Posted on 01/16/2007 9:43:19 AM PST by Lusis
It's understandable why when many people first see Howard Wooldridge, they might at first think he's a crank.
The slender, mustachioed man of middle-age frequently wears a cowboy hat, and has been known to get around town on a horse. He also wears a black shirt with loud, conspicuous lettering on both the front and back. You'd be forgiven to dismiss him as a religious zealot proclaiming the coming apocalypse, or a disciple of Lyndon Larouche.
But look closer. The shirt reads: "COPS SAY LEGALIZE DRUGS: ASK ME WHY."
And people do.
"I get stopped just about everywhere," he says. "The shirt works. I have several different for different occasions – I can get my point across in 30 seconds in an elevator, a few minutes in a restaurant, or full-blown speech at a Rotary Club."
If he doesn't leave people convinced, he at least leaves them asking the right questions.
So does Norm Stamper, former police chief for the city of Seattle.
"People ask how a former cop could say drugs should be legalized, but it's precisely because I love police and love police work that I'm saying it. The drug war stops real cops from doing real police work. It's corrupting. It's wasteful. And it has wrecked communities."
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Oh, boy! Here comes a stampede of FR Libertarians!
well duh. Didn't learn the lesson with the first round of prohibition. All it's ended up doing is making drug dealers rich and taking away the rest of our freedoms in the name of the war or some drugs.
End the federal war on drugs - no constitutional authority for most of it anyway. If the states want to have their own drug wars, that's their right.
Of course, I'm dreaming. No politician wants to give power back to the states or the people.
"...The drug war stops real cops from doing real police work. It's corrupting. It's wasteful. And it has wrecked communities."
Unbelievable. Drug addiction is what wrecks communities. Anyone who wants to see full-scale catastrophe in this society should get behind the legalization of crack, heroin, and crystal meth.
Resistance is futile!
-The Borg
And all the stoner jokes from the Tea Totalers. ;-)
Not directed to you Lusis, but in order to post...well, you know.
Laugh all you want about this story, but truth be known, anyone at Freep who has every been "concerned" about Constitutional Rights has pretty much bought into the War On Some Drugs, voted for GOPers & Dems who march in lockstep with these laws and NOW are concerned about their own "Civil Rights" ala "The War On Terror": welcome to the club.
Hear, hear!
Now we wait just a few moments for the usual FR drug warrior cretins to show up here, to tell us this Police Chief must be a worthless pot-smoking hippie to hold such an opinion.
With all due respect to this man, he is missing the wood for the trees...regardless of how unsuccessful we are at actually preventing drug dealing and possession among those who NOW want to do these things, the moment when society decides that it is no longer forbidden, then it will soon become no longer taboo, and then it won't be long before school kids sue for the right to possess their recreational drugs at school, and drug manufacturers sue for their right to advertise recreational drugs on TV. Use will skyrocket. Do we REALLY want that?
We should go back to hating commies and not molecules.
Opium eaters, provided they don't try to corrupt me and mine and stay out of my way, don't have to fear my boot.
Tempt my kid to try smoking cigarettes and I'll crack skulls.
If we controlled our borders it would be easier to win the war on drugs. Another good reason for electing Tom Tancredo.
Something no one ever considers is that the war on drugs has also increased the cost of legitimate health care. The DEA has encouraged the pharmaceutical industry to raise the prices/profits on non-patented narcotics, which are essential drugs in surgery and recovery, astronomically.
I want freedom. As to all the kids drinking booze, taking perscription drugs and watching Lavitra ads on TV... well that's the price of freedom.
I believe the solution is government regulation.
Then nobody will be able to get the drugs they want.
Don't the police get some 165 Billion dollars from Feds for the war on drugs.
What would the police do with out this money?
I just checked out the website of LEAP. I expected to find anti-drug law enforcement types that simply believed the WOD was unwinnable and not worth fighting. However, their website links to groups that seem to try to diminish the dangers of drug addiction and drug use in the minds of the reader. I really have no time for that sort of approach.
If drugs are legalized, the question then becomes how society will protect itself from the addicted. Allow me to shoot the junkie who is stealing from me and guarantee that not one cent of my tax money will be used to enable or 'rehabilitate' an addict, and I might listen.
I would have to argue that so long as it's a woman's right to murder her child in her womb, then what business does our Government have in telling anyone what they can put into their body?
If they do something illegal under the influence of said drug, that's another matter. Those laws are already used against people who misuse alcohol now.
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