Ending the War on Drugs
We at Peace & Justice of La Luz are proud to have sponsored Mike Jones at the Otero County Fair. We were able to talk to hundreds of people who were curious about the subject. And if we did not convince them all that prohibition was a failure, we at least started this conversation in our community. Thank you, Mike Jones!
LEAPing to legal drugs
By Elva K. Österreich, Associate News Editor
(J.R. Oppenheim/Daily News)
Drug warriors from across the country are banding together to ask people to support the legalization of drugs.
Judges, prosecutors, prison wardens, corrections staff and police officers have organized to educate the public about the damage and cost of the war against illegal drugs.
The premise of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, or LEAP, is the war on drugs cannot be won and the benefit of regulating, taxing and controlling these substances far outweighs the cost in tax dollars and human lives trying to suppress them.
“We are spending more than $80 billion a year to arrest, prosecute, and incarcerate people in the war on drugs,” said Mike Jones, a speaker for LEAP who was visiting Otero County during the county fair this weekend.
Jones, who now lives in Rancho de Taos, spent 20 years with the Gainesville, Fla. police department. His first year there was spent as an undercover narcotics agent, and his last three years were as deputy chief of police.
“It was obvious to me the effort to control drugs was doomed to fail,” he said. “It was impossible to achieve. We were spending time dealing with narcotics when we could have been using resources in different ways.”
Jones said his anti-drug war position was not popular in Florida.
A few years ago, after he retired to New Mexico, Jones found LEAP on the Internet, joined the cause, contributed, bought bumperstickers and volunteered for the speakers bureau.
“After 40 years of fighting the drug war, drugs are cheaper, stronger and easier to get than ever,” Jones said. “So after 40 years we haven’t achieved our goals. Any company failing at goals and objectives for 40 years wouldn’t be in business.”
Over that 40-year time period, Jones said, violence associated with drugs has continued to escalate. He said it’s like a chess match with the good guys coming up with new ways to fight and the bad guys matching by coming up with violent solutions every time.
More money poured into the drug war means “more troops, more guns, more violence and the drugs continue to flow,” Jones said.
By legalizing and regulating drug use, not only would the violence be eliminated, but negative health issues would be reduced, impurities and mystery substances would be eliminated, Jones said.
The first step, he added, is for lawmakers and policy makers to take swift action.
“Citizens need to advise their representatives to end the insanity and move forward,” he said.
The goal of LEAP is to education people on the issue, Jones said.
“This is not a partisan issue,” he said. “It effects everyone. One of our members will tell you his views are just to the right of Atilla the Hun but drugs need to be legal.”
LEAP does not advocate the use of legal or illegal drugs, Jones said.
“We believe that [it] is a personal decision attached to personal responsibility.”
Contact Elva K. Österreich at eosterreich@alamogordonews.com.
December 29th, 2009 at 6:21 pm
Please help us in our fight by supporting a cause I personally believe in.
Our traditional justice system has been inadequate to the task of breaking the cycle of substance abuse and crime. Four out of every five offenses are committed by someone with a drug or alcohol problem; and we just keep locking them up!
In just the past 20 years alone, state prison systems have added 1 million new cells to incarcerate the 2.3 million adults now behind bars in the U.S. That’s far more than any other country on the globe with 1 out of every 100 adult Americans currently serving time. Approximately one-half of these individuals are addicted to drugs or alcohol and most do not pose a serious threat to public safety.
Prison for these individuals has accomplished little to stem the tide of crime or substance abuse. Upon their release from prison, two thirds of drug abusers commit a new crime and virtually all relapse quickly to drug abuse. And yet, despite these disappointing figures national expenditures on corrections well exceed $60 billion annually. On average, states spend $65,000 per bed, per year to build new prisons and $23,876 per bed, per year to operate them. Despite the staggering cost to incarcerate these individuals, most return to their communities without treatment, without jobs and without hope.
Given the abysmal outcomes of incarceration on addictive behavior, there’s absolutely no justification for state governments to continue to waste tax dollars feeding a situation where generational recidivism is becoming the norm and parents, children and grandparents may find themselves locked up together.
The addicted in prison truth is:
We want them to have self-worth
So we destroy their self-worth
We want them to be responsible
So we take away all responsibility
We want them to be positive and constructive
So we degrade them and make them useless
We want them to be trustworthy
So we put them where there is no trust
We want them to be non-violent
So we put them where violence is all around them
We want them to be kind and loving people
So we subject them to hatred and cruelty
We want them to quit being the tough guy
So we put them where the tough guy is respected
We want them quit hanging around losers
So we put all the losers in the state under one roof
We want them to quit exploiting us
So we put them where they exploit each other
We want them to take control of their lives, own problems and quit being a parasite on society
So we make them totally dependent on us
I am speaking up about this matter because I have personally been addicted to Meth for 17 years (other drugs and alcohol 30 years total). I am clean and sober for many years, but unfortunately I had to go to another state (other than my home state of New Mexico) to go to Rehab. A recovery friendly community made all the difference in my miracle
Please help stop the war on drugs. Prohibition has never worked and never will.
Thanks, Ken Larson