LEAP Cop Wins Suit After Being Fired for Criticizing Drug War

Check this out! This is LEAP's press release (verbatim) regarding this awesome victory for free speech!

SEATTLE, WA -- A Mountlake Terrace police sergeant who was fired after publicly criticizing the "war on drugs" has reached an $812,500 settlement in a lawsuit he filed against the city and police department, among others. Under the settlement, Sergeant Jonathan Wender has been reinstated on the force and is eligible to receive back pay and full retirement benefits.

“In an open society, people on the front lines of the criminal justice system have an ethical duty to speak out on controversial social and legal issues that affect the public we serve," said Sgt. Wender, a member of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP), a 10,000-strong organization representing police, prosecutors, judges and others who fought on the front lines of the "war on drugs" and who now want to legalize and regulate drugs. "The public has a fundamental right to know which laws and policies are effective, and which ones aren’t; and they should expect that their police officers will speak the truth even when it isn’t popular or comfortable to do so. I hope that the outcome of this case will help reassure police and other public officials that they can speak freely on controversial topics such as the urgent need to seek better ways to deal with the crisis of drugs that plagues American society.”

Sgt. Wender joined the police force in 1990 after graduating from college and was terminated in 2005. He holds a Pd.D. from Simon Fraser University and is currently a full-time sociology professor at the University of Washington. As part of the settlement, Sgt. Wender is back on the payroll at the Mountlake Terrace Police Department, where he will serve on administrative leave until he retires from the force on November 10, 2010 and can then qualify for his full pension.

"Jonathan Wender's victory is ours, as well. As was his fight," said Norm Stamper, the retired Seattle police chief and LEAP member. "Because of this fine man's courage and perseverance, and his willingness to tell the truth about the 'drug war,' we've all moved closer to putting an end to that war. I believe police officers across the country will be moved by Jonathan's example, and will raise their voices in support of LEAP's goal of ending drug prohibition."

The lawsuit was filed against the Snohomish County Prosecutor’s Office, the Mountlake Terrace Police Department, the City of Mountlake Terrace, the City of Lynnwood, and a handful of individual defendants.

For more information about LEAP, please contact Tom Angell at (202) 557-4979 or media@leap.cc

SSDP Member Testifies in El Paso

While my last post made light of the situation in El Paso, this event proved to be an important day for drug policy. Even though mayor Cook's veto was not overridden by the city council, councilman O'Rourke's goal to stimulate dialogue about ending prohibition was achieved. Over 40 people testified their support or disagreement with the veto's override. It seemed like most supported keeping all options on the table and not limiting discussion - whether or not they personally supported legalization.

Nubia Legarda, a University of Texas at El Paso student, testified on behalf of SSDP in support of the amendment that would include the discussion of ending prohibition as an option to curb the escalating violence in Juarez. Nubia has family in Juarez and provided a touching and articulate testimony that made SSDP proud!

Immediately after the city council meeting, Nubia made a $10 donatation to SSDP! Thank her by matching her donation today!

Your Revolution is Over! The Bums Lost Lebowski!

Somehow, El Paso Mayor John Cook's recent comments stereotyping those who support the resolution he vetoed last week, remind me of the Big Lebowski scene where Mr. Lebowski and The Dude argue about jobs, why he is "the Dude", and the 60's hippie revolution; filled with pot smoking - free loving, bums.

“I can tell you that all the potheads have sent their e-mails and they are encouraging the reps to stand by their decision" wrote Cook in a recent email to a supporter.

Ahhh yes. All the potheads, the bums Lebowski. It's quite ironic that he uses "potheads" to describe those in opposition to his veto and have taken the initiative to contact their representatives, write letters to the editor, post comments, blogs and send in their opinion pieces. Isn't "pothead" a term used to describe someone who is lazy, lethargic, and sits around all day smoking pot? The Mayor must feel pretty silly that the people he considers potheads are doing a better job of using the political process than those who support his veto.

El Paso Can't Decide if it's OK to Talk About Drug Legalization

By now you are probably aware of the recent resolution, written and passed by the El Paso city council, that included an amendment encouraging that ending drug prohibition be discussed. The resolution was aimed at addressing and drawing attention to the rising violence occurring in the city of Juárez, Mexico which borders El Paso, Texas.

