Drug War

As a retired detective, I heartily agree with the Neill Franklin that the "war on drugs" has been a dysfunctional, disastrous policy without benefit ("Save a cop: End the drug war," March 7). Worse, because my colleagues spend so much time chasing drug offenders, we are missing the animals who hurt women and children. Detectives flying around in helicopters are not arresting the pedophiles in Internet chat rooms. Officers searching a car for pot miss the deadly drunk drivers who sail past those stops.

I have something for you. In June 2010, I wrote in this space about a book, "The New Jim Crow," by Michelle Alexander, which I called a "troubling and profoundly necessary" work. Ms. Alexander promulgated an explosive argument. Namely, that the so-called "War on Drugs" amounts to a war on African-American men and, more to the point, to a racial caste system nearly as restrictive, oppressive and omnipresent as Jim Crow itself. This because, although white Americans are far and away the nation's biggest dealers and users of illegal drugs, African-Americans are far and away the ones most likely to be jailed for drug crimes.

The legacy of Prohibition, if Ken Burns is to be believed, is a system of organized crime not only empowered by that ill-fated law but so greatly enriched as to have become "too big to fail. " Kevin Sabet rightly, though grudgingly, concludes that America's current effort to incarcerate our way out of an intractable drug problem may be ever-so-slightly misguided ("Drug legalization: Wrong lesson of Prohibition," Oct. 9), but he has little to say about alternatives. He says nothing about the money trail, either in the liquor trade or in the drug trade.

The drug war is largely a war on people who smoke marijuana. In 2010, there were 853,839 marijuana arrests in the United States, almost 90 percent of them for simple possession. At a time when state and local governments are laying off police, firefighters and teachers, this country continues to spend enormous public resources criminalizing marijuana, even though the law enforcement model clearly isn't working. The U.S. has higher rates of marijuana use than the Netherlands, where marijuana is legally available.

T he window of opportunity to bring down drug trafficking organizations in Central and South America is quickly shrinking. However, despite its recent efforts, the Obama administration still lacks the one thing that we desperately need to win the fight against the cartels: a strategy. While it may seem like an obvious thing to have, the United States surprisingly lacks a comprehensive plan to bring down drug trafficking organizations. The federal government does have some counterdrug strategies, but they are either too broad - like the annual National Drug Control Strategy, which reads more like an "accomplishment report" of past successes rather than a "how to" manual - or too narrowly focused, like the National Southwest Border Counternarcotics Strategy, which addresses, among other things, ways to strengthen security along the border itself.

Mike Gimbel's letter ignores some rudimentary facts regarding medical marijuana ("Md. wouldn't be able to control marijuana dispensaries," Readers respond, Feb. 4). Many polls have recently showed that as many as eight out of every 10 Americans say they want medical marijuana to be legalized and regulated. Unlike Mr. Gimbel, they understand that giving needed treatment to sick people needs to take precedence over the politics and misguided taboos of the past. Fourteen states already have medical marijuana, and the reason that many more have legislation pending is because for some severely ill patients, the treatment works.

Several thousand miles, and a comparable cultural divide, separate Elkins, W.Va., from San Luis Potosi, Mexico. But recently, they became sister cities of a grim sort when law enforcement professionals lost their lives fighting America's longest, most costly and least winnable war: the so-called "war on drugs. " On Highway 57, halfway between Monterrey and Mexico City, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Special Agent Jaime Zapata died when cartel gunmen ambushed the car carrying him and a colleague, who was wounded.

I have something for you. In June 2010, I wrote in this space about a book, "The New Jim Crow," by Michelle Alexander, which I called a "troubling and profoundly necessary" work. Ms. Alexander promulgated an explosive argument. Namely, that the so-called "War on Drugs" amounts to a war on African-American men and, more to the point, to a racial caste system nearly as restrictive, oppressive and omnipresent as Jim Crow itself. This because, although white Americans are far and away the nation's biggest dealers and users of illegal drugs, African-Americans are far and away the ones most likely to be jailed for drug crimes.

There was a quake last week, but you likely didn't feel it. See, this particular quake was not of the Earth, involved no shifting of the planetary crust. No, what shifted was a paradigm, and the implications are hopeful and profound. On Tuesday, you see, the NAACP passed a resolution calling for an end to the war on drugs. Said NAACP President Benjamin Todd Jealous in a written statement, "These flawed drug policies that have been mostly enforced in African-American communities must be stopped and replaced with evidence-based practices that address the root causes of drug use and abuse in America.

For five years, Baltimore Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke has been urging a national debate on drugs. He contends that after decades of trying to control drugs, America is sinking into a quicksand of corruption and societal breakdown that has made narcotics more readily available than ever before.Meanwhile, the incredible profits of trafficking and retailing have introduced unprecedented violence and viciousness into urban American life. Neighborhoods are turning into killing fields. Innocent lives are torn asunder.

