LOL.. point taken. I'm not impressed by state legislature... I know [many] in California, they are just not the sharpest tool in the toolshed, and more often than not seem to be college dropouts that claim they graduated, hug a veteran for a vote but never served themselves, and that $90k salary is the best thing they ever had in their lives for about 70% of them.

It's a pretty predictable career path - intern during the poli sci major in college, then get a staffer job in someone's district, get promoted to the capital staff, then maybe a legislative analyst or constituent PR rep for a few years, then Chief of Staff for someone, and get hooked up eventually with a county central committee, a campaign manager (that takes a cut of donations) and some fundraising types.

Real 'producers' in society rarely do that because by the point they have the time in their career (I've considered it) to look at doing something for the public good, they can't afford the pay cut or the BS of it all.

Protecting citizen's lives from 'physical force' I buy.

Hell, they'd immediately lose half their staffing justifications and their early morning SWAT drug raids.

wow. do you have some sort of cite to prove that? and why does he need to justify his lifestyle? He is obviously somewhat successful in making it to state level govt. I know nothing of his merits and find his god argument weak, but ....

Always a possiblity

None of those agencies operate in a vacuum. If local LEOs deployments and actions change, it affects the other agencies too. Indirectly, but it does affect them.

Local LEOs are backup and extra bodies for those other agencies as well as intelligence sources. Do not ignore 2nd order effects.

The Law of unintended consequences has not been repealed.

The sooner society halts all forms of criminalizing behavior and falls back to protecting life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, the freer and better off we'll all be. I own myself--no-one else has any rights over my mind and body or my values.

5% of the world's population and 25% of the world's prisoners! What a bunch of hooey!

All nannys, get a hobby.

Drugs are not the problem, illegal drugs are the problem.It is said a $300 a day heroin addiction would only be about $3 a day if the drug wasn't illegal. Likewise with all other narcotics. If Billie Bob grows marijuana and smokes it how has a crime been committed since there is no victim. The high cost of illegal drugs is where the crime comes from, addicts must steal to support the ever higher costs. Whether participating in drugs is morally right or wrong in irrelevant.

yep. decriminalization of drugs will divert funds from chasing down and incarcerating people into other productive pursuits. Of course, you have to have a free society that puts high value on property rights. Man is good. He goes into an opium induced dream when he has limited economic opportunity.

He's just a pothead at heart that wants some justification for his lifestyle.

I think it is because police are people. We have now raised a couple of generations to believe that 'pot is evilbad'. This leads to two kinds of behaviors: people avoiding pot so they will not be bad; people seeking pot so that they can feel evil. (NB There are many nice people in the second category, but that is a different discussion.)

Law Enforcement folk are generally conservative, so pot legalization compromises their personal ethical stances and makes them believe that they can no longer go after the 'bad guys' who sell pot.

Jan

I don't see how the Texas Legislature can do anything to influence DEA or Border Patrol enforcement policy.

If they want to not have the local deputies and police involved, to each their own, just don't cry about a generation of useless young adults.

Opium is just a plant, are we going to make that fine too? So is cocaine.

cartels don't care where their money comes from. frankly, shooting up a marijuana retail site and taking their cash-since banks aren't letting the businesses open accts-is easier and cheaper than growing it, running it, delivering it, protecting it. I see the violence removing from the border and heading inland. just my 2 c

yea, there's a few I'd like to sell "God's good" hemlock to :)

I literally laughed out loud. You go guy. Do your thing.

Want to stop crime? Lower its profit through competition.
This could also have a major long term economic effect on other crops that hemp competes with, e.g., cotton and man-made petro fabrics.
How about a bill making alcohol distillation for personal use legal, too?
And a bill to eliminate tax collection on certain weapons.
Then defund the BATF because it has no mission. (And shouldn't have had one since alcohol prohibition was repealed.)

The rationale was weird, and not rational.

Seriously???

1. Whether or not Marijuana is illegal represents a significant change in enforcement policy and training. So they care about that for a number of reasons.

2. Marijuana is a significant drug cartel/organized crime product. Decriminalizing Marijuana alters the income for the cartels, something they will not be happy about. Likely to cause them to lash out to either A: maintain the revenue or B: protest the lost revenue. Police are certainly going to care about that since either one means increased violence.

ANY change to drug laws, especially in border states directly affects the policing environment in a range of ways.

Marijuana should never have been treated the way it has been. As usual the lessons of history (Prohibition) were ignored, and now we will have problems unraveling from it.

Bottom line, for the police/sheriff/border patrol in border states especially, it could cause a dramatic change in their work environment, and not necessarily reducing their danger. So YES they care about the changes.

well, this guy's rationale is all weird, but other than that, I wish them luck....

I agree with every bit of the article and wonder why the Sheriff's association cares whether marijuana is decriminalized. They would care about a law that gives them better/worse equpiment or how much action they're authorized to take on annoymous tips, but why should they care about the details of what specific things are illegal?