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All I'm saying is that if our law makers friends, families and colleagues were targeted in proportion to drug intake rather than demographics of race or welfare things would be a lot fairer.... but there's a class of people who despite being rampant drug / drink drivers are not systemically pulled over. Which I'm aware is stating the obvious but it really pisses me off.
My port wine faced uncle habitually drives way over the limit - cos the law doesn't apply to him.
Wrongcog-
but there's a class of people who despite being rampant drug / drink drivers are not systemically pulled over.
This in spades. I'd be significantly less irked if the new drug driving law relied on genuinely random stops rather than "driving while black".
Edit:
You hear about it all the time. People being pulled over because the police officer says the car smelled of weed as it passed. Search shows nothing. Dogs brought in. Dog search finds nothing. No drugs found? Let's breathalyse! No alcohol? Let's try cocaine and cannabis tests! Spliff 15 hours ago? 12 month driving ban, £1,000 fine and criminal record.
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Totally agree: Even if it doesn't intentionally target certain demographics, in effect some demographics do get checked more often and you cannot excuse that with "but that lot is more unsafe" unless you back it up with hard data, which I guess doesn't exist.
If somebody is a danger they really should be checked out, and the focus on weed is also probably leading to a lot of bias, driving while drunk/merely not paying any attention whatsoever/with expired license/insurance is probably a lot more common.
Stonehedge
JWestland
There are a lot of teenager drug related stop and searches in =poorer= areas of Belfast, as drug use is more =visible= there.
Near my way kids have been using nitrous in the park, in other parts the paramilitaries are drug dealing, none of those areas of Belfast are rich parts and so the low income parts get it again. It is not racially targeted here, but I doubt the teenagers in richer areas get lots of stop/searches going on as drug use there is probably indoors.
Of course people have to put up with the hassle/are worried about the kids, but the PSNI isn't the way to deal with this and in effect "drug use" becomes code for "those parts of Belfast"...
In this case I don't think the NI politicians are big drug users (though what the DUP is on, we'll never know ;) those searches/lack of a drug policy reinforce socio-economic issues though.