While states across America continue to legalize marijuana for medicinal and recreational purposes, drug war soldiers in the Midwest have been conducting elaborate training exercises to strengthen their arsenal against the nonexistent evils of the mighty cannabis plant.
Reports indicate that Atterbury-Muscatatuck, which is a training facility maintained by the State of Indiana and the Department of Defense, is being used by the State Police and the National Guard to engage in simulated raids against marijuana operations. This dastardly alliance between local cops and military forces is reportedly an effort to ensure officers have the “tactical proficiency” required when busting marijuana growers.
Officers participating in this waste of tax dollars believe, despite legalization efforts across the nation, there remains a need for local police agencies to be as skilled as their military counterparts in order to better protect the public from the perils of weed.
Sergeant Lou Perras, a veteran with the Indiana State Police, suggests military training is a way to “bridge the gap between the DOD and non-DOD organizations.”
Perras, who once told reporters that marijuana was the Rodney Dangerfield of illegal drugs – it gets no respect – says defending Indiana residents against the scourge of the cannabis plant is his primary goal, regardless of their cavalier attitude towards the substance.
“People have this attitude, ‘it’s just marijuana,’” Perras told the News and Tribune back in 2010. “That’s a sad misrepresentation of this drug.”
It is perhaps this unwavering rationale that continues to lead the Indiana State Police to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on combative measures against a plant that experts believe will be legalized nationwide within the next 10 years.
“The National Guard has a unique skill set of assets, and personnel and training,” Perras explained, “so it allows us to gain that knowledge in those assets from the National Guard to better protect our citizens of the state.”
Some argue, however, that the passing of the Posse Comitatus Act in 1878 technically makes it illegal for military troops to assist in the enforcement of drug war tactics. However, both federal and state governments have managed to sidestep this almost 140 year-old Act with the use of the military services like the National Guard.
Even though the DEA is considered the rock star of American dope enforcement, many citizens are not aware of that state police and National Guard units are working together to fight the drug war on a state level. Most of these operations, however, are part of the cannabis eradication program. But they are, nonetheless, enormous wastes of state tax revenue.
