Posted on 10/20/2005 3:39:37 AM PDT by Loud Mime
When he was new in "blue," Robert Owens was the scourge of East Los Angeles junkies, racking up record-breaking numbers of heroin arrests.
But even then, the young Los Angeles County sheriff's deputy wondered if all the collars and the time and resources it took to make them were making any difference.
Those doubts only grew during the rest of his 38 years in law enforcement, including his 22 years as police chief in gritty Oxnard, Calif.
Today, at 74, Owens is an outspoken proponent of ending America's drug war, which has been waged for nearly four decades at an estimated cost of $500 billion. Despite the best efforts and intentions of anti-drug policies, it simply hasn't worked, he says.
"This country is long overdue in recognizing that not only have we lost the war on drugs, but we have squandered billions of dollars and untold numbers of lives," said Owen, who now coordinates law enforcement internships at the University of Texas in San Antonio.
Owen is not alone. He is one of 2,000 members of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, an organization of current and former police officers, judges, prosecutors, prison guards and others across the country and in Canada and England.
All have toiled in the trenches of the drug war and now consider traditional approaches futile. Though there is not unanimity, most in the group believe that the government should regulate the distribution and use of illicit substances and offer treatment instead of prison time to those caught in their grip.
The group's board of advisers includes former police chiefs of New York City, Seattle, Wash., and San Jose, Calif., along with current federal court judges in Denver, New York City, and Bridgeport, Conn. It also counts former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson as a supporter, as well as the sheriff of San Miguel County, Colo.
"This is not a tie-died group," said Mike Smithson, who runs the group's speakers bureau.
Perhaps not, but they are misguided and far out on the fringe of the drug issue, said a spokesman for the White House's Office of National Drug Control Policy.
"It's simply an irresponsible message to put out there," said Rafael Lemaitire, deputy press secretary for the anti-drug office.
By any measure, Lemaitire said, the drug war - which employs police work, public education and treatment to attack the problem - has been effective in driving down drug use in America. In 1979, at the peak of the drug epidemic, 14 percent of the U.S. population said they had used drugs in the past 30 days. Now, that number is 6 percent.
And, he said, everyone knows at least one person whose life was ruined by drug use, and whole neighborhoods and communities besieged by drug-related crime. To give up on the battle would mean more misery, criminality and despair, he said.
"It's ludicrous to think that any law enforcement person would want to put people and communities at greater risk," Lemaitire said.
But Owens and others affiliated with his group contend that the war on drugs has succeeded in little more than packing America's prisons with low-level offenders. If the battle is being won, they ask, why is the scourge of methamphetamine use spreading around the country? Why is the marijuana bought on the street today more potent than it was 35 years ago?
"This is not a war on drugs. It's a war on people," said LEAP executive director Jack Cole, who worked for 12 years as an undercover narcotics officer with the New Jersey State Police.
Cole and others in the group acknowledge their beliefs are hotly controversial, but they contend that there are far more police officers and others who share their point of view but can't risk the ostracism and professional damage that could occur if they went public. In fact, the organization welcomes members who want to remain anonymous and promises them their identities will never be revealed.
For now, the group's aim is to spark a public discussion of the worth of the war on drugs, as it now is being fought, Owens said. He and others like him want to use their front-lines credibility to open a national conversation on the topic.
"We're planting seeds," Owens said.
On the Web: www.leap.cc
www.whitehousedrugpolicy.gov
Making law is not a way to force people to do anything; it simply provides a system to punish those who do not do your bidding.
Will government be willing to cede the powers and the finances that the WODrugs brings them? It seems they are in a symbiotic relationship with the criminal elements in the drug wars.
Drug laws are now a source of power, a job provider and a source of income, both for the dealers and the government. We'll never see a change because of that.
They should tax it and legalize it. Adults should be able to do what they want. And I think the tax revenue would be significant.
Actually, I'll agree to legalize drugs from a personal liberty point of view, IF, BIG IF, no tax money of any kind can be used to "rehabilitate" those stupid enough to get themselves hooked on these drugs. Not a single penny.
Yes. And it doesn't matter if they are "innocent" -- that's a state we we all and each born into, and can return to.
ping!
The Federal approach to drug control has been a disaster for the Bill of Rights, and for spending, and for results for that matter.
This needs to be a stae and local responsibility.
HALF A TRILLIUON $ spent (so far)....& what benefits have we gotten from it all over the decades? Absolutely nothing.
Why not shift that 500 billion on over to border protection? The drug warriors could still "feel good" about non-domestic drug imports and maybe we could do a better job of securing the borders from real threats.
Sounds like a reasonable idea to me.
I say get the federal government out of the drug-fighting business, w/ the sole exception of patrolling our borders, then let the states decide which way to go re: the re-legalization question. Some states may strenghten their drug laws, while others may choose to tax it & make it completely legal for adults.
There used to be a time that we would blame a man, not something material, for being evil. The liberal gun grabber think and the WOD are sister and brother.
I would ping MrLeroy so he could copy and paste everything he has posted on this subject in the past 3 years, but I can't remember which screen name he is using this week.
not something material => not inanimate matter
Legalized heroin has been tried in the UK and elsewhere. It did not work out very well. For one thing, some registered addicts in England would sell part of their scripts for cash. I was there then - I saw it happening. So it's all well and good to say the drugs would regulated and not be distributed to minors and all that, but in reality they could not be effectively controlled.
Having said that, while I don't agree with it, I can see a rational argument for at least semi-legalizing opiates, but not meth - no way.
Then this guy says we should offer treatment to addicts. Duh, if they can get legal drugs, almost none want treatment - they'll choose the dope!
TO THE PRO-DRUG WARRIORS: Cue your ad-hominem "I'm a pothead" or "Stupid Libertarian" or whatever attacks, since you can't debate the facts.
Both of these drugs are already illegal and their usage is still widespread.
I think if drugs were legalized people wouldn't take the liberty to create hazardous meth labs or boil water to cook up crack rocks. The dealers would be out of business because there wouldn't be an incentive to do said things.
Then you have an advertising campaign like Nancy Reagan's "Just Say No" & "This is your brain on drugs" in the 80s which was very effective at reducing drug use.
Like I said, the states can have their own drug laws, & come down as harshly upon the users of the harder drugs as they please....including using the death penalty if they so desire.
In which case, it will be alot cheaper and they'll kill themselves quicker, permanently ending their drug problem.
How about shifting $50 Billion to brder control, with $5 Billion allocated to the construction of a wall, and give the rest back to the taxpayers?
Meth is a relatively recent craze. Would anyone have bothered to come up with and perfect the home chemistry processes commonly used to produce it today, had there been no prohibition in the first place?
Meth is a relatively recent craze. Would anyone have bothered to come up with and perfect the home chemistry processes commonly used to produce it today, had there been no prohibition in the first place?
AND... given that doctors would have been in the loop, as they are notoriously NOT with things that are today considered so evil that they can't even be sold by prescription?
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