NZ copy the US 'Operation Pipe Dreams' fiasco

So what the Police are saying by misusing new asset seizure powers sold to the public as aimed at the gangs, is that personal users of marijuana have to go buy it from the gangs rather than grow their own? What brilliant idiots our Police force are, someone should really out cops who smoke the herb and who require clean urine services to side step drug testing to show how deep this hypocrisy runs.

Marijuana use is not even in the same ball park of social damage that tobacco or booze cause yet two years and tens of millions per year are wasted in NZ's war on drugs.

It's nice to see NZ cops are copying idiotic American measures like the infamous 'Operation Pipe Dreams'.

Operation Pipe Dreams was the code-name for a U.S. nationwide investigation in 2003 targeting businesses selling drug paraphernalia, mostly marijuana pipes and bongs, under a little-used statute (Title 21, Chapter 13, Subchapter 1, Part D, Section 863(a)[1]) of the U.S. Code. Due to the reluctance of state law-enforcement agencies to waste resources on the operation, most cases were filed in Iowa and Pennsylvania, taking advantage of the statutes prohibition on the use of "the mails or any other facility of interstate commerce to transport drug paraphernalia."[2]

Hundreds of businesses and homes were raided as a result of Operation Pipe Dreams. Fifty five people were named in indictments and charged with trafficking of illegal drug paraphernalia. While 54 of the 55 individuals charged were sentenced to fines and home detentions, actor Tommy Chong was sentenced September 11, 2003, to 9 months in a federal prison, a fine of $20,000, forfeiture of $103,000, and a year of probation. Chong was charged for his part in financing and promoting Chong Glass Works/Nice Dreams, California based companies started by his son Paris.[3] In a Plea bargain, Chong agreed to plead guilty to one count of conspiracy to distribute drug paraphernalia in exchange for non-prosecution of his wife, Shelby, and his son, Paris. Federal Prosecution admitted to being harsher on Chong in retaliation, citing Chong's movies as trivializing "law enforcement efforts to combat drug trafficking and use."[4]

The estimated cost of Operation Pipe Dreams was over $12 Million and included the resources of 2,000 law enforcement officers

This bust is about revenue gathering for the cops now they have these asset seizing powers, if it was about public health they would be shutting down all the KFC in NZ.