War on Drugs needs a new strategy after 46 failed years, columnist says On Wednesday, March 4, Derek Cruice became the latest unarmed person to be shot to death in a U.S. drug raid staged to seize marijuana. This Volusia County Sheriff's raid succeeding in saving 217 grams (about half-a-pound) of that drug from being loosed on our streets and it only cost one human life. Apparently, law enforcement doesn't think statistics on incidents such as these are worth keeping, so it is very hard to tell how many folks have been killed in the manner of Cruice. However, the CATO Institute a=C2=80" one of the only entities that does keep any such statistics a=C2=80"shows that between 1985 and 2010, SWAT team raids in the U.S. accounted for the deaths of 46 innocent people, 25 nonviolent offenders, and 30 law enforcers. [continues 632 words]
I SPENT 26 years as a State Police officer fighting the drug war, 14 of those years as an undercover officer working every kind of case, including billion-dollar heroin trafficking conspiracies. I have seen the ravages of both drug use and current drug policy. The consequences of addiction in an illegal marketplace are far greater than the addiction alone. Users don't know how much of their purchase is heroin or whether it has been cut with an agent such as Fentanyl, a drug many times stronger than heroin. [continues 112 words]
A Cop's Experience Tells Him the Drug War Is Doing More Harm Than Good FOR 14 of the 26 years I served with the New Jersey State Police, I worked undercover narcotics. On the job, I saw first-hand the addictive power of opiates. Yet I also came to understand that the destruction of whole communities did not primarily result from the use or misuse of those drugs. No, the damage came from people - cops - - doing what I did: dragging buyers and sellers away from their families and slamming them into the criminal justice system, depriving both them and their neighborhoods of all hope. I witnessed people we disparagingly called "junkies" dying with needles in their arms not because heroin is a poison but because the heroin was poisoned. I did more harm than good, and the harder my colleagues and I tried, the more damage we did. [continues 687 words]
FOR 44 YEARS the United States has fought the war on drugs, wasting 1.5 trillion of our tax dollars on ever-harsher policies that have been complete failures. During that time, we made more than 48 million arrests for nonviolent drug violations, nearly half of which were for marijuana offenses. And yet today, drugs are cheaper, more potent and far easier for our children to access than they were when I started buying them in 1970 at the start of my 14-year assignment as an undercover detective in the New Jersey State Police. [continues 646 words]
MARIJUANA CAUGHT IN A CATCH-22 Your Oct. 30 editorial states, "Because marijuana has been illegal, and isn't regulated through the Food and Drug Administration, there aren't consistent guidelines for its use." Therefore, you recommend a no vote on Question 3. That there "aren't consistent guidelines for its use" is because the federal government has listed marijuana as a Schedule I drug, and therefore no one in the United States is allowed to test it to determine whether it reaches FDA standards. As long as it remains illegal, we will never know enough about the drug for the Globe to consider it worthy of legalization. Voting yes on Question 3 would finally allow those studies to commence in Massachusetts. Jack A. Cole Medford [end]
George Will correctly points out how our drug laws create opportunities for gangs and cartels to make billions of dollars tax-free by filling the seemingly insatiable demand ("Drug policy calls for further review," April 12). But Will is wrong to assume that legalization would cause a sharp rise in drug problems. As a former undercover detective who sent more people to jail for drugs than I'd like to admit, I've seen that criminalization is not an effective deterrent. [continues 104 words]
As a former undercover narcotics detective with the New Jersey State Police, I might be the last person you'd expect to see supporting a new marijuana decriminalization bill in the state Assembly. But my experience on the front lines of the so-called "war on drugs" is exactly what led me to support fundamental changes to failed prohibition policies. And I am not alone in this belief. Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP), a nonprofit education organization of 50,000 police officers, judges, prosecutors and others also understands that prohibiting marijuana doesn't prevent people from using the drug but it does create a number of additional problems. [continues 649 words]
As a retired narcotics officer, I was concerned by the misdirection of the title to your Feb. 8 article, "Police blame drugs for many crimes." I was a detective lieutenant with a 26-year career in the New Jersey State Police - 14 as an undercover narcotics officer. The 10,000 cops, judges, prosecutors, prison wardens and others who belong to Law Enforcement Against Prohibition know it is not drugs that cause crime. It is drug prohibition. Al Capone was not high on alcohol when he ordered the St. Valentine's Day Massacre. The cartel leaders were not high on illicit drugs when they ordered the deaths of thousands of police, solders and innocent bystanders along the Mexican border over the last year. That is just the way business is conducted when the substance you distribute is illegal. [continues 118 words]
Your editorial "Wrong front for the drug war" captures in miniature the self-defeating absurdity of our current "prohibition," a.k.a., the war on drugs. As a former participant who arrested more than 1,000 young people in that trillion-dollar effort, I can attest to its futility and moral bankruptcy. Besides making America the most heavily incarcerated nation in the world, it now funds international terrorists while preventing desperately ill people from getting medical relief. It certainly doesn't prevent dangerous drug use. [continues 129 words]
WAR AND RACE dominate the presidential campaign, but one nation-shaping war with profound racial consequences eludes the political radar: the drug war. I was a frontline soldier in this self-perpetuating, ineffectual effort that has swallowed more than a trillion tax dollars and currently yields nearly 2 million arrests every year for nonviolent offenses. I helped incarcerate some 1,000 young people as part of this irredeemably wrongheaded attempt to arrest our way out of our drug problems. Those arrests will follow them to their graves. [continues 612 words]
