarianism. To me though, having police posted with dogs at train stations just looks especially authoritarian. Police dogs (whether drug dogs or attack dogs) are primarily a tool for intimidation.
  - King-Aaron 8y ago
    I agree with you tbh. Considering the tremendous false positive rate with sniffer dogs too, I find the use of them especially hard to justify as anything other than intimidation. Got to remember though that when police do big operations like that, they may also often be looking for one specific target/individual, but have to use a blanket approach to apprehend them. So while you may be caught up in the "random" checks, they may just be using it as a facade to catch a truly dangerous person.
cylinder 8y ago
I've never seen a single police officer at a Sydney train station before and especially not with dogs.

King-Aaron 8y ago

I smoke pot, and don't like the idea of being targeted at train stations because I smoked a spliff the night before while wearing the same sweater. FYI I am not 'poor' and I do have a small fleet of my own cars, but people with a small quantity of money behind them a) also like to smoke drugs on occasion and b) also do use public transport. Edit: I realize that sounded a bit snide, apologies. I think my point is that it's not so much a fascist thing, and I agree with the GP that calling the draconian drug policies fascist does detract from the legitimately scary/quasi-fascist things that are going on. I fear that the more we misconstrue these kinds of arguments, the harder it will be to make progress.

toomanybeersies 8y ago
I guess calling it all-out fascist is perhaps a hyperbole. But it's creeping authoritarianism. To me though, having police posted with dogs at train stations just looks especially authoritarian. Police dogs (whether drug dogs or attack dogs) are primarily a tool for intimidation.
- King-Aaron 8y ago
  I agree with you tbh. Considering the tremendous false positive rate with sniffer dogs too, I find the use of them especially hard to justify as anything other than intimidation. Got to remember though that when police do big operations like that, they may also often be looking for one specific target/individual, but have to use a blanket approach to apprehend them. So while you may be caught up in the "random" checks, they may just be using it as a facade to catch a truly dangerous person.

cylinder 8y ago

I've never seen a single police officer at a Sydney train station before and especially not with dogs.