| Photo: Doug Beghtel/The Oregonian |
| Drug Czar Gil Kerlikowske wouldn’t meet with a group of former law enforcement officers who were concerned about the bad effects of the War On Drugs. Instead, he sent a staffer to take their report. |
Cops Hand-Deliver Report To Drug Czar’s Office While Czar Refuses To Meet
In conjunction with this week’s 40th anniversary of President Nixon declaring “War On Drugs,” a group of police, judges and jailers who support legalization released a report Tuesday showing how the Obama Administration is ramping up a war it disingenuously claims that it ended two years ago.
Following the report’s release at a press conference Tuesday morning, the pro-legalization law enforcement officers attempted to hand-deliver a copy to Obama Administration Drug Czar Gil Kerlikowske, the former Seattle chief of police who claimed he ended the War On Drugs two years ago.
Instead of making time to listen to the concerns of fellow law enforcers who have dedicated their careers to protecting public safety, the Drug Czar simply sent a staffer to the lobby to receive a copy of the cops’ report.
| Photo: HungryBeast |
| Norm Stamper, LEAP: “Although President Obama has talked about respecting states’ rights to enact medical marijuana laws, his DEA has raided state-legal medical marijuana providers at a higher rate than under the Bush administration.” |
”It wasn’t hard to put together a report showing how the Obama administration continues to wage the failed ‘war on drugs’ even while pretending to end it,” said Norm Stamper, also a former chief of police of Seattle and now a speaker for Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP). “Although President Obama has talked about respecting states’ rights to enact medical marijuana laws, his DEA has raided state-legal medical marijuana providers at a higher rate than under the Bush administration.
“Similarly, this president has continued a Bush-era budget ratio that heavily favors spending on punishment over providing resources for treatment, even though he has said drug addiction should be handled as a health issue,” Stamper said.
The full text of the pro-legalization cops’ report is available online by clicking here.
In the past four days alone, 2,500 people have used LEAP’s website to send letters to President Obama asking him to transform his administration’s good rhetoric on ending the War On Drugs into public policy. That action alert is also available online by clicking here.
“Over the past few weeks, us cops who have been on the front lines of the ‘war on drugs’ have made numerous attempts to schedule a meeting with the drug czar to share out concerns about the harms these drug laws are causing,” said Neill Franklin, a former Baltimore narcotics cop and LEAP’s executive director. “The fact that he refused to sit down with us and discuss these issues — even when we went directly to his doorstep — speaks volumes about how much the Obama administration would rather ignore the failed ‘war on drugs’ than do anything to actually address it.”
Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP) represets police, prosecutors, judges, prison wardens, federal agents and others who want to legalize and regulate drugs after fighting on the front lines of the War On Drugs and learning firsthand that prohibition only serves to worsen addiction and violence.