Monday, November 10, 2008

Chicago Stupidity

In all of the excitement of the recent election, I missed
this story of Chicago's Board of Aldermen showing what brilliant things a legislative body can come up with:

CHICAGO (WBBM) -- Aldermen have given preliminary approval to an ordinance that would ban the sale or possession of tiny plastic bags often used by drug dealers.
. . .
The bags are two-inch, sealable, plastic and stamped with little logos, like hearts, spiders or superhero symbols. And 2nd Ward Alderman Bob Fioretti says, in his area, they’re used to hold crack cocaine and heroin.
. . .
One Alderman previously questioned suggested some of the bags have a legitimate use, like holding extra buttons for clothing.
Yes, if I buy a shirt with a little zip-lock bag holding extra buttons attached to it, or some electronic gizmo whose manufacturer thoughtfully included one or two spare fuses in such a bag, why I'm exactly the same as a drug dealer!

12 comments:

  1. Yep.
    Little plastic bags, digital scales, and a little bottle of a chemical with an eye-dropper. All tools of the trade for my sister-in-law's business.

    Buying and selling silver jewelry.

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  2. The sheer nonsense of this? It's likely that there's already a law that would cover little baggies used to package drugs.

    Here in Ohio, it's a crime to possess "criminal tools" -- any item with purpose to use them criminally. A digital scale, plastic baggies, and a razor blade all would fall within the reach of a "criminal tools" law when they're used in the drug trade. Conversely, law-abiding citizens need not worry that merely having something like baggies will result in a criminal charge.

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  3. This is laziness on the part of police and more particularly, prosecutors. You can be found guilty of possession of drug paraphernalia if the State can prove beyond a reasonable doubt that pretty much ANYTHING that can be used to package drugs was actually used to package drugs. By making these bags per se illegal, they're saved a step.

    Damn all those arch-conservatives in Chicago, though! If only there were liberals in charge to prevent our Due Process rights from being watered down!!

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  4. The right would do well to abandon the "War on Drugs" on purely ideological grounds but my butt seems to be entirely devoid of flying monkeys.

    Sorry.

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  5. Hey, is E3 down for everyone, or is it just me?

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  6. It's nice to see the right focused on the big issues of our times. Pass me a "baggie" i'm gonna hurl little chunks of minutia.

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  7. I see our resident troll is back...

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  8. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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  9. Orrin Johnson:

    This has nothing to do with either the police or prosecutors. Last time I checked, "alderman" is a synonym for neither. Rather, this is just the kind of nothing action that a politician does to show they are "doing something" to address the problems in their community.

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  10. Someone puked under Doug's post!

    BLEAAAARRRGGGG!! (To borrow from MD)
    Cleanup on Aisle 3!

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  11. Lance,

    Are you somehow under the impression that police and DAs don't lobby their legislators? Or that DAs aren't politicians in and of themselves? It's not like the Alderman sees meth baggies on a regular basis.

    Although this guy might...

    ReplyDelete

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