The holidays brought a slight twinkle of hope to the scourge that is America’s 100-year drug war. No, the ex-hippies, now that they’re in charge haven’t reverted back to their peace-loving consciousness-expanding selves. It’s a money issue. The ridiculously named Department of Justice can’t, for the time being, make payments under the “equitable-sharing” asset forfeiture program, due to budget cuts.
The war on drugs has turned into policing for profit by giving police the option of prosecuting asset forfeiture cases under federal instead of state law. “Federal forfeiture policies are more permissive than many state policies, allowing police to keep up to 80 percent of assets they seize – even if the people they took from are never charged with a crime,” the Washington Post reported a couple days before Christmas.
Of course, law enforcement was not happy with the suspension and fired off a letter to the President and his Attorney General, squealing, “This shortsighted decision by Congress will have a significant and immediate impact on the ability of law enforcement agencies throughout the nation to protect their communities and provide their citizens with the services they expect and deserve.”
Protect communities and provide services? That service being the barring of individuals from controlling their own consciousnesses. It isn’t enough that we physically toil an ever greater part of each year for the state, but it demands our minds as well? What if after decades of this persecution someone fought back? That’s the question Vin Suprynowicz explores in his latest novel The Miskatonic Manuscript, the second installment of the book sleuthing adventures of Matthew Hunter and his comely companion, the sharp-shooting and sharp-tongued Chantal Brothers.