Columbia students busted for selling drugs on campus.

[Columbia2002]

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Word on the street is that NYPD spent $11,000 buying drugs from these kids for 5 months to bust them. What on Earth? I’m a graduate student which also means I’m a NYC taxpayer; they’re spending $11,000 of our tax money on buying drugs? Weren’t they convinced after the first $5,000 or so? That’s an average of over $350 per purchase. Who were these kids who had enough money to pay $350 for some LSD?

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The $11,000 doesn’t matter; they’ll obviously get that back since it’s tainted “drug money.” No, the real cost of this operation was paying the detectives and undercover agents, especially for overtime, over 5 months! But of course, that’s why they do it. They’re not protecting or serving anyone by locking these five students up. But it’s very lucrative for the NYPD.

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<p>They won’t necessarily get it back. It’s standard procedure for buy money to have been marked – which means NYPD wrote down the serial numbers of the money they used and made photocopies of the bills. If they found those same bills in these kids’ rooms when they made the arrests, they’d get them back. If the kids spent most of the $11K, they might not automatically get it back.</p>

<p>And you shouldn’t be thinking that $11K is a big deal to the NYPD. The next time you need to go to your local precinct to file a police report or get fingerprinted, you’ll see a bunch of lazy and useless unionized administrative staffers sitting around doing nothing at far more cost to the taxpayers.</p>

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I don’t think all students are gonna get locked up. From what I’ve read, they come from very privileged backgrounds, and at least 3 of them can make bail.

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<p>I doubt any of them will get any jail time. Maybe the main guy Harrison will do a little time, but the rest have no records and the charges against them aren’t too severe. Their futures will be ruined, but they won’t set prison sentences.</p>

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as for this being a greek problem, it is not so much a greek issue as it is an issue of pseudo privacy. it is easier to stash things in a house that isn’t being cleaned or looked after by facilities very much, nor do you have to pass a security guard to get in.

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<p>Didn’t think of this – good point.</p>