75 Boston Police Officers Fail Drug Test

Since Boston police started annual drug testing in 1999, 75 officers have failed the tests, and 26 of them flunked a second test and were fired, newly released statistics show.

Acting Police Commissioner Albert Goslin said an additional 20 of the officers who tested positive left the department on their own, which he said is because they could not handle the frequent follow-up checks.

Of the 75 officers, 61 tested positive for cocaine, 14 for marijuana, two for ecstasy, and one for heroin, according to the figures, obtained by the Globe through a public records request. (Some officers had more than one drug in their system).

Some specialists and department observers said they were alarmed by the number of officers testing positive for a ``hard" drug such as cocaine and questioned the department's policy that allows an officer to remain on the force after a positive drug test. An officer is not fired until a second positive test.

``It seems like it's a chronic problem," said Darnell A. Williams, president and CEO of the Urban League of Eastern Massachusetts. ``Here we're trying to deal with the guns and the drugs on the street level, but we have a more strident problem inside the department when we have that many people testing positive for drugs, especially cocaine."

The department's drug testing policy is already under scrutiny, after reports that the alleged ringleader in a corruption case tested positive for cocaine in 1999, yet kept his job under the rules that call only for suspensions and treatment even for positive tests for drugs such as cocaine and heroin.

 

I don't get it, it doesn't work with weed, but for every other drug nearly minus benzos which are also fat soluble, I assume they had at least a day or 2 warning before the test, just chug down water.

 

It's ironic that the same fuzz that bust us are doin' the same shit, wonder how much of their stash came from cats they'd busted.

 

All more reason to legalize, you find this stuff on all walks of life it should be embraced not prohibited.

 

I might step on some toes by saying this but I support any effort to eradicate hard drugs from the streets, although I don't think non violent drug offenders should be locked up. But seriously even cops are smoking weed why not decriminalize at least?

"No one saved the world from sniffing cocaine, when it snows in your nose you catch a cold in your brain" - Allen Ginsberg

"Avoid needles, the only dope worth shooting is Nixon" - Albert Hoffman

 

I don't think you're stepping on many toes, actually. Certainly not mine.

 

Actually you're stepping on my toes, people should be allowed to do "hard" drugs

 

Well, did you catch that he said he didn't think drug users should be jailed for their drug use? I think the implication then would be that hard drugs would not be "illegal" in the usual sense in the posters ideal scenario - thus it wouldn't necessarily be the case that people wouldn't be "allowed" to do them so much as they would simply stop being available or, in the case of a real breakthrough (which I admit is not exactly very likely), people would simply stop choosing to use them.

I agree with you that drugs shouldn't be illegal except in some extreme cases - for instance, laws against drunk driving are probably a good rather than bad thing. PCP, while its dangers have probably been exaggerated by the media to some degree, is still a pretty dangerous drug and a high dose essentially destroys your ability to consciously choose what you are doing, or to understand what is happening around you. So you really put not just yourself but those around you in danger when you take a shitload of PCP.

 

In the Netherlands a person can legally shoot up heroine and smoke crack wherever they please, drug users are not looked at as criminals but rather treated with pitty. Hard drugs in the Netherlands aren't legal but are decriminalized. The law enforcement targets the dealers instead of the users and therefore they have the lowest addiction rate in the world (look it up for yourself because the media won't tell you).

 

And that's how it should be. Punishing drug users accomplishes nothing except ruining the lives of victims of drug addiction even further than they have already been ruined by the drugs themselves. Nobody is going to stop doing heroin because one person gets arrested for using heroin except for that one person while he is in jail.

But if you eliminate the sources of these drugs then people have no choice but to stop taking them. AND if you treat the addicts as sick people rather than criminals they are more likely to get over their addiction since they have the option of treatment instead of just cold turkey in jail, which will be agonizing and most likely instill a deep hatred of the justice in them and just make them that much more determined to break the law/continue their habit once they get out.

 

But why should suppliers be punished, they're just giving people what they want. There's nothing wrong with doing coke, heroin ect if that's your choice.

 

Thanx for sharing...
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Drug Rehab