The war on the War on Drugs (Interview with LEAP)

[DrBloodmoney]

This is might be a dupe... the interview is about 2 years old. It's an interview with Jack Cole, one of the founding members of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition.

<snip>
Cole: "Absolutely. Beyond any doubt. And we don't suggest that drugs are a great thing. At LEAP we think drugs are a poor choice - we just don't think people should be arrested for making that choice. You're not arrested for making a choice of drinking alcohol, or smoking tobacco, and those are the two worst drugs known to human beings. In my country, in the United States, tobacco kills 430,000 people every year. Alcohol kills another 110,000 - I'm not talking about people who get drunk and run off the road and kill themselves; I'm talking about just ingesting that, because it is a poison and it will get you, All the illegal drugs combined in the United States kill less than 12,000 people.
</snip>

<snip>
Cole: "I think racism is what it turns on, really. Racism is what all the drug prohibition has been based on when it started, and I truly believe that's the reason it continues today. For instance, I understand you have a terrible problem with it in your country too, the Maoris are arrested about 5 times the rate the European-type folks here, well in my country, although a federal household survey that's done every year shows that 72% of all the people involved in drugs, whether it's a dealer, a user, or whatever, are white. Only 13.5% of them are black. But once you see the arrest statistics you suddenly see that 37% of all the people arrested for drug violations are black. 42% of all the people in federal prison for drug violations are black. 60% of all the people in state prisons for drug violations are black, causing the FBI to come out on their uniform crime reports last year with the statement that a young couple giving birth to a black male baby, today in the United States, has an expectation of one-in-three that that child will spend time in prison. One-in-three: just imagine that. If we only changed one word in that sentence - if we changed 'black male' to 'white male' - we would have ended the War on Drugs 30 years ago. Because we wouldn't have stood for it."
</snip>

Link to Interview
http://www.leap.cc/publications/wod_cole.htm

LEAP home
http://www.leap.cc/

[Mythsaje]

1. Hurrah for LEAP and Jack Cole!

At least a few people in the LEO community has figured it out.