[unimpressive]

>Just for the sake of slapping another charge onto somebody during an arrest.

This hits the nail on the head right here. The way that you get a police state is by making everything illegal and then doing selective enforcement. That way when organizations that control law enforcement decide they don't like you; the police can arrest you with impunity and just find something to charge you with after the fact.

I also find it highly unethical to make things illegal for the sake of being able to slap defendants with another charge at trial. It usually ends up causing collateral damage to legitimate people and services (In the case of general laws like this that put blanket bans on things that shouldn't be blanket banned.), and seems like a lazy excuse to do more legislating. And to say nothing of artificially inflating peoples sentences because somehow the sentencing limits weren't enough.

[wisty]

I saw a very candid statement in the SMH about this:

Victoria Police Deputy Commissioner Graham Ashton said decriminalising drugs was a "simplistic idea" that the community should be cautious of.

"Dealing with the drug problem is not a 'war' as the American term 'war on drugs' suggests, because it is not a battle to be won or lost,'' he said in a statement. "It is a societal problem that requires constant vigilance and the police role is one of community protection. The police fulfil this role by working to prevent deaths on our roads, prevent family violence in our homes and assaults in our streets."

Moves to decriminalise drugs would make it more difficult for police to prevent road fatalities, domestic violence and assaults, he said.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/political-news/gillard-and-car...

So, how is it that the police use drug laws to stop other crimes? Is it through preventing drug abuse, or giving them a charge to lay if assault is too hard to prove?

[Symmetry]

If you really want to make a difference in "road fatalities, domestic violence and assaults" you ought to legalize marijuana and ban alcohol.

[ktizo]

The logic of his statement doesn't stand up however.

Prohibition laws regarding popular and easily obtainable narcotics do not reduce other crimes, but rather, in several measurable ways increases them, the most obvious one being that it then directly finances a lot of other organised crime.

[wisty]

Police logic doesn't always stand up. They know what makes their job (catching bad guys, getting convictions) easier, not what stops crime at the source.

[ktizo]

So a bit like military intelligence then.