Cops say 'Legalize Pot', ask this Retired Cop why.
Retired Police Officer Howard Wooldrige will be riding his horse into town on February 2. In fact, he is going across country on his horse. Now, he is stopping in Cincinnati to spread the word about how drug prohibition has done more harm by this country than any drug ever could. Of the 79 murders in Cincinnati in 2005, how many of those were a direct result of drug prohibition? Here is an op-ed that Office Wooldrige submitted to the Cincinnati Libertarian.
Officer Wooldrige is a member of the National Rifle Association & Mothers Against Drunk Driving. He is a Fellow of the Royal Geographic Society and a graduate of Michigan State University and speaks 4 languages (plus horse). His love of horses, travel and adventure came together in 2003, when he and his horse Misty rode alone from Georgia to Oregon, 3100 miles. In 2005 he rode from Los Angeles to New York City spreading the word from the saddle about the failure & dangers of drug prohibition.
War on Drugs: Good Public Policy?
War on Drugs. How is that working for us in America? Is it reducing crime? Is it reducing rates of death and disease? Is it effective in keeping drugs and drug dealers away from our children? These are important questions for a policy which costs us taxpayers some 70 billion dollars this year.
As a police officer, I fought on the side of the ‘good guys’ for 18 years in the War on Drugs, giving me a lot of actual experience in the trenches. After much experience, consternation and out-and-out frustration in not achieving a single, stated goal in the long term, I came to the conclusion that we must be doing something wrong. It seemed no matter how many dealers we took off the streets, new ones immediately popped up to take their places. The prices for drugs kept falling, indicating an increasing supply. The purity kept increasing; heroin increased from 3.6% to 38.2% purity between 1980 and 1999. The prison population kept increasing until over 70% of all inmates are there on some drug-related charge. Between 1985 and 1996 worldwide production of heroin increased by three times, while coca doubled.
Meanwhile, terrorists and drug barons were amassing fortunes from drug sales and people continued to die on our streets. We have turned third world thugs into billionaires that can buy governments and launch terrorism around the world. Our prisons are filled with non-violent offenders while murderers, rapists and child molesters (not subject to mandatory minimums) get early release due to over-crowding. The only thing we have to show for this terrible policy is that today after 35 years and a half trillion tax dollars spent, illegal drugs are cheaper, stronger and very easy for our kids to buy.
Drug gangs have spread like the plague out of the large cities and into medium and even small cities. Young teens join gangs to make ‘easy,’ big money selling drugs. And 13 year olds are shot and killed everyday because drug prohibition gives them this job option. A policy which many say is to protect kids actually causes hundreds of deaths a year and tens of thousands of destroyed young lives.
During alcohol prohibition at the beginning of the 20th century, rates of murder and police corruption in the United States rose to the highest levels in its history. The year we ended prohibition those statistics fell to a low ebb where they remained until we declared the war on drugs 37 years later. Thanks to that war we have surpassed both those figures with the new prohibition. The unintended consequences of this terrible war are needlessly destroying the lives of generations of America's youth. How many young people do you know who have used an illegal drug, then put the drugs behind them and gone on to lead productive lives? U.S. presidents and many members of our legislative bodies have done exactly that. With imprisonment, those possibilities are eliminated. You can get over an addiction, but you will never get over a conviction.
We should be putting much more effort into education and treatment. The education has to be based in fact and not emotional scare tactics. The treatment needs to voluntary; forced treatment is not much different than some government’s attempts at brainwashing. I suggest that if substances were regulated and taxed, adequate monies could be raised for quality programs, the huge profit incentive (up to 17,000%) would disappear, and the glamour appeal of presently illicit drugs would be reduced.
Drug prohibition represents the very definition of a failed public policy. Will Rogers said, “If you find yourself in a hole, the first thing you do is stop digging.” Prohibitionists are well-intentioned but are blinded by ideology. However, I don’t want to be too harsh. I once rode a horse and tilted at windmills!
