Police blast drug culture after festival finds

[OPP]

Just a few things I have learnt over the years:

Police use sniffer dogs to narrow down on people in a crowd. They will then say something like "The dog has detected odour around your person and you are now required to be searched."

Sniffer dogs cannot be used on private property without owners permission. One festival in Sydney refuses to have dogs inside their festival but punters have to walk through the dogs to enter the festival.

Sniffer dogs are not that hard to fool.

Alot of police at these festivals are "off duty" in the sense that they are not officially on the police roster. Rather they are on a day off and making some extra cash. otherwise there would be too much drain on police resources.

[Bread Filter]

Sniffer dogs are not that hard to fool.

 

If a passive detection dog has been trained to handle the substance you possess then they will detect you.

An untrained guard dog with a handler may be easier to fool but you will never get past a passive detection dog if it has been trained thoroughly.

[Ethos]

I can see why some people are defending the police saying that they are only doing their job, though i can't get my head around someone working as a police officer and has done this sort of (festival/gig) security enough to be able to physically see it isn't working and still choose to continue the futile job no questions asked you have to think whether they love the feeling of power the position instills, or if they are just making such a pretty penny doing it they don't care if it isn't effective.

[Alice]

How can they choose not to do it? Should the individual police officer, as an individual, be allowed to pick and choose what parts of the law they will uphold and which they won't? What if (and this is not the best example but the first that came to mind) some asshole raped your sister, and the cop chose not to pursue it because he knew the guy from high school and he was "really not a bad bloke, he just made a mistake". Is that sort of choice ok?

We as a society have told them what their role is and like it or not, the majority of people (myself and I imagine the majority of people here excluded) think that this "war on drugs" is a good thing. But we should not be putting our grief onto these people who are only doing their job. The job that "we", the electors, have given them.

Alot of the comments here just sound like anti-authority teenagers having a whinge. We are a public forum for all to read, is that how you want to represent our community?

I can think of more productive directions this discussion could be going.

[OPP]

If a passive detection dog has been trained to handle the substance you possess then they will detect you.

An untrained guard dog with a handler may be easier to fool but you will never get past a passive detection dog if it has been trained thoroughly.

 

I have to disagree.

I have seen friends of mine walk straight past drug detection dogs carrying drugs.

I have also seen friends with nothing on them and having been nowhere near drugs be indicated on.

Many people at festivals who are detected have scents on them due to handling drugs earlier that day.

Edited July 31, 2012 by OPP

[Change]

opps

Edited August 6, 2012 by DreamTimeBliss

[Bread Filter]

I have to disagree.

I have seen friends of mine walk straight past drug detection dogs carrying drugs.

I have also seen friends with nothing on them and having been nowhere near drugs be indicated on.

Many people at festivals who are detected have scents on them due to handling drugs earlier that day.

 

How do you know they were actually passive detection dogs that were trained for the substance you were carrying? You probably walked past a dressed up guard dog.

9/10 the police will use a guard dog to impersonate a passive detection dog as they are so expensive and can only work so many hours. The police handler will tell you the dog has indicated as they just want to search you at festivals and in the CBD. This has been common practice for years.

[Ethos]

I agree police can't pick and choose the job/case they attend although like OPP said it seems they do in certain circumstances have the choice to attend festivals also they could choose not to be a police officer much like every individual can choose their own career/occupation/destiny.

If i was in an authoritarian position where the job i was doing was seeing no progress and getting quoted by the media as "Failed" I would either quit or continue getting paid while doing a half assed job of everything.

Also they seem to employ tatics like this small roundup so they can bust larger syndicates and then show it all over the news so we can see how much of a good job they've done and give them praise for protecting us, if they thought rationally about it they would see every year there will be countless music festivals where people will continue to take drugs recreationally, the police would start to see it like many of us now see it as a waste of time and resources to pursue a victimless crime.

the time and effort gone in to it makes it seem like they could have spent the same amount of time at a customs office and round up more drugs then they could at a festival

[Foo]

M3h. I pay my rates and taxes. Does this mean i agree with how that money will be spent? (IE on paying for sniffer dogs at a festivle, Iraq, or any of the non functional govt depts)

We do require an efforcement agency for our country to run at this time and thats not going to change and time soon. Its just my personal opinion that raging on about the police is counter productive. If the commisioner asked parliment to repeal all drug laws, would that make it happen? Police are servants of crown and are tasked with its bidding, wich is quite diverse.

Just to clarify, i do not in anyway support the actions of the Police in this circumstance, but i feel the blame lies much higher up.

Edit: In WA the Police are still servants of the crown, i understand some of the eastern states have changed that status.

Also, what Alice said.

Edited July 31, 2012 by eatfoo

[qualia]

some asshole raped your sister, and the cop chose not to pursue it because he knew the guy from high school and he was "really not a bad bloke, he just made a mistake". Is that sort of choice ok?

i hope you're not equating smoking weed with statutory rape? the fact is cops can, if they want, let people off with warnings when dealing with minor dug offences. i don't really know what what goes on at festivals though i've never been, although i can imagine that the whole thing is about "sending a message", as is so often the case with cops and drugs.

[goneski]

If a passive detection dog has been trained to handle the substance you possess then they will detect you.

 

No. A 2006 Ombudsman report showed how ineffective sniffer dogs are: http://www.smh.com.a...7827074300.html

I'll try and dig up the actual report.. Unless there's a newer report refuting the findings of the 2006 report?

"I

n 74 per cent of cases, no drugs were found"

 

 

 

The fact that a positive identification by an unreliable dog is all that's needed to search someone is a massive infringement on rights and privacy, IMO.

 

 

Edited July 31, 2012 by SYNeR

[ballzac]

This "cops are only doing their job" attitude is awful in my opinion. Whenever someone brings it up, it is always stated as though it is a universal rule, but on further investigation, it usually turns out that this belief depends on the nature of the laws being enforced. It may have been a different country and a different time, but it was once illegal to be Jewish in Germany, punishable by death. If anyone wants to claim that the behaviour of the police in Nazi Germany was morally allowable because they were just doing their job, then I would hope that most people would disagree with you.

If you think the they are not comparable situations, then why is that? The only explanation I have ever heard is that it is the relative gravity of the scenarios that differentiates them. So, what this means is that in "just doing a job" or "following orders", it is morally allowable to carry out unethical acts, provided that they are not 'too' unethical. So how do we decide where this line is? The war on drugs is an attempt to exterminate an entire sub-culture. People are locked up, robbed of their personal property (e.g. their drugs), fined large sums of money, and harassed. Their job prospects can be affected. In some countries people are killed for drug offences.

We're not talking about a disagreement about what prices parking tickets should be. This is about the violation of the rights of millions of Australians to live their lives in the way they want, without hurting anyone else. It is not okay to interfere with those rights, and being paid to do it does not make it okay.

Another common argument is the "look at all the great stuff cops do as well" approach. We do need a police force. Without it, there would doubtless be a lot more murder, theft, etc. Given some time, some of the dodgiest people in society would rise to the top to take control. Does this mean that police officers cannot be held accountable for the wrongs they do? We can, again, check the consistency of our beliefs by looking at societies with the worst possible human rights record and see if we still feel the same. Well, lets take Nazi Germany again. I don't think it can be denied that Germany was really prospering under Hitler until their demise. The totalitarian nature of the ruling party kept everyone in line. No doubt there would have been chaos had the Nazi party, polizei, and Gestapo vanished, there would suddenly have been chaos. As much as we need our police force, Germany needed its. Does this mean that every act perpetrated by individuals in the name of the State was excusable?

I get that people may become police officers because they have a naive vision of helping protect society, but the minute such a person steals my property and locks me up when I have not done anything wrong, they have crossed a line, and regardless of what good they do in other capacities in their work, or their personal life, that is not okay.

