Pubdate: Thu, 30 Aug 2012 Source: Montgomery Advertiser (AL) Copyright: 2012 The Advertiser Co. Contact: http://www.montgomeryadvertiser.com/section/SUBMITLETTER Website: http://www.montgomeryadvertiser.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1088 Note: Letters from the newspaper's circulation area receive publishing priority Author: Sebastian Kitchen DRUG WAR VICTIMS WANT TO SEE POLICIES CHANGED American, Mexican citizens join forces in march across Selma's Edmund Pettus Bridge as part of Caravan for Peace As a law enforcement officer, Neill Franklin said he was responsible for locking up a lot of people, many of them for activity related to illegal drugs. But, on Wednesday, Franklin walked across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma and drove into Montgomery with a caravan of people pushing for the United States and Mexico to reconsider their drug policies. Franklin, who advocates legalizing and regulating drugs, said the war on drugs is expensive and is failing. He added that the war has led to the drug cartels murdering 60,000 people in Mexico, is spreading in the United States, and has led to the incarceration of thousands of people for nonviolent crimes. "If you're black and Latino, it's definitely a war on you," Franklin said. Franklin, executive director of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, said there is the crime, violence, money laundering and corruption that go along with the Mexican cartels and street gangs here, which he said are selling to and recruiting young children. He said about 100 people, Mexican and U.S. citizens affected by the war on drugs, are involved in the Caravan for Peace, which started in Tijuana, Mexico, before moving into San Diego and Los Angeles and then gradually moving east. They will end the month-long caravan in Washington, D.C. Other organizations involved with the stops in Alabama included the state NAACP and the Alabama Coalition for Immigrant Justice. Several of those victims of the war shared their stories Wednesday, some of them through translators, at Fresh Anointing House of Worship. They talked about loved ones who were dead or missing. Mexican poet Javier Sicilia, who founded the caravan, said that he became involved because a "band of delinquents" killed his son and his friend in March 2011. "That caused in me a great indignation," Sicilia said through an interpreter. He said they then started a caravan in Mexico to shed light on the victims of the drug war and on the government's stance. There has not been justice for the victims, Sicilia said. The writer said the war has its roots and responsibility in the United States, where he said the caravan is traveling with a message that drugs need to be regulated and that the government must stop inhibiting people's freedom by incarcerating them. "The war started here in the United States," the consumption rate of drugs is the highest here, and the weapons used are from here, Sicilia said. Mexico, he said, is responsible for the corruption there and for assuming the war on drugs as part of its national agenda. Sicilia said Mexico is "in a state of social insecurity" and said that Mexicans can be kidnapped in the street. Benard Simelton, president of the Alabama state chapter of the NAACP, said he felt the stops in Selma and Montgomery were significant because of the civil rights history. Simelton said they passed a resolution in 2011 calling for a review of the current war on drugs, but said that the organization did not go as far as to push for legalization. He said much of the NAACP's concern centers on the incarceration of black people and the fact that they are 13 times more likely to receive a harsher sentence than white people for the same crimes. Simelton said they also had concerns about innocent people being killed on both sides of the border. Franklin, a former state trooper in Maryland and officer with the Baltimore Police Department, said people were able to figure out within 13 years that prohibition did not work with alcohol, but have not figured out in four decades that it is not working with drugs. He said prohibiting alcohol bolstered organized crime and that prohibiting drugs has led to power and money for drug cartels and street gangs. Franklin and Simelton both expect there to be a change in drug policy in the United States. And Franklin said he does not expect it to be long before the policy is addressed. "It's going to be changed regardless of who gets into office," Simelton said of the presidential race. "It's not working and more and more money is being spent to stop it and it is not stopping. "We are hoping that whoever the next president is ... that they take a hard look at this policy." - --- MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom