Drug war alive in Iowa

Local sheriff boasting about pot bust sparks debate

My hometown became the epicenter in the drug war debate, for just a moment last week.

Johnson County Sheriff’s deputies reportedly confiscated more than 80 pounds of pot during a traffic stop on Interstate-80 outside of Iowa City earlier this month. A photo of the deputy smiling behind his haul drew tens of thousands of mixed reactions online. In the past week, nearly 1,000 people around the country stuck it to the Johnson County Sheriff’s Office by giving a 1-star review on Facebook.

If that sounds familiar, you might remember I wrote last month that the Henry County Sheriff’s Office suffered a similar internet thrashing in response to the department’s Facebook posts about running traffic checkpoints and digging up ditch weed.

To be fair, Johnson County officials do deserve some credit for their progress in mitigating the drug war’s destruction. The jail diversion program, started after voters rejected a new jail bond in the early 2000s, has earned national recognition as a model for reducing incarceration. Local departments have also started collaborating on crisis intervention training, intended to keep mentally ill people out of jail.

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