After passing unanimously, the resolution was quickly vetoed by El Paso mayor John Cook, who reasoned that "It is not realistic to believe that the U.S. Congress will seriously consider any broad-based debate on the legalization of narcotics," Cook added. "That position is not consistent with the community standards both locally and nationally."

Cook goes on to say "The whole purpose of the resolution was to get national attention to the violence in Juárez," he said. "After it was amended, the focus was placed instead on legalizing drugs in the United States."

I disagree and think that had the amendment not been added, no one would have heard of this resolution and little more attention would have been drawn to the prohibition related violence in Juárez. Beto O'Rourke, the city councilman that added the amendment, speaks quite eloquently about the purpose of bringing legalization into the discussion. He makes it very clear that the council did not vote in support of legalization, but in support of evaluating the relationship between the rise of violence in Juárez and U.S. drug policy.

More than 20 people have already been killed in Juárez since the new year started. The details of these murders are so grotesque and frightening, it's hard to believe the Mayor wouldn't even support the discussion of drug decriminalization.

The council is set to vote on an override of the veto this Tuesday.

The El Paso Times has an article on the vote and a follow up opinion in support of the council's vote. Be sure to weigh in on the comments section and also to vote YES on the poll located near the end of this article. LEAP's Terry Nelson had an excellent op-ed printed in the El Paso times. Again, please leave comments of support for the resolution, Terry Nelson's op-ed, and while your at it, throw in a mention of your favorite student drug policy reform organization.

In an unrelated story, El Paso's "most wanted fugitive" is:

EL PASO -- A 23-year-old man who was arrested for shoplifting at Wal-Mart while eating potato wedges and popcorn chicken he didn't pay for, is the most-wanted fugitive this week, an El Paso County Sheriff's Office spokesman said.

Ask the Drug Czar a Question!

True. Drug Czar John Walters will be replaced shortly. But lets not make these last two months any easier for him. Take just a few minutes to ask him a question or two about U.S. drug policy with this nifty form on the White House website. 

Some topics to ask him about: 

• Crack/Powder Cocaine Sentencing Disparity
• HEA Aid Elimination Penalty
• Prohibition Related Violence in Mexico
• Increasing Accessible/Affordable Substance Abuse Treatment
• Mandatory Minimum Sentencing
• Student Drug Testing
• State Wide Good Samaritan Policies 

Of course there is plenty more to ask and you'll want to be specific. It will only take a few minutes and SSDP would love for you to post your questions to SSDP talk, facebook, and the comments section of the blog! Feel free to contact me to strategize about questions if you'd like!

Have You Signed the Obama Drug Policy Petition?

Ideas are fantastic. So why not have an idea machine? SSDP has one and his name is Micah Daigle. His latest idea is a facebook petition that has generated nearly 17,000 signatures. What's this petition all about you ask? Well, its calling on President Elect Obama to reform U.S. drug policy. 

We petition that…

When you called the War on Drugs an "utter failure" in 2004, you were right. A 2008 Zogby poll found that 3 out of 4 of Americans agree with you. 

When appointing the head of your Office of National Drug Control Policy, please select someone with health, science, or education credentials rather than a military general, law enforcement official, or "tough on drugs" politician. The next "Drug Czar" should base policy on proven methodology rather than counterproductive ideology. At a minimum, he or she should support these measures: 

*Ending the racially unjust disparity in sentencing for crack and powder cocaine. 

*Ending the practice of prosecuting patients in states with medical marijuana laws. 

*Eliminating the federal law that denies financial aid to students with drug convictions. 

We all know that the War on Drugs is failing because handcuffs don't cure addictions -- doctors do. You have the opportunity to bring us the change we need. Will you?

Sincerely,
The Undersigned

*Note: By the time I finished writing this, the petition has exceed 17,000 signatures!

Please help us achieve our goal of 20,000 signatures by signing the petition here and inviting your friends to sign it. 

Yes we can... have sensible drug policies. 

Why Smoke One Blunt, When You Could Smoke At Least 5?

I'm in DC right now, gearing up for SSDP's 10th Annual International Conference, which I'm sure you already know all about. I'm actually burning the midnight oil with SSDP's eastern region outreach director Amber Langston. We can see Prince George's County from her house, a place where the county council just voted to do something very unlikely to achieve the goals the council hopes it will. I think it will do just the opposite.

The council voted 8 to 1 to ban the sale of single cigars, requiring stores to sell them in packages of at least five. The new law will also make it easier to charge someone possessing a cigar with a drug paraphernalia offense.

Yes, buying 5 cigars will cost more than buying one cigar, but its not likely to break the bank, even for a teenager. In fact, buying in bulk is a way to save money, not spend more. If a single blunt is $1.00, a package of 5 will probably not cost more than $5.00. And if you look at blunt wraps, which do not come filled with tobacco and often feature attractive individual packaging, you can bet that companies will be happy to create larger packages and advertise the new BONUS SIZE! It will no doubt increase production and possibly consumption (like most American consumers, if I buy the Family Size bag of chips, I'm likely to eat a larger serving per sitting than if I bought a single serving bag - but I'd be saving money by buying the bigger bag).

Maybe this isn't so silly after all. In these times of economic uncertainty, we need to teach youth about smart spending and how to get more blunts for their buck! Then we can arrest them for having a legal tobacco product, charge them with possession of drug paraphernalia, and deny them financial aid to college! Drug problem solved. Goodnight.

Vote today!!!

I don't care who you vote for. I really don't. Obama, McCain, Nader, Moore, whatever. Still holding out hope for Ron Paul? Fine, just vote.

Please make sure your voices are heard on this day. It will be exciting to watch the results come in, but it will be even more exciting to watch the drug policy reform movement, as a whole, gear up and make plans for 2009 and beyond.

VOTE. VOTE. VOTE.

How to Make a Drug Warrior Look Foolish

Calvina Fay, executive director of Drug Free America Foundation, recently leaped at the chance to make herself look absolutely foolish by attacking SSDP's ally Law Enforcement Against Prohibition on an email list of over 300 delegates and officials that attended the UN forum on Illegal Drugs.

"These guys in the videos are EX-law enforcement for a reason! Hundreds of thousands of current law enforcement find them to be a disgrace to the uniform" accused Fay before regurgitating common prohibitionist misinformation about drug prohibition and also insinuating that making alcohol and tobacco illegal will keep them out of the hands of youth.

Jack Cole provided a fantastic rebuttal to Fay's "facts". He addresses each one of her statements with professionalism and backs himself up with evidence and sources (far from Fay's childish attack).

You would think Fay might have something intelligent to respond, or, as the executive director of an organization that actually believes our country can be drug free, she would jump at the opportunity for discussion. But oh, no. She tops it all off by responding to Jack Cole's fantastic rebuttal only with "Message Blocked Due to Offensive Content."

Keep in mind that this went out to over 300 members of the international drug policy community. She proves once again, that reformers are level headed, concerned citizens, that are always eager to debate and discuss drug policy with the intention of creating more effective policies while drug warriors often refuse to debate or even meet with reformers. Because the misinformation they spew only provides one leg to stand on, they often rely on the crutch of attacking their opponents integrity, credibility, and in this case, the many years of service they have provided by putting their lives on the line and fighting this drug war as law enforcement officers.

I leave you Jack Cole's response:

Answer to Calvina Fay’s accusations and statement of “facts”:

My name is Jack Cole. I am the executive director of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP). I am also a retired detectivelieutenant-26 years with the New Jersey State Police and 14 in their Narcotic Bureau, mostly undercover. I bear witness to the abject failure of the United States’ war on drugs and to the horrors produced by its unintended consequences.

In the last six years the current and former law-enforcers at LEAP have made more than 4,500 presentations on replacing the war on drugs with a system of legalized regulation of all drugs. This includes attending more than 35 national and international law-enforcement conferences. During that time our members have received nothing but respect from other law-enforcers, even those who do not yet agree with us. That is because we spent our entire careers trying to end drug abuse by using current policy. We have not changed our minds about wanting to end drug abuse, we have simply changed our minds about what policies will be effective in accomplishing that goal.

It is only from folks like yourself, Calvina, folks who never spent a minute as a law-enforcer, that we are rebuked with statements like, "These guys in the videos are EX-law enforcement for a reason!" (The reason is we finished our decades-long careers of protecting the citizens of our countries and retired).

