Drugs-Forum policy on self-incrimination

History

In the past, drugs-forum required that members do not incriminate themselves for any crime in their postings. This meant that members were not allowed to admit to having taken any drugs, and so were required to communicate any of their drug taking through the use of the third person in a hypothetical construct that replaces the individual posting with a made up identity, such as "My friend". A commonly used acronym to facilitate this is SWIM, which stands for "Someone who isn't me".

The third person

When someone is speaking in the third person they communicate the information from the position of an observer of the information being communicated. Pronouns such as "they" replace personal pronouns such as "I".

Examples:

First person: I took drugs.
Third person: They took drugs.

Drugs-Forum current policy on self-incrimination

Self-incrimination is no longer banned on drugs-forum, except when it pertains to the cultivation, creation or extraction of drugs.

There are a number of reasons why it is no longer banned, but some of the most compelling are:

• Law enforcement simply does not have the resources to investigate confessions of drug taking on the internet. Their resources are primarily deployed against more serious drug crimes such as manufacturing and distribution.
• Even if law enforcement was inclined to investigate, the admissions made on drugs-forum are not done so under any legal requirement for honesty. A person could plausibly argue that they had embellished their story in order to garner credibility in a community where experience of drugs might be considered desirable.
• Obfuscation may lead to misinterpretation of what is being communicated. Given the potential for harm involved in drugs, it is desirable for information to be communicated as unambiguously as is possible.
• The board is anonymous, and so any pursuit of legal action against a member would need to reach the evidentiary threshold for a warrant to be issued, which is unlikely for the reasons noted above.

Current policy on the use of the third person on drugs-forum

While self-incrimination is not banned, it is not against the rules to use the third person to communicate if someone wishes to exercise an abundance of caution. There are some caveats to this however when one considers the rules and the guidelines of the reputation system. These are summarised as follows:

• Any use of the third person should not confuse the communication of the message. Example: "My sisters boyfriends orange dragon went dancing with tina and my husbands second cousin" is very confusing compared to "Person A took methamphetamine with Person B".
• Any use of the third person should be done to avoid self-incrimination. Uses that provide more evidence of incrimination defeats the point of the exercise and introduce more confusion and potentially offend. A good example of this is the use of pets as a third party. Owners are responsible for their pets, so if a person says that their pet cat took drugs, rather than avoiding incrimination for drug taking, the person is actually confessing to possessing drugs and cruelty to animals. Many members will find references to pets taking drugs very offensive.
• Use of the third person should not include reference to the term SWIM. This is against the rules.

TL:DR

It used to be against the rules on drugs-forum to self-incriminate in posts. It is no longer against the rules except for discussion of drug cultivation, creation or extraction. We'd prefer you didn't use the third person to avoid self-incrimination, but if you do use it don't use SWIM, don't talk about your pets taking drugs, and make sure your message is clearly communicated.[/B]