Retired Cop Waves White Flag in War on Drugs

The Standard-Times (MA) ^ | 15 Jan 2003 | John Doherty

[MrLeRoy]

After fighting the war on drugs for nearly 30 years, Lt. Jack Cole is ready to admit defeat.

The retired New Jersey State Police detective -- who spent 12 years as an undercover narcotics officer -- spearheads a movement to legalize all narcotics as a way of ending the bloody, expensive war.

"The war on drugs was, is and always will be a dismal failure," said Mr. Cole yesterday to a meeting of the Fairhaven Rotary Club.

Mr. Cole is one of the founders of an international nonprofit group called Law Enforcement Against Prohibition -- LEAP.

That group, which includes current and former police officers, judges and others, is proposing nothing short of legalizing all narcotics -- including heroin, cocaine and marijuana -- and having the federal government regulate them.

While that might sound radical for a detective who spent the better part of his career looking to jail both users and sellers of drugs, Mr. Cole said it is the only rational viewpoint after a career on the front lines of the war on drugs.

While spending what Mr. Cole estimates to be $69 billion per year in law enforcement and prison costs for drug offenders, Americans have seen drug supplies become more plentiful and the drugs themselves more powerful and cheaper.

Mr. Cole acknowledged to the dozen Rotarians yesterday that the idea of legalizing narcotics -- similar to policies in Amsterdam -- sounds foreign.

The first question many people ask is whether drug decriminalization will increase drug use, especially among the young.

Mr. Cole pointed to studies in which young Americans said it was easier to obtain marijuana and other drugs than it was to purchase government-regulated alcohol and tobacco products.

Holland sees a lower rate of marijuana use among its young people, in part because decriminalization has made the drug boring, Mr. Cole said.

"We at LEAP are asking you to listen and to think about these ideas," said Mr. Cole, who is pursuing a doctorate in public policy at UMass Boston.

[jammer]

I went off on a rant and didn't say make explicit two short things I wanted to say. I disagree with you that you sounded "ridiculous". You do not sound ridiculous. Second, you were replying to my question about paying for counselling, theft, etc. anyway. I think we ARE paying for it anyway and getting very little benefit.

[Dead Corpse]

OK. Well... don't do that again then. ;-)

Closest I've come to whiping out big was when I got the bar jammed and ended up lifting the entire rack off the floor. A bit more weight, not to mention the balance issues, then I was prepared to deal with. Didn't break anything, but I wasn't moving too spry there for a while. ***knock on wood***

Careful of the back. Sam's Club has one of those massage loungers for around $200. Highly recommended. Gotta tie my wife up so I can have my turn in it.

[tacticalogic]

How do the massagers work on muscle strains? I don't have any spinal problems, but I've pulled/torn some lower back muscles and been down for a couple of weeks before. I think part of the problem was I was putting heat on it. It seems like it didn't get any better until I switched to ice.

[Dead Corpse]

Heat can open up teh arteries allowing more blood flow. Conventional wisdom says that if you have swelling already present in the area, more blood lfow is not a good thing. Ice it to minimize the swelling.

Muscle strain is pretty much exactly that. You've strained the muscle past its limits and probably tore a sizable amount of the muscle fibers. Weight lifters do this, under controlled circumstances, to try and get the muscle to re-grow bigger than it was before.

Heat should only be used when you have cramping or general soreness from strenuous activity. Everything else, sprains to tears, should be iced. See a doctor if you deem it bad enough, or if the pain persists.

[tacticalogic]

I went to the doctor to start with, and he's the one who told me to use the heating pad. It made it feel better while it was on there, but as soon as I took it off it and tried to move around, it would sieze up again. The ice seemed to make it tighten up a little more initially, but after awhile it would start to relax. After about 45 minutes under the icepack, I could get up and move around for at least a couple of hours before it started to tighten up again.

[Dead Corpse]

Yup. Stick with the ice. Possibly go for some Motrin or Ibuprophin. Sounds like you have some spasming going on. Increased blood flow can actually make that worse.

Ice, Rest, Motrin... and fer cryin out loud, lift with your legs and not your back! ;-)

[MrLeRoy]

We need to legalize most of it, anything demonstrably no more harmful than booze on the same basis as booze, and take all the money out of the whole deal.

Amen!

I don't see how you can legalize the Jeckyl/Hyde formulas like PCP, crack, or LSD. In areas in which PCP is abundant, it's basically the ultimate answer and solution to every sort of heinous and unbelievable crime for which there is no obvious motive or rationale.

