Pubdate: Fri, 07 Feb 2014
Source: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (PA)
Copyright: 2014 PG Publishing Co., Inc.
Contact: http://drugsense.org/url/pm4R4dI4
Website: http://www.post-gazette.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/341
Author: Robert Zullo

EX-OFFICER: WAR ON DRUGS 'FAR WORSE' THAN A FAILURE

The war on drugs, Jack Cole said, has been "far worse" than a failure.

Speaking to about 75 students Thursday afternoon at Slippery Rock 
University, Mr. Cole, a retired New Jersey State Police narcotics 
detective and a co-founder of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, 
called it "a self-perpetuating and constantly expanding policy disaster."

Mr. Cole, who will be speaking in Pittsburgh at noon today at the 
Rotary Club of Pittsburgh's Northside, 701 N. Point Drive, said 43 
years of drug prohibition, millions of arrests and an estimated $1 
trillion spent on law enforcement and incarceration have failed to 
put a dent in drug supplies or their purity, price and rate of use or 
the explosion in associated crime.

"Once we start treating drug abuse as a health problem instead of a 
crime problem, we won't have to arrest and sacrifice on the altar of 
the drug war 1.7 million people a year who we arrest for nonviolent 
drug offenses, which is what we do today," said Mr. Cole, whose 
international nonprofit, composed partly of former police officers, 
prosecutors and judges, supports drug legalization.

He added that the nation's drug policy has also helped to make the 
United States the world's leader in per capita incarceration, a 
phenomenon disproportionately affecting blacks.

"The war on drugs has also been the most devastating single 
destructive social policy since slavery," Mr. Cole said.

His visit to Western Pennsylvania comes as the region has grappled 
with a rash of overdose deaths linked to fentanyl-laced heroin and 
the General Assembly considers a bill that would legalize cannabis 
for medical use and another that would legalize the "consumption of 
marijuana for adults over the age of 21, without regard to the 
purpose of that consumption."

Mr. Cole said overdose deaths, including the nearly two dozen in 
Western Pennsylvania tied to the laced batches of heroin, could be 
prevented by setting up Switzerland-style programs that provide the 
drug to addicts at supervised centers. With 20 states and the 
District of Columbia allowing medical marijuana programs and two 
states legalizing recreational use, drug policy in the U.S. is at a 
"tipping point," he said.

"The alternative policy is to try remove the profit motive from drug 
sales, and the only way you can do that is by ending prohibition by 
legalizing all drugs," he said.

Mr. Cole also argued that the attention police devote to drug work 
detracts from their ability to solve homicides, robberies, rapes and 
other crimes.

"The role of a police officer should never be to try to protect every 
adult human being from themselves by saying what they can put in 
their bodies. And it's when we're given that task that everything 
goes bad," Mr. Cole said, referencing the spike in gangland murder 
that alcohol prohibition created.

According to numbers provided by Pittsburgh police, about 19 percent 
of the 15,798 arrests the bureau made last year were drug related. Of 
the 3,023 drug arrests in 2013, 1,236 were related to marijuana possession.

David Evans, a New Jersey lawyer who works as a special adviser to 
the Drug Free America Foundation, a nonprofit that has opposed 
marijuana legalization, said calling the war on drugs a failure was 
akin to calling the fight against cancer a flop because the disease 
still exists.

He said medical marijuana has not been proven to be safe or effective 
and that the health and social impacts of legalizing drugs far 
outweigh any perceived benefits, such as tax revenue. "There's this 
perception that people are in the criminal justice system for smoking 
a few joints and that's absolutely not true," said Mr. Evans, a 
former public defender in Newark, adding that many marijuana charges 
are often incidental to other, more serious offenses. "It's not like 
cops are walking around looking for kids smoking pot."

Drug legalization means an increase in use and the problems that 
might come with it, from "drugged driving" to "big marijuana" 
advertising campaigns similar to tobacco and alcohol companies, he said.

"The complete legalization of drugs will result in millions more 
people using drugs," he said. "The rest of us are going to have to 
pay for that damage." 
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom