Guest Author - Susan Hubenthal

There has been a great awakening about the harms of the "war on drugs." The media and politicians are paying attention like never before. Seven years ago, LEAP (Law Enforcement Against Prohibition) was formed. One of the co-founders, retired police Captain, Peter Christ, wrote in a recent letter to LEAP supporters, “I used to say I would not see the end of the “war on drugs” in my lifetime. But over these past weeks I’ve changed my mind about that, because things are changing. And fast.”
As of late, LEAP has been getting a lot of attention. Terry Nelson, a 30 year veteran federal anti-drug agent was on Anderson Cooper’s CNN show, Judge James Gray was on Fox Business Channel and CNN, and LEAP speakers have recently been featured in newspapers across the country.

*On Capitol Hill, Senator Jim Webb of Virginia just introduced Bill SB714 to create a blue ribbon commission to investigate whether we should keep sending so many people to jail for drugs. This is what LEAP’s education specialist Howard Wooldridge has been advocating in Congress. Last year, Wooldridge met with all 535 congressional offices, asking them to create a commission, it appears that is happening, now!

*In November, LEAP was proudly involved in helping pass (by a two to one margin) a voter initiative to decriminalize marijuana in Massachusetts. Now, citizens there no longer face arrest just for possession of small amounts.

These are just two examples of how LEAP is making more of an impact than ever before. But, they simply can’t do this important work alone. They need our help. With grassroots efforts, this movement has gained so much momentum and its how the “drug war” will be won. LEAP continues to feel they will succeed because no one can make a legitimate argument against what our law enforcement and civilian supporters have seen with their own eyes.

COPS SAY LEGALIZE DRUGS! ASK US WHY?
After nearly four decades of fueling the U.S. policy of a war on drugs with over a trillion tax dollars and 37 million arrests for nonviolent drug offenses, our confined population has quadrupled making building prisons the fastest growing industry in the United States. More than 2.2 million of our citizens are currently incarcerated and every year we arrest an additional 1.9 million more guaranteeing those prisons will be bursting at their seams. Every year we choose to continue this war will cost U.S. taxpayers another 69 billion dollars. Despite all the lives we have destroyed and all the money so ill spent, today illicit drugs are cheaper, more potent, and far easier to get than they were 35 years ago at the beginning of the war on drugs. Meanwhile, people continue dying in our streets while drug barons and terrorists continue to grow richer than ever before. We would suggest that this scenario must be the very definition of a failed public policy. This madness must cease!