How to put a drug dealer out of business...

By Lindsay Beyerstein
Posted on September 28, 2006, Printed on November 27, 2009
http://www.alternet.org/bloggers//42267/

Police in North Carolina are taking a novel approach to shutting down local drug dealers--telling their moms.

Officers "influentials" in a dealer's life and cultivate relationships with them. Then when they've amassed enough evidence to arrest the dealer, they hold off and get Mom, Grandma, and the other influentials to pressure the dealer to stop plying his trade.

I'm not sure exactly how I feel about this. On the one hand, any strategy that deescalates the War on Drugs is a good thing. Still, I'm not entirely comfortable with the police essentially blackmailing third parties to reign in their adult family members.

[Grits for Breakfast]

Lindsay Beyerstein a New York writer blogging at Majikthise.

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View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/bloggers//42267/