Silk Road forums

Discussion => Off topic => Topic started by: Phil198022 on June 30, 2012, 06:15 pm

Title: Actual penalties for(small scale)possession in Europe, cops came and left again!
Post by: Phil198022 on June 30, 2012, 06:15 pm
A while ago I had an interesting experience, that I hope I'll never have again, which very luckily worked out well for me, but also leads to an interesting question: There was a domestic argument between me and a woman. I had drunk too much alcohol and consumed amphetamine. My idiot neighbours called the cops, because they were afraid somebody was going to get hurt (I was yelling around "you idiot, you fucking bitch" and similarly silly insults and banging against a door, but there was no physical altercation). In fact it was just a loud verbal argument, no physical violence at all.

Anyway, I was drunk and hi, suddenly the coppers were there. Since I couldn't think clearly due to alcohol-intoxication and due to feelings of panic having cops at your door in that situation, I forgot to get rid of the plastic baggy that contained the rest of the speed when the police came knocking, banging on the door ("open up, police!") and 2 cops entered my apartment. Every users nightmare, right? A half-empty baggy with speed was lying right there on the living room table, together with bottles of booze.

The cops asked if they could come in, and since i was dumb and drunk and hi i said "sure", and let them walk right in without any warrant. They quickly realized nothing serious had happened, nobody was physically hurt, but they also clearly saw the half-empty baggy with white paste in it, pretty obvious what that was. They even asked me what it was and I said "I don't know", didn't know what else to answer in that situation. Then they asked the woman if drugs had been consumed, which she denied. Then, after they had assured themselves there had been no violence, they just left and said if there was more trouble that evening they would return.

Now I and the other person involved are middle class white people, no immigrants and we don't live in a ghetto either, so I assume their relative politeness had something to do with that, basically we aren't criminals and don't look it. Still I was rather astonished that they just left without any further investigation, they didn't even confiscate the drugs (probably about a gram of amphetamine lying on the living room table in an opened plastic baggy). Now weeks later, there have been no return visits, so I guess the whole matter was never officially recorded by the cops. They would have had absolute evidence, since the stuff was found in my possession and a urine test would have revealed I had been consuming, a sure thing in any legal trial I assume.

So I'm curious what the ACTUAL usual penalties for small scale drug possession in western europe are? According to the law they would have probably had to arrest me, charge me with illegal possession, maybe even search the apartment etc., then again they may have entered the apartment without legal authorization to do so, just because I said they could, so I'm not sure if the evidence would have been valid in a court of law.

So does anybody know what ACTUAL usual penalties for small scale drug possession are in Western Europe (rather than what official drug laws say). if you're middle class, don't look suspicious otherwise, does the law tend to look away, since they don't want to start prosecuting normal people for small scale offenses (like let's say a couple of consumption units of an illegal drug, which is obviously not meant for distribution)? Or was I just very lucky / had the good luck of encountering very fair and lenient or lazy cops?
Title: Re: Actual penalties for(small scale)possession in Europe, cops came and left again!
Post by: UKGrower on June 30, 2012, 09:14 pm
Could be many reasons why it went down this way, probably a combination of luck (copper was lazy, overworked, about to finish their shift, or maybe just someone in the job for the right reasons, rather than being a jobsworth bullying cunt), and the postcode lottery factor (nice areas tend to have nicer coppers etc.)

You'd have probably only got a caution anyway, so maybe they just didn't think it was worth the hassle to pursue it.  Don't get too complacent though, plenty of coppers would undoubtedly have fucked you anyway, just because they can.
Title: Re: Actual penalties for(small scale)possession in Europe, cops came and left again!
Post by: BanWork on July 01, 2012, 12:22 am
Ive just had cautions for small amounts, never anything more.

I had a similar situation one time when some scumbag neighbor fired an air gun through my window, I had constant beef with them, they scratched my (expensive, prized position that i worked like a cunt for) car one time, they would drive stolen moterbikes down the sidewalk while kids where playing out, Id go over to their house and tell them to stop acting like twats, they where basically the British version of rednecks. The shit never ended, even when i poured a bottle of paint stripper over their car.  >:(  :P

Anyway, this time I didn't bail out and confront them so I thought (in my state) it would be fun to call the police, speaking to the operator I simply said "a gun had been fired through my window and almost hit me, I am afraid"  ;D ...what seemed like seconds later 2 cars of armed police turned up (lol) the human excrement who lived across the road SHIT themselves (visibly shaking) and I was lmao as I stood at the door watching it unfold.

The cops dealt with them, took one away, the other officers came over to me at the door "do you mind if we come in, Sir" ...."err, sure" I said -like a dick. There was a spliff smouldering in the ashtray that was being passed around whilst I was at the door watching the drama I helped create and the place STUNK of weed, I had about 20 pills upstairs and about half a gram of coke in my pocket, we where all fucked up.

Turns out one of the cops was a guy I used to drink with in the park when we were kids, we ended up briefly talking about old times, not a word was mentioned about the stench of weed and the smouldering joint  ;D The officers wished me a good day and left on their way.