Considering the fact that about 80 percent of the current law-enforcers who personally have spoken with us about this issue agree that the war on drugs is a failed policy, it is hard to reconcile your statement that "Hundreds of thousands of current law enforcement officials consider [us] a disgrace to the uniform."

As for getting facts straight, Calvina's “facts” are:

1. …enormous health problems with alcohol and tobacco because they are legal and socially acceptable.

Under the original prohibition, alcoholic products were no longer regulated, resulting in a 600 percent increase in alcohol poisonings treated in our hospitals. "Bath Tub Gin" caused people to go blind and die. Alcohol consumers not only increased in numbers but elevated their consumption to drinks containing more alcohol. In New York City the year before alcohol prohibition went into effect there were 15,000 salons but five years into Prohibition there were 32,000 speakeasies; saloons sold mainly beer, but Speakeasies sold almost exclusively hard liquor. Of course, we also had the highest rates of murder and corruption of public officials under Prohibition ever recorded in the United States-until, that is, the current Prohibition, where we have achieved levels of death, disease, crime, and addiction never before imagined possible.

(For tobacco see my last paragraph)

2. The U.S. may have a large prison population but, it is a much safer nation than most.

The below chart lists 29 countries for reported crimes per 1,000 population and the number of prisoners per 100,000 population. It appears that the United States rates behind 24 of those countries as far as safety from crime is concerned but it does rate number one for imprisoning our own people
3. Low level drug offenders are NOT sent to prison. They are sent to drug courts, community service, and treatment and put on probation.

The truth is, implementation of a policy of war on drugs is destroying people's lives. Police cast their nets so wide that many innocent people are caught in them. A car is stopped and five people are arrested because a bag containing a single serving of a hard drug or an ounce of marijuana (or less) is found under the seat; at least four of those arrestees may have been innocent. Innocent people die when police SWAT teams assault the wrong houses, but I'm sure Calvina would just see this as collateral damage in our drug war.

Even if I believed Calvina when she says, "low-level drug offenders are NOT sent to prison," drug courts are just one step removed from imprisonment, which comes when the probationer fails his or her urine test.

And arrest for nonviolent drug offenses are themselves terribly debilitating since the computerized arrest records track people for the rest of their lives, blocking their ability to be licensed by the state, their ability to be hired by many employers, their ability to attend colleges and universities, their ability to obtain apartments, their ability to travel from country to country, their ability to adopt children: basically their ability to have hope for the future.

4. The drug offenders who are serving time in prisons, BELONG there because they have committed serious crimes.

In fact, there are many people in prison who never committed a violent crime or for that matter any other crime than a drug-law violation. I put a lot of them there myself.

5. We could empty all of our prisons out if we legalized other crimes such as rape and murder, but most people would find that insane.

This is the kind of logic I expect from Calvina. There are two kinds of crime:, malum in se and malum prohibitum. The former refer to an act that is "wrong in itself." It is illegal because it violates the natural, moral or public principles of a civilized society. No one in their right mind would propose legalizing a malum in se crime.

An offence malum prohibitum, on the contrary, is not inherently evil, but becomes so as a result of being forbidden; as ingesting substances, "which being innocent before, have become unlawful in consequence of being forbidden."

Source: http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Malum+in+se

Ingesting drugs may be stupid and self-destructive. But neither the drugs nor the user are thereby rendered evil—as are rapists and murderers. To confuse the two types of crime, to equate intoxication and rape tells us a great deal about the person making that claim—but nothing useful about the crimes.

6. Drug use has been reduced dramatically in the U.S. since the 70s -at one point reduced by greater than 50%.

According to DEA, before the war was implemented in 1970, there were 4million people in the United States above the age of 12 who had used an illegal drug (2 percent of that population) but by 2003, DEA was telling us there were 112 million people above the age of 12 who had used an illegal drug (46 percent of that population). Somehow that does not sound like a 50%reduction.

Specific drugs do in fact go in and out of fashion, and when a particular drug falls into disfavor, people like Calvina claim that the War on Drugs is “working.” When drug use rises, they claim we need more troops. But overall, it is ludicrous to associate the tactics of this War with anything resembling success.

