Believe it or not

[Kannd]

check out this link I found- there seems to be some hope here!--http://www.leap.cc/

[Ferre]

There's hope indeed,...this is one their "about" page :

 

Current and former members of law enforcement who support drug regulation rather than prohibition.

 

 

 

 

About LEAP

 

 

 

After three decades of fueling the US war on drugs with over half a trillion tax dollars and increasingly punitive policies, illicit drugs are easier to get, cheaper, and more potent than they were 30 years ago. While our court system is choked with ever-increasing drug prosecutions our quadrupled prison population has made building prisons this nation's fastest growing industry, with two million incarcerated - more per capita than any industrialized country in the world. Meanwhile people are dying in our streets and drug barons grow richer than ever before. We must change these policies.

 

Current and former members of law enforcement have recently created a new and important drug-policy reform group called LEAP. Founded on March 16, 2002, LEAP is an organization that believes the United States' drug policies have failed and that to save lives, lower the rate of addiction, and conserve tax dollars, we must end drug prohibition.

 

The stated US drug policy goals of lessening the incidence of crime, drug addiction, juvenile drug use and stemming the flow of illegal drugs into this country have not been achieved. The failed policy of fighting a war on drugs has only magnified our problems but the US still insists on continuing the war, while pressuring other governments to also perpetuate these unworkable policies. LEAP believes a system of regulation and control is more effective than one of prohibition.

 

LEAP is an international nonprofit educational entity based in the United States. We are applying for IRS 501©(3) tax-exempt status. The mission of LEAP is (1) To educate the public, the media, and policy makers, to the failure of current drug policy by presenting a true picture of the history, causes and effects of drug abuse and drug related crime; (2) To create a speakers bureau staffed with knowledgeable and articulate former drug-warriors who describe the impact of current drug policies on: police/community relations; the safety of law enforcement officers and suspects; police corruption and misconduct; and the financial and human costs associated with current drug policies; (3) To restore the public's respect for law enforcement that has been diminished by its involvement in imposing drug prohibition; (4) To reduce the multitude of harms resulting from fighting the war on drugs by ultimately ending drug prohibition.

 

The idea of an organization made up of former drug warriors speaking out about the excesses and abuses of current drug policy and the utter failure of the war on drugs originated with Peter Christ, a retired police captain living in New York. Peter believed that an organization modeled after "Vietnam Veterans Against the War" would both catch the attention of the media and ring true to many other drug warriors who are questioning current US drug policies. In 1998, Peter worked with Mark Greer, director of Drugsense, to create a secure email listserv restricted to current and former police officers interested in changing US drug policy. It was called Drug Policy Forum for Law-Enforcement Officers (DPFLEO). Peter was joined in that endeavor by Jack Cole, a retired police lieutenant living in Massachusetts. At the beginning of 2002 Peter and Jack enlisted the help of three others, two former police officers, Howard Wooldridge living in Texas and Daniel Solano living in Michigan, and a currently serving police officer, John Gayder living in Ontario, Canada. Together they became the founding members and directors of LEAP.

 

Jointly, the directors have a great deal of experience in first advancing and then trying to change US drug policy. That experience includes many years of: working as police officers to arrest drug law violators and interdict drugs entering the US; disenchantment with and in depth reconsideration of those failed policies; and speaking out to alert the public, media, and policy makers, to the massive harms being perpetrated on the citizens of the US and the world as a direct result of the US policy of drug prohibition. We have jointly spoken at hundreds of universities and colleges, business associations, and public events. We have testified in favor of drug-policy-reform bills before legislators in our states of residence and written articles for newspapers and periodicals on drug-policy reform. We have also been founding members of other social-responsibility organizations that have remained viable for many years. We have been trained in analyzing policy questions and implementing changes in public policy.

 

In the last week of May we started composing LEAP's advisory board. Board members at this time are:

 

Honorable Warren W. Eginton, Judge, US District Court, Bridgeport, Connecticut

Honorable Gary E. Johnson, Governor of the State of New Mexico

Honorable John L. Kane, Judge, US District Court, Denver, Colorado

Honorable Whitman Knapp, Judge, US District Court, New York City, New York

Sheriff Bill Masters, Sheriff of San Miguel County, Colorado

Dr. Joseph McNamara, former Chief of San Jose, California Police Department

Mr. Patrick V. Murphy, former Police Commissioner, New York City Police Department

Mr. Nick Pastore, former Chief of New Haven, Connecticut Police Department

Honorable Robert W. Sweet, Judge, US District Court, New York City, New York

 

Membership in LEAP is open to anyone formally trained in methods of law enforcement, crime prevention and detection, and who currently or formerly was given the authority to maintain the peace, safety, and order of the community by any national, state / provincial, or local governmental agency (this includes police and federal agents; corrections, parole and probation officers, prosecutors and judges) - provided the prospective member believes the US war on drugs is failed policy and wishes to support alternatives to that policy aimed at reducing the incidence of death, disease, and addiction by ultimately ending prohibition.

