DRUG PROHIBITION IS A CORRUPTING INFLUENCE

To the editor:

We had better become aware of the pervasive corruption generated by
our lunatic drug prohibition policies before it's too late. The number
of police officers convicted of corruption charges in the last five
years has risen over 400 percent, most for drug-related
transgressions.

The fact that New Bedford Detective Stephen Greany was willing to put
innocent lives at risk for a bribe is nothing new. Murderous officers
in the Rampart Division of Los Angeles Police Department confessed to
shooting and framing dozens of innocent people. In Philadelphia,
corrupted cops falsely convicted hundreds of people, mostly on
trumped-up drug charges. Hundreds of convictions have been overturned,
costing Philadelphia millions in damages. In Chicago, Philadelphia,
New York and New Orleans, corruption cases routinely get names such as
the "dirty thirty" or the "Cleveland 44."

Drug prohibition related perjury by police in New York City is so
pervasive they coined a term for it: "testi-lying." This misconduct is
directly related to misguided drug prohibition efforts, and if this
trend continues, we will end up with the same rotten-to-the-core
policing they suffer in Mexico, where the police themselves run
kidnap-murder gangs out of the station house.

It's time to end an insane drug prohibition policy that has never
worked for anything, anywhere, anytime.

REDFORD GIVENS
San Francisco