We can all feel safe and secure now that the coppers have arrested some 50 odd people at the Global Gathering festival on Sunday for possession and the more serious offense of dealing illicit drugs. I don’t know all the facts but it seems preposterous that they should claim a small  victory in the war against drugs for nabbing a few handfuls of drug users and a few people who probably had more than one ecky on hand, who are now deemed as hardcore drug dealers for over indulging in some ‘e’. The irony of the whole fiasco is that the Police were praising the 10000+ party goers for behaving themselves particularly well and condemning the few bad apples who floundered the law by indulging in some party drugs. Now it isn’t too far a stretch of the imagination that people were generally well behaved because instead of choosing to consume alcohol they perhaps were partaking in a little communal drugging themselves? If there were 10000 people getting off on juice the vibe would’ve been a little more rowdy to say the least. To say that only few baddies were found with drugs in such a large crowd is ridiculous. The more believable scenario is that the more opened mined folk chewed their pills before heading through the doors.

Even if they caught “all” the party folk who were drugging what does that really achieve? We now have to tie up court time, waste even more police resources preparing paper work and what not, all so a few generally law abiding citizens can get a slap on the wrist and have a black mark placed against their name. For What? Will it deter anyone? Will we see less drug possession at next years Global Gathering? Or will it merely appease a few naive mum’s and dad’s or concerned citizens with a media presence of the great job the police are doing to clean up the scum? If anything people will over indulge before hand and perhaps place themselves at even more harm by over doing things so they don’t get caught. Is it worth the possibility of overdose even to catch that one person dealing who is probably only  trying to fuel an addiction anyway? Is it worth the resources that could be put to better use?  Somehow I’m unconvinced by the praise the NSW Police are giving themselves for a job well done. Will this silly war on drugs ever come to an end so we can focus on effective discussions and measures to tackle the so called drug problem?