Pubdate: Tue, 16 May 2006
Source: Vancouver Sun (CN BC)
Copyright: 2006 The Vancouver Sun
Contact:  http://www.canada.com/vancouver/vancouversun/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/477
Author: Jack A. Cole
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/hr.htm (Harm Reduction)

READERS URGE FORWARD-THINKING SOLUTIONS TO THE PROBLEMS OF DRUG ABUSE

Three cheers for Mayor Sam Sullivan who is courageously working to 
apply harm reduction policies that alleviate some of the terrible 
unintended consequences of a war on drugs.

In my 26 years as a U.S. cop, 12 doing drug work, I came to realize 
what should have been obvious the first day I pinned on a badge: Drug 
prohibition will never work.

After 36 years of fighting the war on drugs with a budget of more 
than $1 trillion, my country has quadrupled our prison population in 
the last 20 years. Every year we arrest another 1.7 million people 
for non-violent drug offences. Despite all this money so ill-spent 
and all those ruined lives, today drugs are cheaper, more potent, and 
far easier for our children to get than they were in 1970 when I 
started buying them as an undercover officer. According to the U.S. 
government, four million people used an illegal drug before the war 
started; by 2001, the numbers had increased to 110 million. That is 
the very essence of a failed public policy.

Jack A. Cole

Executive Director

Law Enforcement Against Prohibition

Medford, Mass.
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MAP posted-by: Beth Wehrman