Sam Hampsher asks an excellent question: Do we want to send police into schools to set students up for marijuana stings? It’s not easy to imagine what could justify that practice, other than the relentless pressure to “make cases.”
Author: Mark Kleiman
Professor of Public Policy at the NYU Marron Institute for Urban Management and editor of the Journal of Drug Policy Analysis. Teaches about the methods of policy analysis about drug abuse control and crime control policy, working out the implications of two principles: that swift and certain sanctions don't have to be severe to be effective, and that well-designed threats usually don't have to be carried out.
Books:
Drugs and Drug Policy: What Everyone Needs to Know (with Jonathan Caulkins and Angela Hawken)
When Brute Force Fails: How to Have Less Crime and Less Punishment (Princeton, 2009; named one of the "books of the year" by The Economist
Against Excess: Drug Policy for Results (Basic, 1993)
Marijuana: Costs of Abuse, Costs of Control (Greenwood, 1989)
UCLA Homepage
Curriculum Vitae
Contact: Markarkleiman-at-gmail.com
View all posts by Mark Kleiman
It was necessary to destroy the children to save the children.
Mark,
This is OT to the post, but I'm curious to know what your thoughts are (if any) on the Ohio marijuana legalization initiative (http://responsibleohio.com/the-amendment/). A copy of the full amendment is linked on that page, which is a summary written by the sponsors. Needless to say, our Grand Old Tea Partying Governor Kasich, A.G. DeWine and the R's in the Legislature oppose it.
Would I be guessing correctly were I to speculate that this happens more in states with large private prison operations? And more often to black students than to white? And more often to poor students than to rich ones? In fact, would I be guessing correctly that it has never happened and never will at Choate or Exeter or Groton?