Should America continue the war on drugs that President Nixon launched more than 35 years ago? Advocates contend that narcotics tear apart American society and are to blame for a massive share of crime. Opponents say police campaigns against drugs are a waste of money, and blame the criminalization of drugs for creating a subculture of crime and violence. Police forces have shifted enormous resources into combating narcotics. Many police commanders in the country embrace the strategy, but some -- especially police retirees - -- question it. [continues 1033 words]
To the editor: This letter is in response to one that appeared on April 5, "Anti- marijuana editorial lauded.' As a retired New Jersey state trooper with 12 years as an undercover drug narc, I've got a sobering response to letter writer Joyce Nalepka's suggestion that leaving the marijuana market on the street is preferable to a legal, regulated system. Based on my experience as a cop and that of my many colleagues who make up the membership of our international organization, we know that an illegal drug market stimulates distribution to minor-aged kids, while also increasing the direct involvement of minors in sales. This is especially true when talking about marijuana, when our teenagers tell us that obtaining pot is much easier than getting access to regulated drugs. [continues 146 words]
Dear Editor, As a retired New Jersey state trooper with 12 years as an undercover drug narc, I concur with letter-writer Ken Marsh that, on many topics related to public drug policy, police officers have strong credibility. So with regard to discussion of the proposed legislation in Canada to arrest anyone with even a hint of marijuana metabolites in their system, I submit this would be a ridiculous overkill and a tremendous waste of valuable police resources. It is reasonable and perhaps even urgent that we, as police, support efforts to reduce the number of drivers who are operating their vehicles while demonstrably and measurably impaired by any drugs. [continues 154 words]
Re: "Junk science," editorial, Friday, Jan. 19. Your editorial observations make a lot of sense to me, based on my 26 years as a New Jersey state trooper with over a dozen years working undercover narcotics. Regardless of how many arrests and seizures cops make across your country, there will never be a demonstrable reduction in street trafficking of illegal drugs. Despite almost four decades of the U.S.-inspired "war on drugs," anyone in Canada who wants these drugs can score with little problem, no matter how much some citizens or police object. [continues 187 words]
America's futile effort to arrest its way out of our drug problems has cost taxpayers more than $1 trillion since 1970, and it drains $69 billion a year -- every year -- from our treasury. It funds terrorists and clogs the court system, yet our kids report that it can be easier for them to buy illegal drugs than beer or cigarettes. As a child growing up in Wichita, I learned to spot a failure when I saw one. And this one's a whopper. [continues 401 words]
Tom Lloyd, Cambridgeshire's former chief constable, is meeting former US police officer Jack Cole this week to discuss a campaign to legalise heroin. They told the Newswhy they are united by a common cause. Cambridgeshire's chief constable last year and has a policing career stretching over 30 years. DURING my police service I became convinced that this country's approach to attempting to control illegal drug abuse is deeply flawed and unsuccessful. I learned from personal experience that enforcement is either ineffective or actively counter-productive, and policy-related harms are now far greater than harms caused by drug misuse. [continues 413 words]
As a retired New Jersey state trooper and 12-year undercover narcotics officer, I never like hearing about yet another bunch of cops corrupted by the drug war. Each case is just another sad example of the increase in police and public official corruption that is directly stimulated by a policy of drug prohibition. The fact that corruption of law enforcement officials is so extensive is a direct result of this failed policy steadily escalated at the federal and state levels since 1970. [continues 170 words]
In their Sept. 2 Rule of Law column "Wrong Door," Radley Balko and Joel Berger describe unnecessary home invasions and innocent deaths caused by police SWAT teams "moving toward more militarization, more aggressive drug policing -- and less accountability when things go wrong." Equally sad is that the years of "war" on drugs have not accomplished a single goal set for lowering the incidence of death, disease, crime and drug addiction; those four categories have each been made infinitely worse. More than a trillion dollars have been spent prosecuting this war; 35 million nonviolent drug arrests have been made, and yet today drugs are cheaper, more potent and far easier for our children to get than in 1970 when I started buying them as an undercover officer. That is a failed policy. [continues 66 words]
As the executive director of the world's largest organization of police, judges and other criminal justice professionals who oppose the policy of drug prohibition, I want to disagree with letter writer Phillip Beebe (Passing marijuana initiative would be a mistake - Aug. 6). The campaign to legalize marijuana in Nevada is smart business. Based on the combined experience of the cops and judges who make up our organization, there are few public policies more useless than using the criminal justice system as a hammer against people who elect to use marijuana. [continues 136 words]
To the editor: Re: the letter headlined "Col-umn On Meth Was Outstanding" (Aug. 27): The burgeoning methamphetamine problem is a fact. However, based on the experience of the many police officers and other criminal justice professionals who make up our membership, the never-ending job of police busting illegal meth dealers and users does little to impact the illegal drug trade. Letter writer Kirk Muse aptly notes that while prohibition may keep cops busy, it's a nonproductive policy. Regardless of how many arrests police make or how many illegal meth labs they shut down, no one in New Mexico or anywhere else who wants meth will have much trouble scoring. [continues 160 words]
