Thursday, November 23, 2006

Pro-legalisation movement strengthens

This has revived my spirits slightly;

More than 60 British officers, including two former chief constables, have joined Jack Cole's Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (Leap). He spent 26 years with the police in New Jersey. "Prohibition doesn't work, it's never worked," said Mr Cole, who will be addressing meetings of police officers and MPs during his visit. "Leap wants to end drug prohibition just as we ended alcohol prohibition in 1933. When we ended that nasty law, we put Al Capone out of business overnight - and we can do the same to the drug lords and terrorists who make over $500bn a year selling illegal drugs around the world."

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Good for them. I heard a former police chief from LEAP address a conference in Europe a while back and he was excellent. The war on drugs is only making everything worse and it's not keeping anyone away from drugs.

Anonymous said...

I have come to agree.

The fact they are illegal does not appear to stop many people from taking them... and it makes criminals rich.

Anonymous said...

So... if we don't appear to be able to stop a particular behaviour (because we can't treat the symptoms and/or won't tackle the root causes) then let's legalise it... right?

Then let's not stop with just drugs. Think of the enforcement & judiciary savings from removal of the laws on murder, rape, theft, overdue library books etc

Lindsay Mitchell said...

Murder, theft and rape are crimes against people. Drug use, if it damages anyone, damages the user. Only abuse and addiction might cause damage to others and that is indirect and often avoidable.

Most of the crime associated with drugs comes from their high price due to illegal status. Theft and even murder (over contested territory or debts)should always be illegal but could be reduced if drugs weren't. As for overdue library books...should be a hanging offence:-)