Pubdate: Thu, 16 Jul 2015 Source: Times Argus (Barre, VT) Copyright: 2015 Times Argus Contact: http://www.timesargus.com/apps/pbcs.dll/section?category=OPINION03 Website: http://www.timesargus.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/893 Author: Kimberley B. Cheney TIME TO CHANGE UP WAR ON DRUGS Your reports of June 28 and June 29 headlined "Heroin Trail Leads to Vermont" accurately describes the social destruction the bankrupt War on Drugs has brought to Vermont, indeed the world. Prohibition of use and possession of drugs is responsible for this cataclysm. The policy of criminalization of drugs has stimulated a vast criminal conspiracy to successfully distribute and market extremely dangerous substances to more and more people. That was the experience of alcohol prohibition. It is the case with drugs. It is a failed war that should be abandoned. It has caused an increase in supply, increased purity of drugs, incarcerated thousands of people (you can cure an addition but not a conviction), siphoned trillions of dollars away from addiction treatment into counter-productive prisons, nurtured corruption and distracted police from effective work. In 2009, 2.7 tons of heroin were seized, in 2013 it was 5.1 tons (Your story says 70 kilograms were seized in New York City - less than 1/10 of a ton). Supply keeps going up as cartels make huge amounts of money in doing so. The wrong people are in charge of drug policy. That is why Portugal, Chile, Argentina, Greece and to some extent Holland have opted to decriminalize all drugs and instead regulate use and distribution though civil processes. The action is in accordance with the recommendation of the Global Commission on Drug Policy. It is also why the organization Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, LEAP (www.leap.cc), of which I am a member, composed of over 1,500 former law enforcement officers, prosecutors and judges urge legislators to legalize all drugs and control them as we do alcohol and use the vast savings in prison reduction, law enforcement costs and tax revenue to provide treatment for the many victims of the failed War on Drugs. Your paper's report on the ravages of heroin is dead on, the DEA agent's facile comment that a large seizure will reduce supply is dead wrong. Kimberly B. Cheney Montpelier - --- MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom