Pubdate: Mon, 24 Feb 2014
Source: Royal Gazette, The (Bermuda)
Copyright: 2014 The Royal Gazette Ltd.
Contact:  http://www.theroyalgazette.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/2103
Author: Owain Johnston-Barnes

FORMER NARCOTICS OFFICER ON ISLAND TO SPEAK ABOUT BENEFITS OF DECRIMINALISATION

Former New Jersey State Police undercover Narcotics officer Jack Cole 
a co-founder of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP), is on the 
Island this week to speak with the public and Government officials 
about the benefits of legalising all drugs and ending the "war on drugs".

Former New Jersey State Police undercover Narcotics officer Jack Cole 
a co-founder of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP), is on the 
Island this week to speak with the public and Government officials 
about the benefits of legalising all drugs and ending the "war on drugs".

Decriminalisation of drugs would benefit Bermuda, but will not end 
the violence, according to US cop-turned-campaigner Jack Cole.

Mr Cole, co-founder of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP), is 
on the Island this week to speak with the public and Government 
officials about the benefits of legalising all drugs and ending the 
"war on drugs".

He said decriminalisation has had numerous benefits in other 
countries, including decreasing drug usage, but it would not address 
the violence caused by the illegal drug trade.

"When you decriminalise, you only decriminalise for the user," he 
said. "Everyone else in the chain is still a criminal and, because 
it's still illegal, there's still this artificially inflated value to 
these drugs. Just the fact that it's dangerous to distribute means 
they can charge more for the drugs, and these are basically weeds 
that will grow anywhere in the world. Until we say they are illegal, 
they have zero value. Nothing at all. Suddenly marijuana, a weed you 
can grow in a flowerpot on your porch, is worth more than gold.

"Once you take it out of the hands of the criminals and put it in the 
hands of supposedly responsible adults, then you have some control."

Mr Cole said that before campaigning for legalisation of drugs, he 
worked for 26 years with the New Jersey State Police, spending 14 
years as an undercover narcotics officer.

During his time undercover he said he was responsible for sending 
around a thousand people to jail for drugs offences, but he grew to 
believe that the 'war on drugs' was doing more harm than good.

"We have spent in the last 43 years, in tax dollars, more than $1.5 
trillion on the drug war in the US," he said. "Every year it's 
another $80 billion down the same rabbit hole to continue this year 
and what do we have to show for it? We have made more than 46 million 
arrests in the US alone for non-violent drug offences. We were doing 
everything we can to destroy these people's lives, putting them in 
prison for as long as we can."

He said that from the beginning the "war on drugs" unfairly targeted 
minorities, noting that while the majority of drug users in the US 
are white, 80 percent of those in federal prison for drug offences are black.

"The racism that is involved in this is, to say spectacular isn't 
pushing it at all," he said. "I think the implementation of the war 
on drugs is the most racist law we have had since slavery.

"When you break it down by race and gender it's mind boggling. We 
have more black men in prison today then we had slaves in the United 
States in 1840."

While he said that legalisation of drugs should be the goal, he 
called decriminalisation an important step with a host of benefits. 
He noted several countries have decriminalised drugs, most notably 
Portugal which decriminalised all drugs for those over the age of 18 in 2001.

"People like myself back then was telling them if they do this, it'll 
be chaos. They would be the drug tourist capital of the world. What 
did happened is that after they decriminalised all drugs for anyone 
18 and up, drug use in every age category declined," Mr Cole said.

"The biggest decline was among the youngest people, and those are the 
ones we most want to reach. For those between the age of 13 and 15, 
drug use declined by 25 percent. For young kids between the age of 16 
and 18 it declined by 22 percent. Those are real significant figures."

He also said that the number of people dying from overdoses plummeted 
as people were more likely to seek help for themselves or others who 
may be overdosing.

"That simple act is saving 52 percent of the lives they used to 
lose," he said. "More than half of those lives are being saved. And 
in the years Portugal has been doing this new cases of HIV from 
intravenous drug users have dropped 71 percent."
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom