LETTER OF THE WEEK

'WAR ON DRUGS' REALLY A FUTILE ATTEMPT IN U.S.

By Terry Nelson

A state-funded task force, the Paul Bunyan Drug Task Force, operates
out of Bemidji and includes officers from many local city and county
jurisdictions.

I find this story fascinating in that the task force is named after a
mythical person who hung out with a mythical ox because all the
information in the article, while possibly true, is based on the myth
that we will ever "win" this crazy war.

I am a retired federal agent with more than three decades of service
to my country in this failed effort. It was initially hard for me to
admit that we had failed and that we could never win. Perhaps if we
had not called it a "war" then we could have changed our policy once
we saw that it would not work. I am now a speaker for Law Enforcement
Against Prohibition. Our 10,000-member organization consists of
police, judges, lawyers, prison wardens and the general public.

Strategic findings of the NDIC 2008 report on drugs:

. Potential South American cocaine production increased in 2006 as
Colombian coca growers adapted their growing practices to counter
intensified coca eradication.

. High levels of cocaine-related crime, rates of abuse, and overdose
incidents are a considerable burden to the nation -- a condition not
likely to diminish in the near term.

So, all the effort of your drug task force to seize a mere few kilo
of cocaine when more than 2.1 million pounds of cocaine is produced
annually is laughable. Colombia has seen an increase of approximately
27 percent in their production and this after the United States spent
$5.2 billion on Plan Colombia ( a plan to eradicate cocaine by aerial
spraying ).

There are more drugs available, of higher purity and cheaper price
than at the beginning of the current "war on drugs" in the early
'80s. We have spent over $1 trillion on this war and have absolutely
nothing to show for it except prisons bursting at the seams. We have
2.2 million people incarcerated and 1.8 million of them are for
non-violent drug offenses. That is what we call success in this drug war.

LEAP calls for a policy change to one of regulation and control to
replace the current failed public policy called the "War on Drugs."

Terry Nelson

Granbury, Texas

Pubdate: Fri, 26 Sep 2008

Source: Bemidji Pioneer (MN)

Referenced: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v08/n838/a02.html