Court Opinion

ID: 9449549
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 16:14:56.541117+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:31:52.620265
License: Public Domain

WEIGEL, District Judge
(concurring).
I am constrained to add that the facts in this case are typical of an ugly pattern in so many arising under enforcement of narcotic laws which fail to get at the main roots of the evil — addiction itself and huge profits to large distributors preying upon it. Today we must affirm conviction of an addict-seller driven to make small sales to obtain the means to satisfy a habit in which he is enslaved. Tomorrow it will be an addict-buyer turned a small seller for the same reason. Today and tomorrow, following the law, we shall be forced to convict on the basis of evidence obtained by enforcement officials using informers who are helpless victims of the habit. In cases such as this, the law compels us, it seems to me, to become part of a process of futile nibbling at the outermost fringes of the real evils and to condone methods of obtaining evidence which have no virtue save effectiveness.