CHANGE DRUG LAWS

The drug policy of the United States badly needs to be changed. If I had any
doubts, they disappeared after listening to Jack Cole at the June meeting of
the Stillwater Drug Policy Forum. Cole is a retired policeman who worked as
an undercover narcotics agent in New Jersey for many years. He is so
strongly in favor of change he is giving all his time to working with a
reform group, Law Enforcement Against Prohibition.

He says the War on Drugs has failed miserably. Despite the United States'
expenditure of more than $1 trillion since it started in the 1970s and
despite the 2 million people in prison in this country, many for drug
offenses, drugs are cheaper and easier to get than ever.

Cole favors cutting the big profit out of the drug trade and the attempted
enforcement of drug laws by legalizing drugs.

If all drugs were legal, as alcohol and tobacco are, they would be easier to
control. That is what LEAP favors. This does not mean they favor drug use.

Just think, Cole says, about how far the almost $70 billion a year the drug
war is costing us now would go toward paying for for all kinds of services.