Educate yourself on PCP: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/818715/posts. As for LSD, I don't think even the feds still claim that it causes violence.

[MrLeRoy]

I don't see how something without ANY brain (the embryo, before 6-8 weeks) either has a right to life, or needs a right to life.

Human brain function by itself has no significance unless you take as axiomatic that humans are special. They are---but to take that as an axiom is blatantly species-ist and no more defensible than a racist or sexist axiom. What makes humans special is that reasoning free-willed individuality is normal for human adults---and reasoning free-willed individuality is a sufficient condition for personhood. Yet we know infants are persons although they do not have reasoning free-willed individuality; what they do have is the potential for reasoning free-willed individuality. Since unborn children also have this potential they are also persons.

I think their thoughts about what constitutes love are simply different from yours.

"He would have had a hard life so I killed him" is not love, whatever anyone may tell herself.

[MrLeRoy]

I actually was a teacher who worked with neglected children through alcohol and drug abusive parents.

So should we ban alcohol? If not, why not?

[MrLeRoy]

The guy is a humourles weenie.

Oh, so your lies are meant as JOKES?! (I guess anyone with the low mentality to use the word "weenie" would find slander funny.)

[MrLeRoy]

Drug and alcohol abuse is everywhere and needs to be addressed.

What do you think should be done about alcohol abuse?

[tacticalogic]

That was about 5 years ago. I'm better now. Believe it or not, I wasn't lifting anything at all when it happened. I was walking thru a parking garage, and had to sneeze. Just as I sneezed, I stepped in a patch of ice and lost my footing. Between sneezing and trying to get my balance, I tore the muscles in my lower back. I did have a pretty heavy laptop case and about a 30lb tool case slung over each shoulder at the time.

[Dead Corpse]

That's enough. A friend of mine stumbled going down the stairs. Tore his left quad bad enough to require surgery. He was a big boy as well(may have his Pro card by now).

We humans is soft squishy things after all.

[tacticalogic]

I'm just a little guy - 5'10"/145. Broad shoulders and narrow hips - probably a bad combination for twisting back injuries.

[Dead Corpse]

Yep. Same height and I've got a hundred pound on you. Broad shoulders. Barrel chest. Bla-bla-bla. I look like a tree trunk and can damn near change a tire without a jack. Not a pretty sight.

I could probably drop another 20 pounds, but I couldn't hold it that low for long and stay healthy.

Still, no drugs here. Not even Androstendione or any of its permutations. Creatine, yes... but that is hardly a drug.

[merak]

I don't see how you can legalize the Jeckyl/Hyde formulas like PCP, crack, or LSD. In areas in which PCP is abundant, it's basically the ultimate answer and solution to every sort of heinous and unbelievable crime for which there is no obvious motive or rationale.

Educate yourself on PCP: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/818715/posts. As for LSD, I don't think even the feds still claim that it causes violence.

I got a sort of an education on PCP during the four years I lived in Prince Georges County Md. at a time when it was more or less the PCP capital of the western world. PG county cops who worked out in the gym I used told me of seeing ten and twelve year olds who were totally fried with no possibility of ever leading useful lives, who couldn't tell you what their name was or where they lived and never would be able to, and I remember a number of utterly berserk crimes for which PCP always appeared to be the common denominator. The name Stephanie Roper comes to mind more than anything else.

Want to educate yourself on PCP? Do a google search on 'Stephanie Roper' and 'pcp' and check out some of what turns up.

[MrLeRoy]

I remember a number of utterly berserk crimes for which PCP always appeared to be the common denominator.

So it was conclusively determined that no other substances were involved, and that the berserkers had no preexisting psychoses?

The name Stephanie Roper comes to mind more than anything else.

You can't draw reliable conclusions from a single data point. Again, that address is http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/818715/posts; educate yorself or not as you choose.

[MrLeRoy]

Do a google search on 'Stephanie Roper' and 'pcp'

Only three hits, all making only passing reference to the Stephanie Roper Foundation.

[Hacksaw]

Oh, so your lies are meant as JOKES?! (I guess anyone with the low mentality to use the word "weenie" would find slander funny.)

Well no, I was quite serious about your promotion of drugs.

[Hacksaw]

So it was conclusively determined that no other substances were involved, and that the berserkers had no preexisting psychoses?

That has to be it - now on the other hand if they were drinking...