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this post was submitted on 09 Sep 2023
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THE POLICE PROBLEM
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The police problem is that police are policed by the police. Cops are accountable only to other cops, which is no accountability at all.
99.9999% of police brutality, corruption, and misconduct is never investigated, never punished, never makes the news, so it's not on this page.
When cops are caught breaking the law, they're investigated by other cops. Details are kept quiet, the officers' names are withheld from public knowledge, and what info is eventually released is only what police choose to release — often nothing at all.
When police are fired — which is all too rare — they leave with 'law enforcement experience' and can easily find work in another police department nearby. It's called "Wandering Cops."
When police testify under oath, they lie so frequently that cops themselves have a joking term for it: "testilying." Yet it's almost unheard of for police to be punished or prosecuted for perjury.
Cops can and do get away with lawlessness, because cops protect other cops. If they don't, they aren't cops for long.
The legal doctrine of "qualified immunity" renders police officers invulnerable to lawsuits for almost anything they do. In practice, getting past 'qualified immunity' is so unlikely, it makes headlines when it happens.
All this is a path to a police state.
In a free society, police must always be under serious and skeptical public oversight, with non-cops and non-cronies in charge, issuing genuine punishment when warranted.
Police who break the law must be prosecuted like anyone else, promptly fired if guilty, and barred from ever working in law-enforcement again.
That's the solution.
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Our definition of ‘cops’ is broad, and includes prison guards, probation officers, shitty DAs and judges, etc — anyone who has the authority to fuck over people’s lives, with minimal or no oversight.
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• A demonstrator's guide to understanding riot munitions
• Cops aren't supposed to be smart
• Killings by law enforcement in Canada
• Killings by law enforcement in the United Kingdom
• Killings by law enforcement in the United States
• Know your rights: Filming the police
• Three words. 70 cases. The tragic history of 'I can’t breathe' (as of 2020)
• Police aren't primarily about helping you or solving crimes.
• Police lie under oath, a lot
• Police spin: An object lesson in Copspeak
• Police unions and arbitrators keep abusive cops on the street
• Shielded from Justice: Police Brutality and Accountability in the United States
• When the police knock on your door
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There is a recommended maximum amount of alcohol to be consumed whole pregnant. It isn't zero. I'm sure the same should be true for almost any other substance, but as far as I'm aware the guidelines for Marijuana don't exist, though they may. I don't really know. The article does not state how much she used or if it was above or below any recommendations, or that the child had any birth defects related to Marijuana use. In fact, it seems to imply that there wasn't any complications besides legal ones.
Research on using marijuana during pregnancy is limited, but to noone's surprise, it's assumed to be harmful and recommended against.
Using drugs during pregnancy is not okay. Nice to hear this child apparently was lucky.
Again, alcohol consumption has been shown to be safe below a certain level. Yes, "drug" use can be bad if abused, but that goes for all drugs, not just what people typically call drugs which are substances we've decided to regulate for usually no good reason. Caffeine can have negative side effects, but no one is taking people's children away because they drank too much coffee.
According to the CDC, you're wrong.
The reason caffeine is not as much of a problem is because according to the CDC it has little to no effect on a baby. The worst effect linked to very high caffeine consumption is poor sleep, which is unsurprising.
Also according to LactMed, which is referred to by the CDC:
We conclude: Alcohol does not have a safe level of consumption and is always bad for your child. Caffeine on the other hand is usually completely harmless and in the worst case only causes the normal effects of caffeine, not long term damage. They are not comparable.
Now, is marijuana consumption more similar to alcohol, as in it causes long term damage to the child, or is it more similar to caffeine, as in it only has small and temporary effects on the child?
According to the CDC, marijuana consumption is assumed to cause long term damage to the child.
It seems like marijuana is not just part of some "substances we've decided to regulate for usually no good reason", but actually a harmful substance with reason to be regulated.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2043426/
An opinion piece, published 15 years ago? Let's look at current recommendations by renown organisations:
HHS (USA: Department of Health & Human Services)
DHAC (Australia: Department of Health and Aged Care)
DHV (Germany: Deutscher Hebammenverband)
Translation using DeepL:
RCOG (UK: Royal College of Obstetricians & Gynaecologists)
nidirect (Northern Ireland)
CDC (USA: Center for Disease Control and Prevention
Sound medical advice for pregnant women is always a good idea.
Following sound medical advice is usually a good idea, too, at least since leeches went out of fashion.
It's not the law, though.
If you don't have the fucking self control to stop smoking, drinking or taking any potentially harmful substances during pregnancy, you shouldn't have kids. There shouldn't even be a debate here.
I'm always happy when we can find agreement in a conversation like this, and I certainly agree that there shouldn't even be a debate — about enforcing your morality on every woman who may have smoked tobacco, imbibed alcohol, or taken any potentially harmful substance during pregnancy, by having the government seize her child/children. Enforced uniformly, most American children would be wards of the state.
I am not trying to say take away every child from their mother because they smoked one blunt, I am saying don't smoke a blunt. Stop being an irresponsible dumb fuck. That shit is never GOOD for your child, and if that's not your priority, maybe you should think on your own morality.
Sound medical advice.