This is anecdotal, second hand information, that may or may not be entirely accurate, but damn this has been on my mind for years and I'd love some feedback.

A friend of a friend of mine is a deputy and I only met him once. He works at the county jail and it's his job to interview people who come in who have drug charges as part of their arrest. It's his job to get names of the people who supplied them with drugs so that officers can go find them and then catch them and bring them in and slowly work up the ladder building evidence. He says more often than not, people on the bottom of the ladder can get their charges reduced for cooperating and the whole goal is try to actually hit drug traders where it hurts in their supply chain.

This all strikes me as very clever and very fair and a good way to police things. I relayed this story to someone a few years later and they told me that this is a horrible way to do policing and all they're doing is trying to take advantage of people and pad their arrest records and blah blah blah. I don't remember what their argument was exactly. I just remember they were adamant that what was going on was wrong and that people's legal rights were being violated.

SO SINCE WE'RE TALKING ABOUT THE DRUG WAR, can someone please shed some light on this scenario for a very confused man? Morally what's going on doesn't strike me as wrong. Legally, I'm sure they're not doing anything wrong either, cause other wise the courts wouldn't let them do what they're doing. johnnyFive and someguyfromcanada, you're both lawyers, any insight?