[whitewind]

Given some time, some of the dodgiest people in society would rise to the top to take control.

 

Uhum. They already did, and unfortunately they are the ones making the rules.

Great post ballzac

[ballzac]

Uhum. They already did, and unfortunately they are the ones making the rules.

 

While I agree with the basic sentiment, in reality we live in a democracy and a lot of our problems are due to the gullibility of the populace. However bad it is here, every place on Earth with an unstable government, where there are frequent coups and often competing, warring groups in one region, has much, much worse conditions for its people, and that is the sort of scenario we would have here if the police force vanished overnight.

[chilli]

How can they choose not to do it? Should the individual police officer, as an individual, be allowed to pick and choose what parts of the law they will uphold and which they won't?

The problem is not with individual officers doing their jobs. Their superiors in the force decide how their resources are best spent, and enforcing these kind of laws is a terrible waste of resources that could be used enforcing laws against people who are actually harming others. Individual police do have the responsibility to speak out when they feel what they are told to do is wasteful or harmful, and some do. The ones who choose the path of least resistance and don't speak out are part of the problem, and I don't see why you feel such a need to defend them.

But besides all that, I do think individuals in any professions should refuse to obey unjust orders. If their superiors tell them to start firing into the crowd, would they be right to just blindly obey? This is not an idle rhetorical device, this kind of shit really happens. (edit: what Balzac said!)

What if (and this is not the best example but the first that came to mind) some asshole raped your sister, and the cop chose not to pursue it because he knew the guy from high school and he was "really not a bad bloke, he just made a mistake". Is that sort of choice ok?

You're right that is a terrible example. Violent crimes against others is exactly the kind of thing police should be pursuing, instead of putting all this effort into arresting teenagers for smoking a joint at a music festival.

We as a society have told them what their role is and like it or not, the majority of people (myself and I imagine the majority of people here excluded) think that this "war on drugs" is a good thing. But we should not be putting our grief onto these people who are only doing their job. The job that "we", the electors, have given them.

Wrong. Even in the US, polls show the vast majority of people think the war on drugs is a massive fail, and that marijuana use should be decriminalized. You say you disagree with the war on drugs, so why not have the guts to follow through on your convictions and actually criticize those enforcing and upholding these laws you think are wrong, instead of trying to appease them? I just don't get where you are coming from at all.

Alot of the comments here just sound like anti-authority teenagers having a whinge. We are a public forum for all to read, is that how you want to represent our community?

Your comments make you sound like a sycophantic slave of the state.

I can think of more productive directions this discussion could be going.

Please, enlighten us.

Edited July 31, 2012 by chilli

[Moses]

i've had your sniffer dog walk right up to my leg which was over my backpack and there was weed in the front pouch and two dogs in 5 mins didnt find it and trust me it was bloody obvious they were targeting me at Adelaide train station, followed me onto the train then 5 min later in came the other handler and dog.

As for festivals why not find someone that has a tonne of trim leaf and distribute it all over the area to send the poochies nuts with millions of "negative" positives.

[Foo]

i hope you're not equating smoking weed with statutory rape?

 

Wich carrys the greatest max term?

[whitewind]

While I agree with the basic sentiment, in reality we live in a democracy and a lot of our problems are due to the gullibility of the populace. However bad it is here, every place on Earth with an unstable government, where there are frequent coups and often competing, warring groups in one region, has much, much worse conditions for its people, and that is the sort of scenario we would have here if the police force vanished overnight.

 

As I said, the people at the top are the real criminals, making dodgy rules to divert attention away from the fact that the real criminals are those who are destroying society by stealing all the money. I never said I was against the police at all. It's a shame they don't question their orders that much, though, but to be fair the police force isn't exactly known for it's leniency towards officers who are a bit lax in upholding the law, especially since they have "targets" to fulfil. And we wouldn't really want the police force to be corrupt either.