Officer Howard J. Wooldridge (retired)
Education Specialist , Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (http://www.leap.cc/)
Washington DC
Howard J. Wooldridge
2 East 14th Street
Frederick, MD 21701
817-975-1110
http://us.f523.mail.yahoo.com/ym/Compose?To=wooldridge@leap.cc
Officer Wooldrige is a member of the National Rifle Association & Mothers Against Drunk Driving. He is a Fellow of the Royal Geographic Society and a graduate of Michigan State University and speaks 4 languages (plus horse). His love of horses, travel and adventure came together in 2003, when he and his horse Misty rode alone from Georgia to Oregon, 3100 miles. In 2005 he rode from Los Angeles to New York City spreading the word from the saddle about the failure & dangers of drug prohibition.
War on Drugs: Good Public Policy?
War on Drugs. How is that working for us in America? Is it reducing crime? Is it reducing rates of death and disease? Is it effective in keeping drugs and drug dealers away from our children? These are important questions for a policy which costs us taxpayers some 70 billion dollars this year.
As a police officer, I fought on the side of the ‘good guys’ for 18 years in the War on Drugs, giving me a lot of actual experience in the trenches. After much experience, consternation and out-and-out frustration in not achieving a single, stated goal in the long term, I came to the conclusion that we must be doing something wrong. It seemed no matter how many dealers we took off the streets, new ones immediately popped up to take their places. The prices for drugs kept falling, indicating an increasing supply. The purity kept increasing; heroin increased from 3.6% to 38.2% purity between 1980 and 1999. The prison population kept increasing until over 70% of all inmates are there on some drug-related charge. Between 1985 and 1996 worldwide production of heroin increased by three times, while coca doubled.
Meanwhile, terrorists and drug barons were amassing fortunes from drug sales and people continued to die on our streets. We have turned third world thugs into billionaires that can buy governments and launch terrorism around the world. Our prisons are filled with non-violent offenders while murderers, rapists and child molesters (not subject to mandatory minimums) get early release due to over-crowding. The only thing we have to show for this terrible policy is that today after 35 years and a half trillion tax dollars spent, illegal drugs are cheaper, stronger and very easy for our kids to buy.
Drug gangs have spread like the plague out of the large cities and into medium and even small cities. Young teens join gangs to make ‘easy,’ big money selling drugs. And 13 year olds are shot and killed everyday because drug prohibition gives them this job option. A policy which many say is to protect kids actually causes hundreds of deaths a year and tens of thousands of destroyed young lives.
During alcohol prohibition at the beginning of the 20th century, rates of murder and police corruption in the United States rose to the highest levels in its history. The year we ended prohibition those statistics fell to a low ebb where they remained until we declared the war on drugs 37 years later. Thanks to that war we have surpassed both those figures with the new prohibition. The unintended consequences of this terrible war are needlessly destroying the lives of generations of America's youth. How many young people do you know who have used an illegal drug, then put the drugs behind them and gone on to lead productive lives? U.S. presidents and many members of our legislative bodies have done exactly that. With imprisonment, those possibilities are eliminated. You can get over an addiction, but you will never get over a conviction.
We should be putting much more effort into education and treatment. The education has to be based in fact and not emotional scare tactics. The treatment needs to voluntary; forced treatment is not much different than some government’s attempts at brainwashing. I suggest that if substances were regulated and taxed, adequate monies could be raised for quality programs, the huge profit incentive (up to 17,000%) would disappear, and the glamour appeal of presently illicit drugs would be reduced.
Drug prohibition represents the very definition of a failed public policy. Will Rogers said, “If you find yourself in a hole, the first thing you do is stop digging.” Prohibitionists are well-intentioned but are blinded by ideology. However, I don’t want to be too harsh. I once rode a horse and tilted at windmills!
Officer Howard J. Wooldridge (retired)
Education Specialist , Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (http://www.leap.cc/)
Washington DC
Howard J. Wooldridge
2 East 14th Street
Frederick, MD 21701
817-975-1110
http://us.f523.mail.yahoo.com/ym/Compose?To=wooldridge@leap.cc
posted by CincinnatiLibertarian at 6:16 PM
3 Comments:
Amen!
It's part of the class war, a great form of social control.
What's the date on the visit?
Officer Wooldridge rode out of town last Friday. Although, there is a return trip planned for April or May. I will let you know more as I find it out.
While in town, he spoke to many community groups, mostly in Over-the-Rhine and West End, and was interviewed by WB 64 news for a story they did about Drug Prohibition. WB64's story was run the same week that Fox 19 news did a big story about Drug Prohibition. Fox 19's story however said that the status quo was good for society, and more needed to be done to 'Win' the war on drugs.
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