Then I cleaned my undies  ;D
 
Title: Re: Actual penalties for(small scale)possession in Europe, cops came and left again!
Post by: Phil198022 on July 01, 2012, 12:04 pm
Another theory I have about my particular case is that I hold a relatively responsible position in the community (doc) I live in, which could on the one hand really fuck me up, if let's say they searched my house and found meth, mdma etc. (even though I always only order and keep small amounts at home). On the other hand the local cops may know my name and who i am, since the hospital is close by, and they are basically conditioned to go after the bad guys (e.g. Rodney King etc.), being much more lenient with people they may have professional contacts with in the community (we deal with the cops all the time in hospital, like demented patients who leave the hospital premises, patients who were victims of crime, criminals being treated, stolen property etc.) I just hope those two cops don't show up at my workplace anytime soon, would be sooooo embarassing, hehe. 

So let's say exactly the same thing had occured in a large Arab family living of welfare and with criminal records, I assume the cops would have behaved quite differently. Basically the thought patterns might be: Ok, we're not going to chase this guy out of our anyway relatively decrepit town, since the damage of chasing him out of a place few docs wants to work anyway, will just damage this town even further.

I assume, even if they had arrested me they would have let me go with a warning, because they don't want scandals in this neighbourhood either (like "doc soandso arrested for possession" is quite a different headline from "homeless person arrested"), would probably even appear in the newspaper and potentially threaten my professional position, at least in this town.

Oh, and regarding house searches, don't know if in real searches they bring along dogs? But if they are just those two guys from last time without a dog, good luck finding say a gram of meth in an apartment with several rooms and endless hiding possibilities. On his last house intrusion Inspector Clouseau found it, because it could be overlooked as little as the bottles of Jägermeister on the table, hehe.

In hindsight it makes me chuckle "what is that?", "I don't know", hehe, stupid question, dumb answer.

One more thing, I tried to be as polite as possible to the cops (that's why I let them in), no arguing, no loud voice, just tried to explain as calmly as i could what happened, so I guess that might have also helped. I mean most cops are basically government officials (at least here), they want to get their jobs done with as little hassle and paperwork as possible, so if no serious crimes are involved, they would just as well prefer to get back to their offices and then families than dealing with minor victimless crime like that (especially in the middle of the night when they would prefer to sleep). Taking me in would have been an extra hour of work for them for basically nonsense.

BTW, I'm not sooo computer literate, can somebody once more write down the
Title: Re: Actual penalties for(small scale)possession in Europe, cops came and left again!
Post by: fighter1988 on July 01, 2012, 12:45 pm
Iunno how it works in europe, but in canada cops generally don't bother with personal amounts, at the most they will just take it. I guess no one wants to spend the time filling out the paper work and shit for amounts that wont even really lead to jail time. And i can't see anyone bothering to test your urine/blood to see if you consumed any drugs unless you were operating a motor vehicle. Honestly, you could go up to a cop, tell em your fucking tripping balls on e and lsd with a little valium to try n balance out the trip and they would just tell you to move along, but if your drunk trying to get home from the bar the bastards sometimes scoop you up n put you in the drunk tanks ><
Title: Re: Actual penalties for(small scale)possession in Europe, cops came and left again!
Post by: Phil198022 on July 01, 2012, 02:10 pm
Honestly, you could go up to a cop, tell em your fucking tripping balls on e and lsd with a little valium to try n balance out the trip and they would just tell you to move along

Yeah, intox with illegal drugs in itself appears to have no judicial consequences in Europe either. We get heroin, cocaine overdose people etc. all the time at the hospital and we don't call the cops and there are no convictions.

I guess as long as you only order amounts that are for personal consumption on SR it's really not VERY dangerous, maybe a fine, if they ever catch you.

For the same reason one should probably advice people against ordering larger amounts in order to get some discount. Like if you order 10g of Cocaine and get caught you WILL probably be in serious trouble. Not worth it to save 10-20 percent in costs in my book. Like job gone + jailtime just to save 100 dollars.

Generally in my experience I tend to pretty quickly use up whatever i have in drugs anyway, no matter how much it is, as tolerance builds, and many of those drugs don't become more pleasant if you go on a 2 week binge anyway. Like 3 months ago i had used a lot and at the end I still had 2g MDMA left that I took in one evening with little effect, just some stimulation (that was after the meth binge, in which case it was pretty stupid taking the MDMA then anyway, but it was the last drug left). During that same time I had ordered 3,5g meth, which might already have caused very serious legal problems if caught, still I used it up in a week-long binge or so as tolerance built rapidly (I had vacation from work). At the end it was rather unpleasant, and I felt like my body had been put through a meat grinder.

So maybe better to order 1g every 2 weeks and have a really good time then + fewer legal problems if you get caught.
Title: Re: Actual penalties for(small scale)possession in Europe, cops came and left again!
Post by: trava on July 01, 2012, 04:22 pm
i know of a very similar story about a friend i know, he was arguing with his GF, and he is a total pothead so when the cops came, there was a joint lying on the table and plenty of weed smell but they didnt say a thing

EU is abit more liberal on drugs