How the Drug War Works

Via To the People and reader John B. Slattery comes this Oregon News-Register account of how the drug war operates: through crapola minions such as Marc Coven, "a career informant trailing a criminal record and a well-documented history of entrapment."

During a four-month sting operation, capped with a late-June sweep timed to coincide with a well-publicized Meth Summit, the Yamhill County Interagency Narcotics Team employed a career informant trailing a criminal record and a well-documented history of entrapment, the News-Register has learned.

Repeating a pitch polished over 32 years of paid informant work in Oregon, Washington and California, the 51-year-old Portlander dangled hope of high-paying construction and landscaping work. Those tactics stirred such controversy in the early 1980s that even the attorney general felt moved to condemn them, but he seems to have flown below the public radar ever since.

Following his script, investigation shows, undercover operative Marc "The Mole" Caven suggested it would help applicants' prospects if they could hook him up with a bit of methamphetamine or marijuana. And at least 46 of them succumbed to the pitch, landing them berths in the Yamhill County Jail.

The suspects include a 22-year-old McMinnville youth who finally came up with less than half an ounce of marijuana after reportedly being hounded by Caven on a daily basis for weeks. Pumping gas, the lure of construction work at $10.50 an hour got the better of him.

Now facing the Class A felony charge of delivery, pegging him as a dealer, he fears he will never get the financial aid to follow through on college plans. He said he's feeling "like my life is over."

A 19-year-old Amity youth was so excited about the job promised to him that he carried Caven's phony business card everywhere he went, called his big brother in California with the news and laid plans to buy some sturdy work boots. He's also facing a felony charge—one sharing Class A status with murder, rape and kidnapping.

Whole thing here.