Pubdate: Fri, 10 Mar 2006
Source: Philadelphia Inquirer, The (PA)
Copyright: 2006 Philadelphia Newspapers Inc
Contact:  http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/340
Author: David Ott, Inquirer Staff Writer
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topics/Camden
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/decrim.htm (Decrim/Legalization)

A CALL FOR LEGALIZING DRUGS TO BRING PEACE TO CAMDEN

An iconoclastic activist told a Rutgers forum the way to curb 
violence is to "just say yes."

Frank Fulbrook, a Camden activist familiar for his efforts to improve 
the city, says he believes he has the solution to the crime that is 
one of its biggest problems.

Plain and simple: Legalize drugs.

"Drugs are everywhere," Fulbrook said, arguing that the war against 
drugs had been a failure and predicting that Camden's underground 
narcotics economy would remain vibrant with about 150 locations, or 
"drug sets," around the city.

It's not a popular view, and in a Rutgers University-Camden lecture 
sponsored by the Political Science Society and the Urban Studies 
Association, Fulbrook tried to persuade about 30 students, faculty 
members and residents that policymakers should "just say yes" to drug 
legalization if they truly wanted to save Camden and other urban areas.

Fulbrook, 57, who has experience with drugs - "I've tried them all," 
he said - blamed much of the devastation in Camden and Philadelphia 
on the blight and terror fostered by drug sets and battles over them.

Citing crimes such as the killing of 10-year-old Faheem Thomas-Childs 
in Philadelphia two years ago, Fulbrook compared modern violence in 
Camden and Philadelphia to that in Chicago during the late 1920s, 
when 800 people died in the "alcohol wars."

Only lifting the prohibition against alcohol ended that violence, he 
said, and only lifting the prohibition against drugs will end the 
current scourge.

Using a pointer and a push-pin map to show neighborhoods that he said 
drug sets had destroyed, Fulbrook contended that Camden could not be 
revitalized without drug legalization. He pointed out 1,167 property 
forfeitures in the fall of 2000 that he had documented; they were 
clustered like electrons around nuclei suggested by the 150 drug locations.

"Drug prohibition is destroying cities, not suburbs," said Fulbrook, 
who had hoped to debate an opponent yesterday but could find no one 
to take on the topic. Instead, he threw his views out to an 
uncomfortable audience that seemed mostly to disagree.

Even a longtime pal and ally, City Councilman Ali Sloan El, said he 
was there not to support Fulbrook's position.

Far from giving up on the battle against drugs, Sloan El said he was 
organizing retired police officers, officers currently on the street, 
and residents to begin patrols with clipboards, flashlights and 
walkie-talkies in his Whitman Park neighborhood.

Audience member Robert Hopely hotly jousted with Fulbrook, contending 
that legalizing drugs would be "capitulation."

North Camden resident Jean R. Kehner, 77, echoed that sentiment. 
"Make it legal, and all of sudden they will all take part," she said.

Anthony Bertolotti, 20, said legalizing alcohol had not prevented but 
rather fostered crimes such as domestic violence.

"I don't see any good coming from making drugs legal," he said.

Despite such opposition, Fulbrook, who has been vilified as a thug 
and a "nut" for his views, said he believed that officials battling 
crime in the city were beginning to come around to his point of view.

"It's a touchy subject," retired Camden Police Chief Edwin Figueroa 
said in a telephone interview before the forum. "You just can't say, 
'Let's legalize drugs.' What are the after-effects? How will it be 
implemented?"

Camden revitalization czar Melvin R. "Randy" Primas Jr. said the 
issue needed more discussion.

"I agree we may need to look at drug policy. Not necessarily to 
legalize it but look at the realities surrounding it," he said.
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