Should juries vote "not guilty" on low-level marijuana charges to send a message about our country's insane marijuana arrest policy? Jury nullification is a constitutional doctrine that allows juries to acquit defendants who are technically guilty but who don't deserve punishment. As Paul Butler wrote recently in The New York Times, juries have the right and power to use jury nullification to protest unjust laws. Mr. Butler points out that nullification was credited with ending our country's disastrous alcohol Prohibition as more and more jurors refused to send their neighbors to jail for a law they didn't believe in. He says we need to do the same with today's marijuana arrests.

The legacy of Prohibition, if Ken Burns is to be believed, is a system of organized crime not only empowered by that ill-fated law but so greatly enriched as to have become "too big to fail. " Kevin Sabet rightly, though grudgingly, concludes that America's current effort to incarcerate our way out of an intractable drug problem may be ever-so-slightly misguided ("Drug legalization: Wrong lesson of Prohibition," Oct. 9), but he has little to say about alternatives. He says nothing about the money trail, either in the liquor trade or in the drug trade.

Five dollars? Really? To use your own money? Wow. Bank of America's decision to impose that fee for debit card use did not precipitate the Occupy Wall Street protests. But it does seem to embody much of what has driven thousands of people to the streets, first in the New York financial center and now in Boston, Los Angeles, Baltimore and other cities across the nation. The fee carried an odor of pecuniary pettiness not dispelled by BofA's claim that it was needed to recoup losses caused by a new federal regulation limiting the amount banks may charge retailers when you use a debit card.

Speaking as a retired police detective and member of LEAP (Law Enforcement Against Prohibition), I heartily concur with the NAACP that it is past time to terminate our failed war on drugs also known as the war on people - mostly of color ("The NAACP is calling for an end to the drug war; what about you?" July 31). My profession, which is shrinking all over America, must return to its true mission of public safety. If you have a drug problem, see an addiction clinic. Howard Wooldridge,Washington, D.C. The writer is a drug policy specialist with Citizens Opposing Prohibition.

There was a quake last week, but you likely didn't feel it. See, this particular quake was not of the Earth, involved no shifting of the planetary crust. No, what shifted was a paradigm, and the implications are hopeful and profound. On Tuesday, you see, the NAACP passed a resolution calling for an end to the war on drugs. Said NAACP President Benjamin Todd Jealous in a written statement, "These flawed drug policies that have been mostly enforced in African-American communities must be stopped and replaced with evidence-based practices that address the root causes of drug use and abuse in America.

Today, the message of Neill Franklin, a former Baltimore police commander, hit the floor of Congress. That message: End the drug war.  Franklin, now the executive director of the organization Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, was cited by U.S. Rep. Jared Polis (D-Colo.) who took to the floor to condemn America's War on Drugs, which rages on in its 40th year. (Polis is one of six co-sponsors of a bill aimed at ending the federal law against marijuana possession .)

This is an excerpt of a New York Times editorial that was published on Saturday:ALMOST 70 years after the failure of Prohibition, the much-trumpeted "war on drugs," begun more than a decade ago, has hugely misfired.The drug war was created in reaction to a wave of urban violence triggered by crack cocaine that ignited fears that crack addiction might spread widely. Surveys now show, however, that the use of crack, by about 600,000 people annually, has not changed in 10 years. Nor has the general level of illegal drug use.The best hope for controlling illicit drugs lies in treatment.

COLOMBIA'S uneasy truce with its drug lords points more urgently than ever to the need for the United States to find a domestic solution to the drug problem. The awesome influence of the narcotics cartels is spreading well beyond the initial coca-growing nuclei of Colombia, Peru and Bolivia across South America. Using Harvard Business School principles, the drug lords are expanding their enterprises to control everything from leaf production and paste processing to port shipments and financing.

And now, a follow-up email from David Simon: Comments no longer appear on my screen, or on my wife's, or on the office computer.  Nor is there a link to comments, which appeared there yesterday evening.  Very strange.  I've tried to call it up on three separate computers and no link.  If they are back now, they are back after an absence.  I haven't checked. As to your characterization of your item and its intent, Ms. Vozzella, I can't agree.  By omission, you have implied, with all vigor, that I have let the MacArthur stuff go to my head and have made a demand of the AG that is steeped in arrogance.

David Simon thinks I zapped comments he posted to an item on my blog, about his offer to do another season of "The Wire" if Attorney General Eric Holder stops the war on drugs. I'm sure a MacArthur "genius" like David Simon can figure out how to post a comment. But I can assure you that I did not delete his comments. I'm not even sure how to do that since I am new to p2p blog software and not a genius, MacArthur or otherwise. Simon complains in an email that I didn't make it clear in my original blog post that his offer to the attorney general was tongue-in-cheek.