Unimpressed by the way local police were handling the drug problem in his area, a Chicago man has taken things into his own hands.
The man sent letters to local high schools with threats to kill several students and a teacher! But the catch was that he put the return address of the letters as houses in which he had observed drug trafficking.
Ingenious!
As a result, the schools went into crisis mode with all outdoor activity cancelled and a slew of other security measures to protect the students and teachers implemented.
While the man obviously had no intention of carrying out the threats, the authorities were still not too amused when they caught up with him.
He earned himself a 10 year stint (PDF) in the slammer.
Now, obviously this wasn’t the smartest way to go about fighting the drug trade. Putting other innocent people into danger or making them think they are in danger is a very flawed strategy.
But what can be taken away from this episode is the frustration that some people feel towards the way that the issue of drugs is being handled by the authorities. In the debate on drugs people often criticise the handling of the issue by government/s as being disingenuous and a manufactured struggle. That can arguably be rebutted by pointing out that many private citizens feel the issue is a serious one and that drug use is something to legitimately fight against.
Whether or not that is a result of the information war is another matter.
Via Drug Law Blog.
