By Abnor. It is said that much of policing is public relations. Here’s a tale of how one of many campaigns by law enforcement to fight the drug war with public relations in high schools panned out.
The real world has a way of making a mess of the best of intentions. This is an example of the way the real world takes all of the white-bread stuffing out of action plans which are designed to convince the public something is going on when, in fact, not much thought has been given to what happens after the photo ops are done.
Middle-aged white men in uniforms with no background or training in education should perhaps leave the education of our young people to those who know what they’re doing and keep their public relations campaigns out of our schools.
In an effort to demonstrate that it is acting in the face of headlines about drug gangs and high rates of drug use by teens, the police department runs a campaign in the high schools to convince teens not to get involved in ‘the drug lifestyle.’ As a result, two kids rat out two other kids’ Moms for dealing dope.
The two single Moms are trying to make ends meet by selling weed to make up for the fact that they hold down dead end, warehousing jobs. As single income families, whose standard of living hasn’t risen in 30 years, they are finding tax increases the increasing cost of living hard to deal with. They are arrested, charged and found guilty of trafficking.
Being now without parents at home, the kids are taken by the government and sent to foster homes where they begin using drugs and selling to make extra cash.
Meanwhile the two who were convinced by the PR campaign to rat out their friends are beaten up by the rest of their friends for causing such a clusterfuck of misery to come down on the whole group.
And the headlines read: Local Police Take Anti Drug Message To Local Schools followed a year later by Police Arrest Local Teens For Selling Dope.
Hooray for PR and managing the public agenda.
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Abnor:
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Editor’s Note:Abnor joins us from time to time with a question or two about what he sees around him. He has plenty of time on his hands and he spends a great deal of his time wandering the streets of Abbotsford wondering about what he sees and hears. He’s a modern day hobo with a Blackberry.
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