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.

[KarlInOhio]

The Intellecutals, aided by the Cattle Mutilators and the Tabloids and using the Orbital Mind Control Lasers, attack to control Local Police Departments....

Fnord!

Frequently Asked Questions About The REAL Illuminati

[AUgrad]

This is a free, capitalist democracy(republic) after all, and when demand for something is as high as it is for psychoactive chemicals, markets are created that route around little annoyances like federal and state government prohibition.

Well said. Most drug warriors refuse to admit that fundamental fact.

[Tony Niar Brain]

I have no idea what the literacy rate in China was at the time, but what I worry about is that if the clear message from drug education becomes wholly or partially indistinguishable from the noise and miscommunications that tend to occur in everyday life, a similiar problem might occur in America, literate or illiterate.

[Wallace T.]

The War on Drugs is a Federally driven initiative to combat the sale and use of illegal narcotics and other drugs. It dates back to the Nixon Administration, although Federal involvement in banning narcotics goes back to the early 1900s. The first test of any Federal action should be: is it Constitutional? The Constitution does give the Federal government exclusive authority over foreign affairs, including the regulation of overseas trade. Inasmuch as heroin, cocaine, and some other narcotics come from foreign nations, it would appear the Federal government has the authority to stop their importation.

With respect to domestic sale and usage of narcotics, where is the Constitutional support for Federal involvement in this matter? The justification that has been cited is the widely abused "interstate commerce" clause. The language in the Constitution gives the Federal government the authority to "regulate" interstate commerce. However, we must also look to the intent behind the words. The Federalist Papers indicate that the Federal government was given the authority to regulate interstate commerce for the specific purpose of preventing the states from creating tariff barriers. The intent was to create a common market within the several states, not to give the Federal government carte blanche to regulate the economy and to create numerous categories of criminals. Particularly in the last 70 years, the "interstate commerce" clause has been used to virtually eradicate states rights and individual liberties.

It is unfortunate that many "big government" conservatives, though opposed to the expansion of Federal authority in economic and environmental matters, applaud its expansion in the name of restricting narcotics, pornography, and other vices. I am not saying that state or local governments should abolish their laws in the area of vices; they have a duty to maintain public order and decorum in their communities. Many libertarians discredit themselves when they assert they have no problem with a property owner using his land to build a rendering plant or a topless bar despite the damage and lowered quality of life such a facility would have on his neighbors. State and local governments are the most appropriate level at which problems such as narcotics use should be addressed.

[Dead Corpse]

"Hastur! Hastur! Ra! Ra! Ra!"
Fnord is evaporated herbal tea without the herbs.

Fnord is that funny feeling you get when you reach for the Snickers bar and come back holding a slurpee.

Fnord is the 43 1/3rd state, next to Wyoming.

Fnord is this really, really tall mountain.

Fnord is the reason boxes of condoms carry twelve instead of ten.

Fnord is the blue stripes in the road that never get painted.

Fnord is place where those socks vanish off to in the laundry.

Fnord is a little pufflike cloud you see at 5pm.

Fnord is where the buses hide at night.

Fnord is why ducks eat trees.

Fnord is the bucket where they keep the unused serifs for H*lvetica.

Fnord is the sales tax on happiness.

Fnord is an annoying series of email messages.

[Tony Niar Brain]

Private charity should certainly support such education.

I respectfully disagree, I do not believe private charity is sufficient here. Private donations tend to ebb and flow depending on circumstances like the economy, and I believe drug education is too important to expose it to that type of variation in budget. The constant flow of new minds needs a similarly constant flow of drug education money.

Never happen---if understanding slips, real-world reminders will increase.

I agree, but what I am concerned is that by the time those reminders take effect to reverse the trend, we will have lost a considerable amount of time and effort to addiction.

[Mark Bahner]

"Yeah, I understand theft continues even though cops try to catch thieves. Same with murder. Well, rape, fraud, violence and kidnapping too."

"Better admit failure and legalize all crimes."

No, there's a huge difference between murder, rape, fraud, kidnapping, and drugs. In a drug deal, neither the buyer nor the seller is interested in reporting the crime to the police.

With rape, fraud, kidnapping and murder, *someone* (if only the family of the person killed) is interested in reporting the crime, and seeing that the crime is prosecuted.

That's why buying/selling drugs is fundamentally different from a crime in which there is a victim (unwilling participant).

[jayef]

Ah yes, the Opium Wars. If ever there was a case against state involvement in the drug trade, this is it. To those of you that want drugs to be legal, but taxed/regulated by the FedGov, you'd better think again. Say NO to prohibition! Say NO to taxation and regulation!

