Florida’s Broward County is poised to erase the criminal convictions of thousands of people who were arrested for purchasing drugs, particularly crack cocaine. Why, you may ask? Did the holiday season lead Broward county’s Supreme Court to suddenly grow a heart, Grinch-style, realizing punitive measures to address drug use and addiction will never help people? No, it’s because it was found that those drugs were produced by the cops themselves in the Sheriff’s office. You sure did read that right. As reported by Democracy Now, “For years, the Broward County Sheriff’s Office produced crack cocaine to be sold by undercover police to the public.” The cops in Florida produced their own crack cocaine, then sold it to the public who they then targeted for arrest.
This ridiculous practice was ruled to be a violation of the state’s constitution in 1993 by Florida’s Supreme Court, calling the practice “outrageous.” Yet despite this ruling, these charges were allowed to stay on victims’ criminal records leading to long-term impacts including trouble finding housing and employment, destroying thousands of lives. Now, many years later, victims will have their convictions erased.
And this was by no means an isolated incident. Cops themselves have often been implicated in the distribution of drugs in communities throughout the United States. Whether it is fentanyl smuggled into the U.S. to be sold in bulk, assisting drug traffickers in distributing cocaine, or systematic drug money theft, the same cops who claim to be waging a “war on drugs” are often either drug pushers themselves or look to directly benefit from the sale of illicit drugs in communities across the United States.