the deputies switched to plea bargaining on the spot, offering to take only part of the money if the travellers promised not to complain.^[27]  At this point the department was just a step shy of cash registers in the squad cars.

In time the list of personal tragedies in the drug war would grow to include hundreds of innocent businessmen, farmers, home owners and housewives all over the country who fit some profile or rented to the wrong person and saw their lives ruined and their assets vanish. But of all the unintended consequences of these powerful laws, perhaps the most ominous is to be found in the small print down at the bottom of the economic spectrum.  One list of asset seizures by the Washington D.C. police contained items like “...Tyrone Payton, $5.00 in United States Currency... Kevin Williams, $5.00 in United States Currency...”^[28]  These numbers hint at petty shakedowns, and that bodes ill for the long haul.  Try to picture this scene through the eyes of the teenager with a few bucks in his pocket—quite possibly earned through honest work—who must constantly be on the lookout for the king’s men or lose it all. It would be tough to come up with a better system for teaching hatred of the law.

Just as police departments became addicted to forfeiture, the media in the 1980s got hooked on the drug war itself.  A survey of network news during the first five years of the decade showed the number of cocaine-related stories jumped from ten a year to 140.^[29] Then, in the mid-80s, television discovered raid footage—screaming cops in flak jackets—splintering doors—video images sizzling with danger and unpredictability. Unfortunately, television has certain technical limitations that determine what it can and cannot cover.  A surveillance van with a hidden camera can park on a street in Harlem but it has no access to the Chicago Yacht Club or the ladies’ room at Dan Tana’s in Beverly Hills. As a result, the drug war footage showing up on the nightly news