Police That Dare To Question Drug War Risk Their Jobs

By James Donahue

The powers imposing the nation’s failed War on Drugs have apparently become so militant in their insistence on maintaining this highly profitable façade that the people hired to enforce the “war” are expected to behave like zombies when dealing with drug traffickers and users.

Officers that dare to even question the tough enforcement of the federal anti-marijuana law, even in states where voters have approved marijuana for medical use, have been fired for just speaking out, a report in the New York Times has revealed.

An organization, Law Enforcement Against Probation (LEAP), consisting mostly of fired and retired police officers that are in a position to speak out without worrying about losing their jobs, has sprung up. Its primary purpose appears to be to help promote the decriminalization of marijuana.

The Times story noted that former Arizona probation officer Joe Miller, fired for just adding his name to a LEAP letter supporting the legalization of marijuana in California, has filed suit against Mohave County in Federal District Court. His case is backed by the American Civil Liberties Union of Arizona.

The state ACLU director, Daniel Pochoda, explained that “more and more members of the law enforcement community are speaking out against failed drug policies, and they don’t give up their right to share their insight and engage in this important debate simply because they receive government paychecks.”

Those officers that have some degree of intelligence are clearly seeing that marijuana should not be included among the list of prohibited substances cited by the government. While the plant contains the substance THC, which slightly alters the mental state of the user, the substance is considered less harmful than alcohol or nicotine, which are both legal. If anything, THC has been determined in scientific studies to have a variety of medical benefits.

We have never heard of a fight that has ever broken out among a number of people after smoking marijuana, or of serious automobile accidents directly caused by a driver having used this substance.

Yet police continue to arrest people for growing, handling, selling and using marijuana. The jails and prisons are filled with people convicted of their involvement in the production and use of this relatively harmless plant.

It is the mass production, transportation and sale of marijuana that has sparked the deadly clashes between rival gangs at the Mexican/American border.

LEAP members, and other officers that dare not speak out for fear of losing their jobs, clearly understand the wisdom in legalizing marijuana. The public is demanding it. And its legalization would not only reduce the high cost of arresting and containing prisoners in the United States but cool the border wars. Its legalization also would mean some badly needed new tax revenues to state and local treasuries.

All of this is just common sense, based upon everything we now know about marijuana. But America does not seem to be a nation with leaders that practice common sense anymore.