Comment by nicklaf
7 years ago
I am appalled at the opinion of Judge Barnes:
“I am keenly aware of the overreach some law enforcement agencies have exercised in some of these cases,” Judge Barnes wrote. “Entire family farms are sometimes forfeited based on one family member’s conduct, or exorbitant amounts of money are seized. However, it seems to me that one who deals heroin, and there is no doubt from the record we are talking about a dealer, must and should suffer the legal consequences to which he exposes himself.”
This sort of intersection between hard biological reality on the one hand (in this case, predictable consequence of highly addictive drugs), and the hard-nosed moralizing of a judge, reminds me of something Robert Sapolsky has been trying to impart about what we should give consideration to when looking for the ultimate sources of culpability when biological factors are involved, and whether or not we ought to see negative social behavior as a crime or a disease. Sapolsky has written a recent book about this topic, Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst.
...but he's talking about a dealer, not a user?
He was a user, though! And presumably became a dealer as a result (although this is not clear):
Mr. Timbs’s habit started with an opioid addiction and progressed to heroin. He used his Land Rover to get drugs and, on at least two occasions, to sell them. The buyers were undercover police officers.