 

Members of LEAP are already spread across the United States and into other countries, which is fitting since US drug policy has ramifications that affect the entire world. LEAP is made up of people who intimately understand both the consequences of the war on drugs and the attitudes of the drug-warriors who are fighting that war. The members of LEAP are in an extraordinarily good position to educate other law enforcement professionals, recruit new members, and affect change to current drug policies because of their many years of living within the culture of law enforcement.

 

LEAP's immediate goal is to achieve a membership of thousands of law enforcement officials representing the many countries detrimentally affected by current drug policies. There are over 650,000 people currently employed by law enforcement agencies in the US alone and a very large unknown number of former employees - we are talking about recruiting far less than one percent of those eligible. However, the impact on the media and policy makers would be enormous if thousands of members of law enforcement banned together to declare they were against the continuation of drug prohibition.

 

Drug-warriors prosecuting the US war on drugs have effectively isolated and demonized both those violating drug laws and anyone suggesting alternatives to current policies. Nearly all of the police spoken to by our membership have privately told us that the war on drugs is a failure but getting them to say so publicly is often a different matter. Asking existing members of law enforcement to openly participate in an organization like LEAP puts a heavy burden on them. Speaking out against the policies of one's own department can be tantamount to becoming a whistle-blower. Police officers have lost their jobs for lesser violations of departmental policy. Because of this, recruiting new members among current members of law enforcement is a delicate task. Therefore, we emphasize the following privacy statement:

 

At LEAP, we understand that advocating changes to current drug laws may expose you to social discomfort from your peers and possibly discipline or other censure from your employer.

 

When you choose to support LEAP, you must also decide if you want others to know about your support. If you wish to remain an anonymous supporter of LEAP, rest assured that we will never "out" you to your employer or anybody else. We will never make your name and address available to any advertiser or other organization. We employ strict measures to ensure your support of LEAP remains confidential.

 

On the other hand, if you wish to participate actively and publicly in drug policy reform, we are in need of people around the globe who will spread our message and help recruit more members. If you choose to be a LEAP local representative your name and contact information will appear on our website and publications. There IS strength in numbers and by publicly declaring your advocacy for common sense in drug policy you will encourage others to do the same. Before long, people who share desire for change will be contacting you to form local networks and alliances.

 

Please consider "going public".

 

After you enroll online, we remove your information from the Internet and store it on a computer which does not connect to the Internet, therefore, no hacker will be able to access your information.

 

 

Speakers Bureau

 

The LEAP speakers' bureau will make available knowledgeable and articulate current and former law enforcement officials, experienced in fighting the war on drugs and in presenting alternatives to the current drug policies, for international presentations to the public and testimonials before policy makers. Our speakers will focus attention on the numerous harms to society that directly result from drug prohibition and explain how those policies impact: police/community relations; the safety of law enforcement officers and suspects; police corruption and misconduct; and the financial and human costs associated with current drug policies. In those ways our speakers will present a counterbalance to the one sided view offered by drug-warriors about the history, cause, and effect, of drug abuse and drug related crime.

 

******************************

[BlackBeauty]

These guys are brave! Thanks for the link Kannd - I checked 'em out and happened to find a relatively recent article on them too:

 

Cops Rally Against Prohibition

By Philip Smith, AlterNet

August 26, 2002

 

The police are supposed to be the front-line warriors in the drug war, so when law enforcement figures defect from prohibitionist orthodoxy, as has prominently been the case with former San Jose Police Chief Joseph McNamara and former New Haven Police Chief Nicolas Pastore, their arguments are especially forceful. The emergence of a new group of law enforcement drug war dissidents, Law Enforcement Against Prohibition thus marks an important crack in the solid wall of police support for the drug war. Formed in March, LEAP brings together a small core of former and current law officers on a mission to end the drug war by bringing their hard-earned street credibility to the reform cause. DRCNet spoke with LEAP executive director Jack Cole this week.

 

DRCNet: How did you go from drug warrior to drug war critic?

 

Jack Cole: I guess you could say I had always been driven by an impulse toward harm reduction, though that wasn't a term I'd even heard of back then. I joined the New Jersey State Police because I couldn't stand those images of police beating civil rights demonstrators, and I wanted to do policing to serve the community. As a cop, I saw the damage that drug abuse was doing to the community, so I joined the state narcotics bureau to fight that terrible scourge.

