THE WAR AMERICA HAS LOST

A couple of weeks ago I received an email from Bruce Crosby, the
editor of this newspaper, informing me of a retired police detective's
ride across America on a horse to protest this countr's war on drugs.
At the time, it was believed he was coming through McCook and Bruce
asked if I would be interested in sitting down and talking to this
guy.

Because I'm a former police officer as well and have long thought
we were losing the war on drugs, I told him I would and used the
contact information he provided me to introduce myself and to set up
an interview. I received an immediate reply from Jack Cole, the
Executive Director of LEAP (Law Enforcement Against Prohibition).

Obviously, the primary reason for the ride across America is to
promote awareness of the organization's goals so Cole immediately set
the wheels in motion to arrange the interview. Cole retired as a
Detective Lieutenant after a 26-year career with the New Jersey State
Police. For twelve of those years he worked as an undercover narcotics
officer. His investigations spanned the spectrum of possible cases,
from street drug users and mid-level drug dealers in New Jersey to
international -- billion-dollar -- drug trafficking organizations. He
ended his undercover career living nearly two years in Boston and New
York City, posing as a fugitive drug dealer wanted for murder, while
tracking members of a terrorist organization that robbed banks,
planted bombs in corporate headquarters, courthouses, police stations,
and airplanes and ultimaty murdered a New Jersey State Trooper

After retiring Cole dealt with the emotional residue left from his
participation in what he determined to be the unjust war on drugs by
working to reform current drug policy. He holds a B.A. in Criminal
Justice, an M.A. in Public Policy and is currently writing his
doctoral dissertation for the Public Policy Ph.D. program at the
University of Massachusetts. His major focus is on the issues of race
and gender bias, brutality and corruption in law enforcement, due
mainly to this country's "War on Drugs." He believes ending drug
prohibition will go a long way toward correcting those problems. He is
passionate in his belief that the drug war is steeped in racism, that
it is needlessly destroying the lives of young people, and that is
corrupting our police.

LEAP's Advisory Board is composed of an impressive list of former law enforcement personnel and elected officials including Larry Campbell, the Mayor of Vancouver, British Columbia and former Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Warren W. Eginton,
Judge, U.S. District Court in Connecticut, Gustavo de Greiff, former
Attorney General of Colombia, South America, Gary E. Johnson, Former
Governor of the state of New Mexico, John L. Kane, Judge, U.S.
District Court in Colorado, Bill Masters, Sheriff of San Miguel County
in Colorado, Dr. Joseph McNamara, Former Chief of Police, San Jose,
California, Robert Sweet, Judge, U.S. District Court in New York, and
Patrick V. Murphy, former Commissioner of the New York City Police
Department, among others.

As things evolved, the former police officer riding his horse across
the country did not come through McCook but took an alternative route.
After a series of conversations, we agreed to meet in Cambridge last
Sunday. The officer in question is Howard J. Wooldridge, the Media
Director of LEAP. When I arrived, he was already at the meeting place
with his van, his two horses, and his trailer, Norma Sapp, of Norman,
Oklahoma.

Howard was obviously road weary, having jumped in his vehicle and
making the drive down to Cambridge from Lexington, where he was
spending the night. He was scheduled to speak to the Kearney Rotary
Club the following day. He was dressed in his cowboy hat, jeans,
cowboy boots and a tee-shirt he always wears that says "Cops support
legalizing drugs. Ask me Why."

We spoke for an hour and a half and his passion for what he was doing
was evident, the basics of which were covered earlier in the column.
He believes that the War on Drugs has been a dismal failure, that it
has made criminals out of tens of thousands of Americans who are
otherwise law abiding citizens, that it has caused a multitude of
deaths because of the participation of street gangs and organized
crime jockeying for drug turf, that it has caused massive corruption
in police departments across the country because of the incredibly
high profit margins involved in selling an illegal product and, that
when put on a balance sheet, the negatives of the drug war.

I agreed with him that all those things were true but, at the same time, there
was no question that drugs ruined peoples lives as well as claimed
peoples lives and asked him if he was not concerned that drug use
would increase significantly if drugs were legalized, with the effect
of ruining and killing far more people. He suggested a zero-sum game
where the number of new people trying drugs because they were legal
would be offset by the number of people who would stop using drugs
because they were no longer illegal, hence the forbidden nature of the
behavior would be missing which is why some users do it to begin with.

Howard rode across the country from the East Coast to the West Coast
in 2003 and is now riding back in the other direction to promote an
issue he and the other members of LEAP are passionate about. When he
completes his current journey, he will be the first person to ever
ride across the country on a horse in both directions, constantly
calling attention to the need to end the current drug war and replace
it with legalization, regulation and taxation. He says that the drug
dealer is the greatest evil in America today and thousands of people's
lives would be saved with legalization.

Two of his many recommendations are to make drug overdose calls arrest-free calls,
unlike the way most police departments handle them today, because of
the pressure to arrest drug dealers rather than to save the life of
the drug user. He says that it's a very simple dynamic, that
legalizing drugs is pro-life, and criminalizing drugs is pro-death.

The entire issue is obviously a tough call and like almost everything
else that exists in our world, there are no obvious, easy answers.
This is another issue where the nation is split right down the middle.
Both liberals and conservatives favor the continued criminalizing of
drugs, both liberals and conservatives favor the legalizing of drugs.

But regardless of where you stand, the LEAP organization in general
and Howard Wooldridge in particular sparks debate and discussion about
a crucial issue in the lives of many Americans and that's a good thing.