Pubdate: Thu, 17 Apr 2008
Source: Buffalo News (NY)
Copyright: 2008 The Buffalo News
Contact:  http://www.buffalonews.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/61
Author: Peter Christ
Note: Peter Christ is a founder and board member of LEAP, Law 
Enforcement Against Prohibition. ( www.leap.cc ) He lives in Cazenovia.
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/decrim.htm (Decrim/Legalization)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/heroin.htm (Heroin)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?233 (Law Enforcement Against Prohibition)

'PROHIBITION' FORCES POLICE TO WASTE RESOURCES

I commend the work of all the agencies involved in the March 26 drug 
bust in Erie and Niagara counties. I'm a retired police captain from 
the Town of Tonawanda, and I understand the difficulty of the job 
they have to do. But I do have one question: Why do we put our police 
officers in this position?

Look at the manpower used in this drug bust. The agencies used 100 
officers to track down 36 suspects. They also say that at 4 a.m. they 
used 300 officers, so that's using 8.3 officers per arrest. There's 
nothing wrong with that except that while those 300 officers are 
doing that, what other jobs aren't being done? You've got 300 of them 
pulled off the streets for a day.

Also, these arrests were preceded by an expensive and lengthy 
investigation. What will be the result of all this hard work, money 
and time spent? Will we have fewer drugs in our community? No. Will 
it be harder for people to get drugs? No. Will it keep drugs out of 
the schools? No.

Nancy Cote, of Buffalo's office of the Drug Enforcement 
Administration, was careful to report that, "There [were] no 
incidents. Nobody hurt. No dogs killed." The whole idea I got from 
this article is that this drug bust was a kinder, gentler drug bust.

Here's an idea for a kinder, gentler drug bust: How about simply not 
arresting people for doing drugs? I'm not talking about not arresting 
criminals. I'm talking about why we criminalize behavior that simply 
isn't criminal.

If you're an alcoholic in this society today, and you don't drink and 
drive, and you don't hurt other people or their property, what do we 
do to you? Nothing.

If you're an alcoholic in this society today, what do we do for you? 
Most people respond nothing, but that's not true. We have treatment 
on demand for the alcoholic. There's no waiting list for Alcoholics 
Anonymous; anyone who wants to come in gets treatment.

Another thing we do for alcoholics is guarantee to them and the 
casual alcohol user, as much we're able, a purity of product. And we 
provide them, as much as we can, with a safe place to purchase and 
use that drug.

But when we catch heroin addicts using heroin, we arrest them. We've 
cut back on treatment for drug addicts to build prisons, so we don't 
have treatment on demand for the heroin addict. And as far as purity 
of product and a safe place to buy or use that drug, it's ridiculous. 
We all know what we get in an underground marketplace.

We claim that we're trying to help drug addicts. But if we really 
want to help drug addicts, let's help them like we're helping alcoholics.

The only way to have a kinder and gentler approach to dealing with 
our drug problems is to have a regulated and controlled marketplace. 
And the only way you can control and regulate the marketplace is to 
legalize the drugs. All of them.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom