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InvisibleveggieM

Registered: 07/25/04
Posts: 17,504
Drug war dropout calls effort a 'failure'
    #5474178 - 04/03/06 11:09 AM (17 years, 9 months ago)

Drug war dropout calls effort a 'failure'
April 3, 2006 - ljworld.com

For more than 14 years, Jack Cole fought the war on drugs as a New Jersey state narcotics agent.

Now, he's had enough.

"It's not only a dismal failure, but a terribly destructive policy," he said.

Cole said he quit the narcotics force in New Jersey after realizing that the war on drugs not only cost billions in taxpayer money and landed millions of Americans in jail, but also had done little to curb the country's drug problem.

In fact, Cole believes that the drug war - beginning in 1970 during Richard Nixon?s first term and continuing today - may have helped escalate a national drug problem that only the end of drug prohibition can cure, he said.

Cole spoke as one of the founding members of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, a nonprofit organization of ex-police officers, federal agents, judges and prosecutors who have turned away from the nation?s drug enforcement policy.

His speech Sunday at the Lawrence Public Library was part of the Drug Policy Forum of Kansas lecture series.

Cole said that when he began working with the New Jersey state narcotics unit, which ballooned in size from seven officers in 1964 to 76 in 1970, hard drugs like cocaine and heroin were rare, even across the river in New York.

At one point, Cole took part in the largest heroin bust in the country's history - less than 20 pounds, a paltry amount compared with the multiton amounts federal agents find today.

But after police inflated street values and bust quantities in the media - in part to keep federal dollars flowing to the state - many people believed that selling drugs was both profitable and common, Cole said.

"By the end of that first year, we had all kinds of people to arrest." he said.

The problem has grown out of control since then, he said. Drugs that were once expensive and weak are now cheap and much more pure. And the culture of prohibition has made buying a bag of pot easier than buying beer or cigarettes for many young people, he said.

All the while, federal agencies spend money to fight the drug war at record levels. In 1972, the budget for the then-newly founded Drug Enforcement Administration was $65 million. Today, the DEA spends more than $2 billion annually.

Cole questioned the results of the high spending. More than 1.7 million people are arrested on drug charges every year - more than 700,000 of those because of marijuana possession or sale.

Still, drugs are everywhere. The crime and violence that go along with drugs in the cities of America won't stop, he said, unless the profitability of selling them ends as well.

The only real solution, Cole said, is to legalize all drugs, take them off the streets and put them in drugstores and clinics.

Fewer people would die from overdoses, and the criminal culture that surrounds the sale of illegal drugs would disappear, he said.

The idea isn't likely to happen anytime soon, regardless of positive results in some European countries.

But for someone who spent more than a decade putting drug users behind bars and ruining their lives for little reason, Cole said he has to do something to try to end a never-ending war.

We spent our entire careers fighting against drug abuse, he said. There is no way to stop it ? not with the policies we have today.


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OfflineCptnGarden
fuck this site
Registered: 05/13/04
Posts: 11,945
Last seen: 14 years, 9 months
Re: Drug war dropout calls effort a ?failure? [Re: veggie]
    #5474328 - 04/03/06 12:03 PM (17 years, 9 months ago)

Quote:

?We spent our entire careers fighting against drug abuse,? he said. ?There is no way to stop it ? not with the policies we have today.?





1 down, billions to go. finaly sum1 got smart. cheers to this man.


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Offlinewietstocker
product ofevolution

Registered: 07/14/03
Posts: 319
Loc: Cranium, PNW
Last seen: 10 years, 6 months
Re: Drug war dropout calls effort a ?failure? [Re: CptnGarden]
    #5474616 - 04/03/06 01:28 PM (17 years, 9 months ago)

What aspect of this argument is so difficult for non-drug people to understand? I don't do "hard" drugs and have no desire to do so, but I would have to be a moron not to understand the idea that controlling their distribution will eliminate most of the criminal element and indeed curb 90% of the negativity that government and society associates with their usage.

I tip my hat to Mr. Cole.


--------------------
Echoes


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Offlinecookeman
Live and let live
Male User Gallery

Registered: 10/26/05
Posts: 1,077
Last seen: 10 years, 9 months
Re: Drug war dropout calls effort a ?failure? [Re: wietstocker]
    #5474648 - 04/03/06 01:38 PM (17 years, 9 months ago)

I wish everyone would just hurry up and wake the fuck up like Mr. Cole has. I can't even understand what the other side of the argument is any more. Plus the whole "Land of the free" thing :rolleyes: It's just sad to think that the end of drug prohibition probably wont happen in my life time. :frown:


--------------------
“Let’s put it this way – to lump psychedelic mushrooms into the same group as methamphetamine is like lumping the Bible into the same group as Mein Kampf.
I mean shit; they’re both books, right?”

Joe Rogan


R.I.P. - "Bones" - One of the greatest people I've ever had the pleasure of getting to know and become friends with.


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Offlineshafty
fungus is urfriend
Male
Registered: 05/06/05
Posts: 78
Last seen: 16 years, 4 months
Re: Drug war dropout calls effort a ?failure? [Re: cookeman]
    #5481465 - 04/05/06 01:50 AM (17 years, 9 months ago)

you know, people are gonna do drugs if they wanna do drugs and that's that. it doesn't matter if they're legal or not. do i believe the war on drugs is a failure? ABSOLUTELY. i think this community is rather biased(come on we all are part of a site that practically worships the magic mushroom), but the answer is rather obvious. i am a college student, believe me, i could get just about any drug within a week. goes to show how well the war is going. spend the money to educate and people will understand. this is a democracy right? let the people decide what is right and wrong to put in their bodies.


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OfflineSeussA
Error: divide byzero

Folding@home Statistics
Registered: 04/27/01
Posts: 23,480
Loc: Caribbean
Last seen: 2 months, 20 days
Re: Drug war dropout calls effort a ?failure? [Re: wietstocker]
    #5481638 - 04/05/06 05:16 AM (17 years, 9 months ago)

> What aspect of this argument is so difficult for non-drug people to understand?

Propaganda is a beast. We have been teaching people for the last 30+ years that drugs that don't come from a pharmaceutical company are bad. We then point to all of our problems in society and use illegal drugs as a scapegoat. We also release bogus research to prove that illegal drugs are a scourge. Finally, we toss anybody that tries to show the opposite into prison. Is it any wonder that the general public follows the leader like sheep?


--------------------
Just another spore in the wind.


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Invisibledanamine
oldster
Male

Registered: 01/31/05
Posts: 620
Loc: MA
Re: Drug war dropout calls effort a ?failure? [Re: Seuss]
    #5481833 - 04/05/06 07:37 AM (17 years, 9 months ago)

Imagine if they WERE legal though? Going to CVS to buy a 250 mic dose of some Sandoz?!

Fucking beautiful.

-Dan


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