[motzman]

I hope you're correct, but can you explain what basis you have for stating that?

Personally, I "sense" a shift in attitude regarding abortion, not from the rabid pro-abortion side, but from the mostly "apolitical" middle. Especially amongst young people. As I get older, I'm seeing the change in many of my female friends who are now married and having children of their own.

Additionally, as news and information services turn more conservative, the debate will be framed differently. Notice now how the defenders of abortion are getting shriller and more "defensive" about their stance. And also notice how they are flagrantly trumpeting their alliances with radical left wing groups.

I see many paralells between slavery and abortion; how slaves were considered "not quite a person", and how the Southern states wanted to keep slavery as a "choice". The radical abolitionists had their John Brown, while the radical anti-abortion lobby has its' clinic bombers. Hopefully, there will be no second Civil War.

It may take quite a bit of time, but hopefully Americans will start to understand that a fetus is a life, and that the murder of innocents is barbaric.

We hope...

[clamper1797]

Better admit failure and legalize all crimes.

I have personally seen you on at least a dozon threads where the difference between drug use which is relatively victimless act as opposed to crimes like rape murder robbery which have direct victims has been pointed out ad infinitum. Anyone who could not have gotten that point by now would have to be one of the densest people on the planet.

[Hemingway's Ghost]

Nice, but you better pray Roscoe doesn't catch wind of your post . . .

[AUgrad]

If it's not germane as I used it, it isn't germane as you use it. Drop it.

The market forces that exist for murder for hire or burgurlary are minuscle compared to the market forces that drive the drug trade. The two are hardly comparable. There is 1000 times more drug activity than murder rape or robbery, yet many times the penalties for drug offenses are sterner than for violent offenses. The comparison doesn't hold water.

[Mark Bahner]

"As I get older, I'm seeing the change in many of my female friends who are now married and having children of their own."

It will never, ever happen that all abortion is illegal throughout the entire United States...unless the federal government unconstitutionally acts to ban it.

There will never, ever be a time when all 50 states would agree that all abortions should be illegal.

[motzman]

In theory, your reasoning is correct. However, practically, legalization of "hard" drugs will have it's consequences, one being that there will always be a percentage of the population that cannot control their addictive behaviors. Having a government infrastructure that caters to weaknesses with cash rewards, will in effect promote addiction.

But, this is solvable, as you've correctly pointed out. But do we have the will? Ending the WOD is going to be difficult do to the moneyed interests influencing both sides of the debate. Ending the welfare state will be 100 times as difficult.

That doesn't mean that we shouldn't try our damndest!

[Tony Niar Brain]

In the Opium Wars, the Chinese wanted to hault the inflow of Indian opium from British merchants because of the crippling rate of opium addiction in China, and threatened boycotts of all British goods. The British, in response, attacked and destroyed military instillations and towns along the coast of China and forced them to sign their treaty, allowing them unrestricted opium trade. The Opium Wars weren't about local gov't involvement in the trade so much as letting malevolent foreign entities control the trade.

[motzman]

There will never, ever be a time when all 50 states would agree that all abortions should be illegal.

Personally, I believe that abortion (except partial birth) should be legal. Society should frown upon it with such vigor, that they become extremely rare. Laws are enacted to protect rights; not govern behavior. Just because abortion is legal doesn't mean tht it should be encouraged. We can thank the women's libbers and the idiot box for the many young women that believe that the ability to murder their unborn children makes them "empowered", "independent", and "sophisticated".

[MrLeRoy]

It will never, ever happen that all abortion is illegal throughout the entire United States...unless the federal government unconstitutionally acts to ban it.

Or 37 states ratify an amendment to that effect.

[MrLeRoy]

Laws are enacted to protect rights

Abortion violates rights.

[Mark Bahner]

"I am not saying that state or local governments should abolish their laws in the area of vices; they have a duty to maintain public order and decorum in their communities."

Funny...I thought the Declaration of Independence said that governments were instituted to secure individual rights. I don't recall anything about "public decorum."

Don't know if anyone saw it, but last night my local PBS TV affiliate was running a piece about Chicago in The American Experience. There was some utopian industrialist who set up an "ideal community" at the 1892 Chicago World's Fair.

The industrialist owned everything in town, and his men would come and *gently* remind people that the color of their drapes didn't fit with public decorum. If they didn't change the drapes, they'd be evicted. There was general agreement that the arrangement was hardly a "Utopia."

[MrLeRoy]

drug education is too important to expose it to that type of variation in budget. [...] what I am concerned is that by the time those reminders take effect to reverse the trend, we will have lost a considerable amount of time and effort to addiction.

How do these opinoins and concerns authorize the forcible taking of my money?