The Fresh Toast
Recently, there have been two stories that came to my attention involving the police and drugs. The first is about a MET police commander, who wrote drug enforcement strategy, who took cannabis, LSD, and magic mushrooms. He is now facing “dismissal” due to his misconduct. The second story is about a Texas State trooper that was caught vaping a confiscated marijuana pen in his vehicle. All caught on dash cam.
Both of the individuals in question will either be disciplined or discharged completely.
While some were quick to chastise the officers in question, I thought to myself, “They totally should be taking psychedelics and cannabis!” In fact, I believe if this was adopted to a higher degree, we would probably have much better “police-citizen” relations.
This article will walk through my argument for why the police SHOULD be allowed to consume cannabis and even psychedelics, and why it would provide a net benefit to society.
The Job Is Dangerous
When you could be gunned down for simply putting on your uniform, life can be stressful. In fact, the position of “police officer” is often in the top 10 of most stressful jobs. Unfortunately, cops aren’t known for their “destressing” tactics and if we were to look at how the movies portray them, they are typically disgruntled alcoholics trying to drown out all the negative thoughts. Of course, this is not true for all the police, but it’s fairly safe to say that most cops don’t take too much care of their own mental health unless it’s required from them.
Furthermore, when you constantly live in a state of perpetual fear, you would begin to display some form of hostility towards the people you’re supposed to protect. If you don’t know whether the next person you stop has a gun or not, you’d be dumb to not be cautious. However, staying in this perpetual state of distrust negatively affects your responses. It’s the reason why so many unarmed individuals have been shot for holding a cellphone or something similar.
Overtime, a lack of sympathy and a sense of self-preservation might take root in the mind of the officers and when this happens, they are no longer effective deterrents of crime but rather another “element” the average person has to watch out for.
Most Cops Have Undiagnosed PTSD
While most people associate PTSD with a specific traumatic experience, the police suffer from a different kind of PTSD — cumulative PTSD. Police1.com explains this phenomenon:
Cumulative PTSD can be even more dangerous than PTSD caused from a single traumatic event, largely because cumulative PTSD is more likely to go unnoticed and untreated. When a catastrophic event occurs, such as an officer-involved shooting, most departments have policies and professionals to help an officer address and deal with the aftermath of an event.
However, the build-up of events that arise throughout an officer’s career generally do not warrant such specialized attention. As a result, an officer with cumulative PTSD is less likely to receive treatment.
In other words, due to “micro traumas”, many police officers are suffering from a form of PTSD which in turn affects their behavior. They become jittery, they make snap judgements and typically approach situations with a baseline thought that the people they are dealing with are “out to get them”.
Considering that these officers are meant to keep the public “safe” from criminals, it’s not ideal that they fear the interactions with the average citizen. This is why cannabis might be an ideal solution.
Read full article. https://thefreshtoast.com/opinion/the-argument-for-allowing-police-to-consume-cannabis/
