Why would a group of people whose jobs consisted of arresting and jailing drug dealers and users now band together to argue that the very drugs that were confiscated should now be made legal? Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP) can list several reasons, but first they want you to understand one thing; They do not promote drug use.
What LEAP believes is that drugs are here to stay, and prohibiting them will not work, just as prohibiting alcohol did not. Instead, prohibiting drugs feeds a violent criminal underbelly that uses fear, torture and murder to control drug distribution worldwide. Worldwide legalization would put an end to drug cartels and gangs, thereby providing public safety as anti-drug laws have failed to do.
Joseph Brooks, a LEAP member, was the commander of a tri-town narcotics task force. Speaking with Alan Bisbort, of the Hartford Advocate, Brooks cited the fact that some prisoners continue to receive and use drugs while locked up. Brooks asks, “If we can’t keep drugs out of the most secure places in the country, how are we going to keep them off the streets?” That is the trillion dollar question that the war on drugs has failed to answer.
LEAP views substance abuse as a health problem, not a legal one, in most cases. Citing the large number of nonviolent inmates being held in prisons for “consensual drug crimes,” LEAP’s Statement of Principles proposes that ending drug prohibition would allow thousands of nonviolent inmates to be freed, and their records expunged. LEAP, however holds those who use drugs must be held accountable for inappropriate or criminal behavior.
LEAP argues for drug control and regulation, with age and other restrictions, such as alcohol and tobacco now have. While acknowledging that drug use can be dangerous, as well as addicting, the group views it as a personal choice. Treatment options for drug addicts must be provided, including drug maintenance and the cost for such options would be far less than imprisonment, LEAP asserts. Brooks sees the federal government’s arrest of state marijuana growers, despite those states having medical marijuana use laws on their books, as being hypocritical. “Too bad that hypocrisy was not currency,” Brooks tells his audiences, ”because if so, we would never have a budget deficit.”
Sources: Law Enforcement Against Prohibition www.leap.cc
Hartford Advocate August 17, 2010
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