I Need a Shower

Four tweakers bagged and tagged today.  Three men and one woman living in a one bedroom, one bathroom shack.  There was only one bed.  I didn't ask, because I don't want to know.  The truth is, though, I already know.  My years in law enforcement have taught me many things, one of which is that if four tweaker dudes live with one tweaker chick, they are all banging her.  Such a sad, sad life for both the woman and the men.  She is someone's daughter and probably a mother a few times over herself.  She has been reduced to whoring herself out to be tossed a few crumbs of dope every now and then.  For what?  She was at a party and a "friend" guaranteed her the time of her life if she would just take a hit?

The men remind me of a Jamey Johnson song, in which he sings, "I had a job and a piece of land / And my sweet wife was my best friend / But I traded that for cocaine and a whore."  They are even worse.  They traded it all for even less.  What do they have?  A one-bed shack that is less than a hotel room?  A whore to pass among themselves?  Friends that rat on them so they can stay out and stay high?  This poison is wrecking our communities. 

I know that the drug war is a war we will never win.  There are too many constraints and too many sympathetic ears.  I am an intelligent guy and the writing is on the wall.  Meth is something else entirely, though.  We don't stand a chance.    The addiction is too strong, the likelihood of addiction is too high. 

Who can really abandon empathy for these people?  I can't.  I've surely tried.  My colleagues all think that I have a "book 'em all and let God sort 'em out" approach to meth labs.  The truth is, I know that they are more likely to get help while staring down the barrel of a fifteen-split-three, than with a few months in drug court or a slap on the wrist possession charge.  I take that approach for their own benefit, whether they know it (or believe it) or not.  Let me make this clear, I don't trump up charges, but if I have probable cause, they take the ride. 

*this was actually posted on 12/11/2010, but I wrote it earlier.