TightWind is written by Kyle Baxter. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

Megan McArdle posted a video of a narcotics SWAT raid on a home suspected of possessing marijuana.

The video is upsetting. There are no graphic images, but it is clear what happened.

The SWAT team raided the home and shot and killed the family’s two dogs, apparently a pit bull and a corgi. They did this in front of the family’s young children. They found a small amount of marijuana, enough just for a misdemeanor charge.

The police here were doing their job. They were ordered to raid the house, and they did. Dogs are sometimes shot during house raids because they can be a threat to the officers. My anger, and your anger, should not be directed at the officers involved here.

This is what our nation’s drug policy is doing. This is what it creates. It leads to stuff like this. No matter your position on whether people should use drugs, it is absolutely ridiculous to support a ban on their use. It turns something that is relatively minor, smoking marijuana, into a crime worthy of a SWAT police raid. It gives drug dealers and drug cartels their business. It pushes people who need help with an addiction into the dark crevices of society, where real criminals are.