When the "honor of the epaulette" replaced the "health of the nation"

Yesterday we angered the Minister of the Interior Valentin Radev. He was offended that we took data that is freely available from the website of the Ministry of the Interior and told it to the public. The reason is the " Analysis of the Bulgarian Drug Policy 2009-2016" we published. The information " undermines the authority of the Ministry of the Interior ", he said and sullenly scolded us for not going to him first. It seems that the problem is still with us. We still don't do something like people.

When the Ministry of Interior began terrorizing pot users with super-sensitive saliva testers, we reacted – media alerts, articles with useful information, monologue meetings with representatives of the Traffic Police Directorate. It seems that it shouldn't have been... When a dangerous drug is spreading on the streets, we test the substances of users to warn them if they are about to ingest something that will send them to the other world. It seems that it is not right...

When the state government prepares another stupidity blindly regarding drug policy - we pick up a cigarette, submit opinions, quarrel with politicians, issue gloomy forecasts that unfortunately come true, we hold protests. It seems that it should not be done anyway. We undermine the authority of the authoritative...

Now the situation is the same. The state refuses to evaluate what it has done in the field of drugs, and that's why we did their job. Instead of the National Council on Narcotics, the Ministries of Internal Affairs and Health analyzing what kind of money they have made, we from BLO (Liberty420) and the Change Movement should have done it. And now something is not right again...

Why is Mr. Radev really angry?

Our report clearly shows the priorities of its employees when it comes to solving crimes. While the most numerous police force in the EU catches only 8 out of every 100 car thieves, the "drug addicts" are not so lucky - the 76 percent detection rate of drug-related crimes is a clear measure of the fact that the domestic police are looking for the easy way out. It is a piece of cake for a police team to stand in the bushes next to a disco in Studentski Grad (the story is true from our clients) and in 15 minutes fill a van with "dangerous criminals" who have left the club for a joint cigarette with weed. 15 people with one cigarette of a prohibited substance are 15 criminals according to the law. In the sense of the Ministry of Interior, these are 15 resolved cases of crimes. In the sense of the Ministry of Interior officer who arrested them - these are 15 bonus points for a closed case. Why would he want to solve complicated crimes like robbery, rape, murder? There would be complex investigative work to be done, witnesses to be questioned, fingerprints to be taken…thinking in detail. And in the end, after all this work, it would be a solved case and only one bonus point. We'd be better off catching teenagers for a cigarette of weed then…

The Ministry of Interior employees may not be the brightest specimens of our society, but they are also subject to clear economic incentives and decisions, someone just had to look and analyze them. Very often, the decision whether to give a bonus point for a solved crime of a young man with weed is replaced by the decision to collect a few hundred leva and a PlayStation portable from him (again, a true story of our client). Road control has been replaced with a new, more expensive “So what do we do now?!”, every time a young-looking person is stopped. “ If you haven’t been drinking, then you’ve been taking drugs…what else are you doing out at this time of day” is an authentic line from a law enforcement officer irritated by a negative alcohol test.

All this is evident from the statistics of the Ministry of Interior itself. We do not catch dealers – only 18% of the cases are for distribution. In 4 out of every 5 cases we are talking about simple possession of small quantities, usually cannabis – the banned substance with the lowest health risk of all others on the street. The main cases are for insignificant quantities between 0.1 and 5 grams, and the profile of the arrested people is clear and distinct – 91% of the cases are men, 64% of them are adults up to the age of 30, 82% of them have a job, business or studies.

Why are we angry?

When making a state drug policy, you must take into account three main dimensions – public order, public health, and human rights. The ideal policy would be one that achieves more public health and order at the cost of a few of our human rights.
What we are doing in Bulgaria, however, is maximizing public order, sharply worsening public health and human rights. They have already started to search almost every car of a young person (it is already happening in Sofia) and strip people naked on the streets to find them a cigarette of weed. What is happening to public health is even more alarming – more and more school-age children are reaching for alcohol and drugs. Bulgarian high school students drink more, smoke cigarettes and do more drugs than their European peers. What is even more frightening is that because we are so successful in containing and prosecuting weed and its smokers, new, “ designer drugs” are now coming into fashion, which are deadly. Do you remember the case of the boy in Pirogov? This is just the beginning of an epidemic that is happening both in the capital and in small towns. Why smoke weed that will cost you 5 leva to get high on your own, when you can get 5 people a cigarette of synthetics for 2 leva and keep you high for hours. Of course, you get a bonus – synthetics are not caught by mom and dad's testers and traffic police drug squads. And… maybe they haven't put it on the prohibited list yet, so you're OK if they search you. Out of all 16,000 cases we analyzed in our study, only 32 were for "designer drugs". That's called efficiency...

The sad thing is that the Bulgarian state offers nothing to people who take the path of drugs. It can be great and you don't have any problems, it can be quite difficult and any help can be life-saving. There is no help from the Bulgarian state, because first and foremost, for it, you are a criminal. Your first contact with the state is an employee of the Ministry of Interior, who looks at you either as a bonus point for a solved crime or as an extra 500 leva this night shift. Come on, imagine a 15-year-old with drug problems turning for help to an employee of the Ministry of Interior or the Ministry of Health, or the National Center for Drug Prevention and Control, or the National Center for Drug Prevention and Control, or the National Center for Drug Prevention and Control. Yes, the last abbreviation is an authority with a budget of 100,000 leva per year and it is expected that children with problems call it. Yes, they have to call the National Center for Drug Prevention and Control... and they can't even pronounce and remember the abbreviation.

And against this backdrop, it seems we are still to blame. We have not done something like people. We have not gone to the principal of the largest Ministry of Internal Affairs in the EU, which has over a billion leva a year, to tell him what we have learned from the data of his statistical directorate, which can be downloaded freely from his website. We must be wrong because the "health of the nation" is dearer to us than the "honor of the epaulette" and we must tell the truth, because people are dying from your lies. Or are we wrong because we do not give up?!

Well…we won't give up. And if nothing changes, we'll protest again this summer. And if last year during the torrential rain there were 7-800 of us, now there will be thousands. And we will win…reason will win!

FREEDOM FOR HEMP!
Dimitar Karagegov
Liberty 420

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