 

I did not have a sophisticated analysis of prohibition back then, although I very quickly began to understand that our "war on drugs" was a cruel, corrupting charade. We would arrest drug users on the street, but claim they were dealers. We would make people become informers for us to avoid their own drug charges. As an undercover cop, I had a career that consisted of becoming people's friend, their closest confidante, then betraying them, over and over again. And I came to see the "war on drugs" as racist. And futile.

 

When Richard Nixon declared the "war on drugs" in 1970, law enforcement had no idea how to stop drug abuse, but it certainly knew how to go after the money. We had seven narcotics officers for the entire state of New Jersey, but after Nixon's anti-drug grants, it shot up to 76. So we arrested people, going from town to town and making buys from everyone we could, then swooping in for mass arrests. But when we arrested a drug dealer, all we did was create a job opening for the next guy. In the meantime, lives are being ruined, families destroyed when drug users are sent to jail, we were virtually creating the next generation of addicts.

 

By 1973, I had concluded that the small amount of harm I prevented by arresting drug users was far outweighed by the harm I was causing to countless people. "Zero tolerance" prohibition was senseless and doomed to failure, I decided. I'm sorry to say that I continued to work narcotics for years after that realization, for reasons that have little to do with courage.

 

DRCNet: Surely rank and file police officers share this sense of futility you describe. What is it that keeps law enforcement from becoming a force for reform?

 

Cole: Many officers have told me, in classrooms or in private, that they see the uselessness and destructiveness of our drug war. But there are also a number of reasons why many police continue to support it. One reason I stayed at it was the sheer excitement of it. I was always working bigger and bigger cases, always looking for the stimulation and excitement. It was almost addicting and there was very much an element of the thrill of the chase. It's intoxicating to go up against very smart people and beat them at their own game. There is that element. And you have to understand that most police in this country are doing what's called community oriented policing, and most communities want the drug dealing and associated street crime cleaned up. The police are doing what they think the community wants.

 

There is also self-interest. The "war on drugs" is a seemingly endless source of funds for law enforcement. There are jobs at stake. And there is fear. Taking a public stand for ending the drug war could cost you your job in any number of departments in this county and subject you to disapproval from your peers in many more.

 

DRCNet: That must make it tough to get new recruits?

 

Cole: We recognize that problem and we address it. Members of law enforcement can join our organization anonymously, and we are very careful to ensure that their information is secure. We are also working on an anonymous electronic chat program that would allow police to enter discussions without revealing their identities. We hope to have that up and running soon.

 

DRCNet: What does LEAP hope to accomplish, and how will you go about doing it?

 

Cole: We want to end prohibition –

 

DRCNet: The group takes an explicit stand for ending prohibition?

 

Cole: Look at the name. Law Enforcement Against Prohibition. In our mission statement, we write that "the United States' drug policies have failed and that to save lives, lower the rate of addiction and conserve tax dollars, we must end drug prohibition." It's pretty clear. Right now, we are attempting to move in that direction primarily through our speakers' bureau. We have former New York police captain and ReconsiDer member Peter Christ, former Michigan police officer Howard Wooldridge, former Detroit police officer Dan Solano, and Colorado Sheriff Bill Masters and myself. It is a process of educating people, and between us we've given hundreds of speeches. We will continue to educate and continue to try to attract new members from the ranks of law enforcement. We know they're out there.

 

But we also want to restore respect for law enforcement. Our involvement in enforcing drug prohibition has only diminished respect for police. And, ultimately, we want to reduce the harm imposed by prohibition.

 

DRCNet: What about what happened in Nevada last week? Andy Anderson, the head of the state's largest police union organization, lost his job after he engineered a board vote in favor of marijuana legalization.

 

Cole: That was a real mess. Clearly, we have a ways to go. But the fact that they were ready to endorse that measure shows that law enforcement is not monolithic on this.

[Eddie E]

Schucks! ............... now I feel so amateur for not posting a link earlier. In mitigation I can say that I started posting on 420Australia (and was 'linked' to ozstoners') before becoming part of LEAP.

 

Thanks for the 'nice' things said. I think LEAP is the first indicator that the U S of A may actually be growing up in the legalisation debate.

 

Regards

Eddie E

[BlackBeauty]

Great to hear Eddie E Well done

[Guest Urbanhog]

Yeah saw that link thru a member in hightimers.com chatroom, just after t-boat told me about this crazy site!

 

yeah, in my posting in the "paranoia" thread about one of my rellies who got raided and wasting time just over a ounce of weed...

 

the cops admitted to my rellies that if they were growing for personal, they wouldn't bother, but they did bother 'cos my rellie was "trafficking"....

 

Urbanhog http://www.gamers-forums.com/smilies/contrib/sp/chefico.gif