What I do object to is a complete waste of resources, which is exactly what this exercise was, and I support tactics designed to passively (non-violently) oppose and confuse their efforts, so long as it will help raise awareness of the stupidity of the rules and their tactics. We have a duty, after all, to oppose unjust laws, even if it puts us in minor "conflict" (such a strong word) with our beloved police.

[Sonny Jim]

cool post ballzac! more people need to start treating this as the savage abuse of human rights it is. So many people are currently in jail in this "free" country and so many children have lost their parents to the enforcement of drug laws buts that's been OK for decades because drug user's are scum

[nabraxas]

rather than use exotic scents to put sniffer dogs off just spray bong water all over the ground, fencing, everywhere.

poor dog will be so confused.

& i agree w/eatfoo. i'd say 99% ov the time the dogs used are just the regular sniffer dogs they use everyday to track people not specially trained passive detection dogs.

I've been in a house that was searched & as i was leasing it i had to be present as they took the drug detection dog from room to room.

there was a one ounce bag, in a back pack, in a cupboard in one ov the bedrooms.

As soon as the handler opened that bedroom door the dog knew exactly where the grass was hidden.

[chnt]

try to be empathetic towards people who are "against" things and try to understand where they are coming from.

in the case of people being against police, surely you can understand the argument, it's all fine and dandy to just go with the flow of societal homeostasis, but this achieves nothing...

i'm representing myself when taking a stance against police, the way i represent this community is by being honest to myself.

yes indeed the police did not create the laws... but the whole thing is fucked, i am against it all, part of that is being against the police.

[shortly]

Given some time, some of the dodgiest people in society would rise to the top to take control.

 

Ummm take a look at politics, government department, large organization or any corporate structure for that matter and the common thread is that turds float to the surface! its just a fact of life.

And take a look where the proposed changes to the drug laws that the AG was pushing came from???

The AFP was sighted as the major contributor to the proposal.

Police lobby governments for more resources, to make their job easier (it would be much cheaper & easier if everyone was guilty until your lawyer could prove your innocence) in fact for hundreds of reasons, for the same as every other department and NGO organizations.

He with the most leverage on the government of the day wins.

[Distracted]

What's the point of getting low entry players into the drug scene?

The police and general population suffer from a romanticized idea of drug dealers, people in trench coats standing on a corner offering and harking their wares to an unsuspecting and until now, innocent population influencing them into the debaucherous world of drugs.

It's just not like that... you go into a festival you're gonna bust people carrying around their personal stash. Congrats officer buzzkill, you've not only wasted your day you've wasted somebody's elses too.

[Distracted]

Oh and about this whole, sniffer, non sniffer dog thing...

If a police officer says they're going to use a sniffer dog and bases his search of your possessions on the fact that the dog he has identified as a sniffer dog is infact a sniffer dog, then how is that search lawful? edit: presuming the dog he's using is not actually a sniffer dog

I've never heard of random dogs going through crowds(dressed up or not... i always thought sniffer dogs were pretty much just naked?) with their trained handler singling people out for lawful searches based around false allegations.

Seriously, educate me on this whole random dog going through crowd acting like a sniffer dog and affording the same privileges a sniffer dog with a trained handler would entail, cause right now i feel pretty ignorant.

2nd edit: The only way I could see it... is that they walk a random dog through a crowd and use the crowd's reaction to seeing a dog as 'suspicious behavior' that warrants a search on said persons. I've certainly heard that most handlers will be looking more at the alleged perpetrator's body language than what the dog is doing anyway.

My experience of sniffer dogs was more like

"Ok Mr LASTNAME we're about to run a sniffer dog through your belongings to detect any illegal narcotics, do you have any illegal narcotics in your PLACEOFSEARCH you'd like to tell us about?"

In my experience the dog wasn't well trained.

Edited July 31, 2012 by Distracted

[goneski]

You're right, the dogs are useless.. Only 1/4 of those searched are found to have drugs.

They may as well say a magic 8 ball gives them the right / suspicion to search you for drugs..

It's completely absurd.