Pubdate: Mon, 24 Jun 2002
Source: Denver Post (CO)
Webpage: www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1413,36%257E416%257E689041%257E,00.html
Copyright: 2002 The Denver Post Corp
Contact:  http://www.denverpost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/122
Author: Cord MacGuire

THE DANGER IN ENFORCING DRUG PROHIBITION

Re: "6 arrested in Boulder drug raids," June 16 news story.

If cannabis were legal, we wouldn't have violent police actions over it 
taking place in Boulder hotel parking lots, as happened June 15 outside the 
Ramada Inn. We wouldn't have pot dealers checking-in to hotels with 
reefer-laden duffel bags in the first place. There'd be no need for gunplay 
in the public square (the suspects were evidently unarmed), nor for a 
wounded pot courier to flee in a bullet-riddled auto, only to crash several 
blocks away. A law enforcement group known as the Boulder County Drug Task 
Force, under the supervision of the federal Drug Enforcement Agency, had 
hoped to cap an 18-month-long investigation into a pot-running enterprise 
that allegedly was planning to cash in on the steady market for good 
marijuana that's traditionally made Boulder such a pot dealers' paradise.

Unfortunately, the bust went sour when one of the suspects failed to meekly 
surrender and decided to beat a hasty motorized retreat, knocking down an 
officer and receiving gunfire to his shoulder on the way. He later crashed 
on the side of a city avenue. Thank God no one else was hurt.

If we had a rational drug policy, that is if pot were decriminalized, this 
tragic event would never have happened. Instead, pot dealers would 
innocuously do business side by competitive side with liquor peddlers and 
tobacco merchants, taxed, regulated and under control. The poor guys on the 
Drug Task Force could then breathe a sigh of relief and go back to 
patrolling Boulder's byways for real criminals, happy to be unburdened of 
the frustrating and dangerous task of enforcing this impossible prohibition.

CORD MacGUIRE

Boulder
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MAP posted-by: Beth