Law Enforcement Against Prohibition

[Universe Prince]

A couple of excerpts from "Lay Down Your Arms: Why former narcs say the drug war is futile" by Radley Balko over at Reason Online:

"People ask how a former cop could say drugs should be legalized, but it's precisely because I love police and love police work that I'm saying it. The drug war stops real cops from doing real police work. It's corrupting. It's wasteful. And it has wrecked communities." Wooldridge and Stamper are featured speakers for Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP), a relatively new but powerfully motivated group of current and former police officers, judges, prosecutors, and politicians who have come out against America's failed war on drugs. LEAP was founded in 2002 by Jack Cole, a 26-year veteran of the New Jersey State Police. Cole spent 12 of those years as an undercover narcotics detective. According to his bio, it was his post-retirement struggle with the "emotional residue" left over from his work as a narcotics officer that led him to the realization that the war on drugs has failed.

[...]

One common characteristic you'll find in many members of LEAP is guilt. Most of these former officers lug around a weighty burden. Many concede they realized early in their careers that the drug war was a failure, and would always be a failure. They regret now that they didn't speak up sooner. Stamper says in LEAP's promotional video, "Even though I knew that the drug war was harmful financially and psychically and spiritually . . . I should have been saying much more of that, much more strenuously."

Whole article at the other end of this link.

[Amianthus]

About damn time.

[_JS]

Agreed.

The article wasn't much though, but anyone who does decent research on the history of the DEA and the Harrison Tax Act before it can see what a horrible waste (and constitutional end-run) this is.