Legalizing narcotics could end an expensive and ineffective war on drugs and pump billions of dollars into the ailing economy, according to a report released this week.

The narcotics business has reached new levels of violence while draining public budgets since the debut of a rhetorical "war on drugs" almost four decades ago, according to the report by Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, a national organization of police, prosecutors, judges, FBI agents and corrections officials.

"We've got to wake up here and really do something about this," said Maj. Neill Franklin, a former Maryland State Police narcotics officer and Baltimore police trainer who contributed to the report.

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