LEGALIZING DRUGS IS BETTER WAY TO FIGHT PROBLEM

The War on Drugs. How is that working for us in America? Is it
reducing crime? Is it reducing our rates of death and disease? Is it
effective in keeping drugs and drug dealers away from our children?
These are important questions because our current prohibition
strategy will cost us, the taxpayers, some $70 billion this year.

As a police officer, I fought on the side of the "good guys" for 18
years in the War on Drugs, giving me frontline, actual experience in
the trenches. After much time, consternation and out-and-out
frustration with not achieving a single, policy directed long-term
goal, I came to the conclusion that we must be doing something wrong.

It seemed no matter how many dealers we took off the streets, new
ones immediately popped up to take their places. The prices for drugs
kept falling, indicating an oversupply. The purity kept increasing;
heroin increased from 3.6 percent to near 50 percent purity between
1980 and 2007. The prison population kept growing. Now more than 70
percent of all inmates are incarcerated on some drug-related charge.

Meanwhile, terrorists and drug barons amass fortunes from drug sales
and people continue to die on our streets. We have turned Third World
thugs into billionaires who can buy governments and finance terrorism
around the world. Our prisons are filled with non-violent offenders
while murderers, rapists and child molesters (not subject to
mandatory minimums) get early release due to over-crowding.

The only thing we have to show for this terrible policy is that today
- -- after 36 years and a trillion tax dollars spent -- illegal drugs
are cheaper, stronger and easier than ever for our kids to buy. The
return on our investment has been zero.

The unintended consequences of this terrible war are needlessly
destroying the lives of generations of America's youth. Drug
prohibition is truly the very definition of failed public policy.

How many people do you know or know of who have used an illegal drug,
put the drugs behind them and gone on to lead productive lives? U.S.
presidents, members of our legislative bodies, even tens of thousands
of police officers, have done exactly that. With imprisonment, those
possibilities are eliminated. You can recover from an addiction, but
never from a conviction.

We should be putting much more effort into education and treatment.

Education has to be based in fact and not on emotional scare tactics.

The treatment needs to be voluntary. Forced treatment is not much
different than government attempts at brainwashing. Published studies
state that if substances were indeed regulated and taxed, adequate
monies could easily be raised for treatment programs. The glamour
appeal of presently illicit drugs would be reduced.

A wise ancient once said, "No matter how far down the wrong road you
have gone, turn around."

I ask you to envision a world where no drugs were sold on street
corners by teens, where terrorists are not funded by drug sales,
where the police focus on drunken drivers and child predators, real
crime is down 50 percent and if you or a loved one have a drug
problem, you see a doctor, not a judge. That world is possible when
the government regulates, controls and manages all drugs.