When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro. - Hunter S. Thompson

17 October 2005

I want to party with *this* guy

Must-read Op-Ed in today's Los Angeles Times:
Sometimes people in law enforcement will hear it whispered that I'm a former cop who favors decriminalization of marijuana laws, and they'll approach me the way they might a traitor or snitch. So let me set the record straight.

Yes, I was a cop for 34 years, the last six of which I spent as chief of Seattle's police department.

But no, I don't favor decriminalization. I favor legalization, and not just of pot but of all drugs, including heroin, cocaine, meth, psychotropics, mushrooms and LSD.
Okay, my flippant half-awake headline aside, Norm Stamper, the author of this op-ed piece, has some very good points to make, from the point of view of a man who has spent his life in the trenches trying to enforce the drug laws.

For instance:
It's not a stretch to conclude that our draconian approach to drug use is the most injurious domestic policy since slavery. Want to cut back on prison overcrowding and save a bundle on the construction of new facilities? Open the doors, let the nonviolent drug offenders go. The huge increases in federal and state prison populations during the 1980s and '90s (from 139 per 100,000 residents in 1980 to 482 per 100,000 in 2003) were mainly for drug convictions. In 1980, 580,900 Americans were arrested on drug charges. By 2003, that figure had ballooned to 1,678,200. We're making more arrests for drug offenses than for murder, manslaughter, forcible rape and aggravated assault combined. Feel safer?
LA Times Op-Ed: "Let those dopers be" (October 17, 2005)

Hat tip: Hit and Run (Reason magazine)

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