7. LEAP, would be better served to help us reduce the supply and the demand for drugs in the world.

Legalized regulation of all drugs would reduce supply and demand for drugs. Legalization would remove the artificially inflated value of illicit drugs, which can increase from source country to sale country by more than 17,000percent! Those drugs come from weeds that will grow anywhere and are worthless until we prohibit them. Then marijuana becomes worth more than gold and heroin more than plutonium. If those drugs were legal their value would drop to the point that drug dealers would not find it worthwhile to sell them on the street or induce others to become addicted to guarantee a customer.

Further, prohibition guarantees that the best way to reduce demand among the addicted—treatment—is not only underfunded but frightening to those who fear that acknowledging their addiction will lead to punitive state action.

8. Science clearly shows that drugs are harmful and therefore, no matter how you sugar-coat it, there is no justifiable reason for making them socially acceptable and easier for people to use and harm themselves as well as put the rest of us at risk with their irresponsible behavior.

I don’t want to get into a "good drug-bad drug" debate with Calvina. Suffice it to say that drugs should not be legalized because they are harmless. Indeed, the more dangerous the drug, the more reason to legalize it because we can't regulate and control anything that is illegal.

Currently the control and regulation of illicit drugs is in the hands of criminals and terrorists. They tell us what drugs will be supplied to our communities, how much will be supplied, how potent it will be, what it will be cut with, what age groups it will be sold to, and where it will be sold. If the criminal wants to sell heroin laced with Fentanyl to ten-year-olds on our playgrounds, that is what will (and does) happen. You have to ask yourself why our children tell us it is easier for them to buy illegal drugs than it is to buy beer and cigarettes. You also have to ask yourself why, according to DEA, there are 900,000 teenagers in the United States selling illegal drugs-but not one selling beer or cigarettes. Legalized regulation removes those drugs from the realm of our children, whether for use or as a business, and places it in legitimate businesses run by and for adults.

Moreover, legalizing drugs does not equate with making them socially acceptable. Tobacco, even though widely promoted and highly addictive, has been made far less socially acceptable through education and regulation. Cigarette use rates are falling faster among our youth than illegal marijuana use rates. In fact, the 50 percent decrease in the overall use of nicotine, the most addictive social drug known, has been the only success story in a hundred years of United States drug policy. The point LEAP makes is that we didn’t have to arrest or imprison a single user or distributor of nicotine in order to achieve this wonderful success story and we didn’t spend well over a trillion tax dollars in the process. There are better ways to spend our taxes than continuing the failed policy of a war on drugs.

Peace,
Jack

If it might work, Drug War policy makers probably won't give it a try

Gulab Mangal, the governor of an Afghani province, Helmand, wants to try a new approach to controlling opium poppies in his land. Helmand is the largest poppy producing province in Afghanistan, a lot of which goes to fund groups such as the Taliban and Al-Qaeda. He wants to stop the farmers from planting poppies, rather than destroy it once they plant it. His plan involves actively working with the farmers in his region to provide them with the seeds and training needed to grow new crops and improving their road systems so that farmers are actually able to get their product to the market.

To me, this seems like a pretty effective way of reducing heroin production, if that is your goal. One might think this would be a program the US would really want to get behind.

So far, Mangal has secured over $8 million from the United States and Britain for seeds and fertilizer for 26,000 farmers, as well as for a public information campaign to let farmers know of his plans. But just weeks before the planting season, he was still fretting that they would not arrive in time.

"Four months ago I raised my voice, but we have been delayed by bureaucracy," he said. "We have to get to the farmers within one month."

The US funneled hundreds of millions of dollars a year into Plan Colombia, which consisted primarily of aerial fumigation tactics and other military-like activities. The best we could come up with is $8 million between us and Britain?

I’m not advocating spending more money (any money, actually) on eradicating potentially intoxicating crops. I’m merely pointing out that this Afghan governor most likely knows the farmers in the area better than the US government. He has a plan that is much like policies many activist and scholars have been arguing for in coca producing areas since Plan Colombia began and before, and yet the White House continues to push for a similar eradication plan for Afghanistan.

Yet more proof that the US War on Drugs is illogical and destructive at its very core.