Tuesday, June 03, 2008

Senior cop arrested: Alex Wodak vindicated


Today's arrest of top NSW policeman Mark Standen on charges relating to the import of 600kg of pseudoephedrine vindicates Dr Alex Wodak's recent comments that prohibition of drugs leads to police corruption.

His statements were hotly contested by senior police (previous post here).

Mr Standen's arrest jeopardises several major current investigations. Truly, the harms of prohibition far outweigh the harms of drugs (which prohibition fails to prevent in the first place). The import could have contributed to the manufacture of $120 million worth of ice, calculated on prohibition profit margins.

However don't wait up for our government to announce any serious research into the true costs of prohibition. Wrong agenda.

A little-reported aspect is that the drugs have disappeared, apparently 'stolen' from a ship en route to Australia. Oops. So much for the ability of prohibition to reduce supply.

Meanwhile The Sydney Morning Herald has declined to publish Dr Wodak's reply to Miranda Devine's most recent prohibitionist opinion piece, leaving her biased words unchallenged. A fellow blogger has published the long version of Dr Wodak's reply here.

Pictured is a genuine street sign adjacent to St Vincent's Hospital, where Dr Wodak heads the drugs and alcohol unit. I'm guessing there used to be an ice works under the south-east-facing escarpment. So turns the wheel of history.

PS: If anyone offers you 600kg of speed down the pub, just reflect on the efficacy of prohibition and say 'No'. 

PPS: It seems Mark Standen has been previously charged over drugs. Oh dear. Prohibition is just SOOOO good for Police integrity, isn't it! Meanwhile much reporting on this leaves the impression that the potential $120m worth of ice was recovered. But it still hasn't and the media seem to be ignoring this little crack in the edifice. Their wording is clever: just saying that Standen has been 'charged with importing the drugs' sounds as if they had been actually imported. Hmmmn. I would have thought it a much bigger story than Kevin Rudd having a 'butler'. Or has the stuff been siezed and the cops are just onselling it? Surely not. I can't imagine the prospect of $120 million profit being any threat to police integrity. I trust them.

15 comments:

Anonymous said...

Not $1.2 Million $120 million

Anonymous said...

Bo Diddley who use to stay at the Hampton Court in the 1980’s in Sydney’s Kings Cross has died. He loved the area in those times but chose to stay elsewhere in the late 1990’s when he last visited.

The Editor said...

$120 million -- thanks.

Hey, what's the difference? It just means there may be $18.8 million worth of extra ice on the streets, making profits for the bad guys.

Bo Diddley? Never saw him but I like his groove. Might check out iTunes for some tracks -– I've been listening to Robert Johnson a lot lately. He plays all the riffs early Cream and Led Zepp lifted, right there in the '30s. I was driving cabs in the late '80s and one night on Bayswater Road some people got in high as kites because they'd just seen Mick Jagger and Joe Satriani rock up to the Kardomah CafĂ© and take the stage, the resident band only too happy to lend them their gear (which apparently came to life in the hands of the stars).

Anonymous said...

Interesting take on dope here

Anonymous said...

$120-1.2=$188.8 not $18.8

The Editor said...

Hey, we're both wrong -- It's $118.8 million worth of ice potentially slipped through the fingers of police. Doh. My excuse is I can't add up anyway and I have a cracking earache, existing on antibots and Panadeine forte.

The Editor said...

Interesting take on pot -- five joints a day for ten years? Holy smoke. No wonder their brains shrank. But it's another example of cannabis research using extreme examples to get a result. Mind you, they didn't measure their brains BEFORE they started smoking, either.

To truly assess the long-term health risk of cannabis they simply need to find 1,000 long-term pot smokers, a control group of 1,000 non-smokers and compare their health, driving, employment records etc etc, correcting for obvious confounding factors.

I think the results would be surprising – that's why they stick to reductive experiments. Can't have the truth getting out.

Anonymous said...

$120-1.2=$118.8 not $18.8

sorry I did not have my glasses on, or did not pay attention to my typing.

Terry Wright said...

sorry I did not have my glasses on, or did not pay attention to my typing.

Don't let Miranda Devine see this or she will include it as part of her evidence that bloggers from Kings Cross who write about drugs are .0000072% more likely to have attention disorder and short memory problems.

Anonymous said...

Firstly the senior cop was NOT and has never been a member of the NSW Police Force. He was a member of the Australian Customs Service and then took up his position in the NSW Crime Commission

The Editor said...

Quote:

" the senior cop was NOT and has never been a member of the NSW Police Force"

What on earth has this to do with the argument? It doesn't matter which platoon the guy happens to be in. Wodak's point was that prohibition creates police corruption, and it does.

Then let's talk about the famous cases in Manly, Underbelly, etc etc etc...

My anonymous friend, your argument does not hold. So will you now change your opinion? (I think not, somehow).

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