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Recently, the 15,000 member strong National Black Police Association endorsed Proposition 19, the California ballot initiative that proposes to legalize, regulate, and tax marijuana. Neill Franklin, the executive director Law Enforcement Against Prohibition and a retired African American police officer with over 30 years of experience in law enforcement appeared on MSNBC to discuss the endorsement.
Franklin summed up the biggest problem with our war on marijuana in one word: “Violence.” Explaining why he and other police offices supports marijuana legalization:
Primarily, violence in this country. The cartels are now in over 200 cities in our country–with that comes violence. We have our neighborhood gangs–with that comes violence. And it is all attributed to prohibition of drugs in this country. And in order to eliminate that violence and harm we have to end our war on drugs.
The money from illegal drugs has been providing a large and dependable financial pipeline to violent criminal organizations including American gangs and international drug cartels. In the last several years, the drug cartels in Mexico have killed over 28,000 people. By legalizing marijuana, it would deprive these criminal enterprises of a huge source of their funding.
Franklin pointed out that roughly three-quarters of all Americans think our current drug policy has failed, and now is the time for a debate about a new direction at both the state and federal level.
The problem with our war on marijuana isn’t limited to violence. It is a waste of resources that could be better spent elsewhere, and the enforcement of our marijuana laws has always been disproportionately detrimental and unfair to African Americans. As Ron Hampton, the executive director of the National Black Police Association, explained when laying out reasons for their endorsement of Prop 19 (via the LA Times):
“It means that we will be locking up less African American men and women and children who are using drugs,” said Hampton, a retired Washington, D.C., police officer with 25 years experience. “We’ve got more people in prison. We’ve got more young people in prison. Blacks go to jail more than whites for doing the same thing.”
Hampton said that the money being spent on the war on drugs could be better spent on education, housing and creating jobs. “It just seemed like to me that we have been distracted in this whole thing,” he said. “We can take that money, and focus and concentrate on things that really make a difference in our community.”
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Now! isn’t soon enough. It is time for the US to get smart.
More of this fine spokesman, please. Excellent presentation and swell on-screen presence.
Voices of the sane. Hope we have more of them. This is a very important issue and I think people are beginning to realize it.
We’ve decriminalized it here in Mass. but it still has to be bought on the black market.
And the folks that are selling it aren’t paying any tax on it.
Full legalization along with regulation is the answer .
Shit, right now, it’s easier for a 13 year old to get bud, than it is to get cigarettes.
What Teddy said !
most excellent
Hear, hear! I agree. Thanks for the post. Nice to see/hear something rational for a change.
Teddy, I want to give you a heads up:
National Conference for NORML is in PDX this year. Coming up soon September 9-11.
This is such an important endorsement! I’m so happy!
Now we need to empower the Mexicans to push legalization through. Right now its a dog and pony show in Mexico. We can push this through, help Washington and Oregon and then help the Mexicans.
I don’t smoke but I would eat pot brownies or cakes, why not?
C’mon let’s get high, who ever shot or killed anybody with the munchies?
We can either ask the Tooth Fairy to stop people taking drugs or we can decide to regulate them properly. Prohibition is not regulation, it’s a hideous nightmare for all of us and our families, except of course for the lowest lifeforms amongst us.
Because Drug cartels will always have an endless supply of ready cash for wages, bribery and equipment, no amount of tax money, police powers, weaponry, wishful thinking or pseudo-science will make our streets safe again. Only an end to prohibition can do that! How much longer are we willing to foolishly risk our own survival by continuing to ignore the obvious, historically confirmed solution?
Debating whether a particular drug is harmless or not is missing the whole point. Is marijuana dangerous? I simply don’t care if it is or isn’t. If someone wants to destroy their lives with drugs, thats their business, not anybody else’s. Their lives aren’t ours to direct. We can certainly voice an opposition to drug use… but who are we to imprison people over it? which ultimately we do if we support prohibition.
Why on earth does anyone think it’s acceptable to want to control certain behaviors, such as the bedroom habits or choice of poison of fully grown adults? Isn’t it high time we evolved enough to get past this crap? Surely we need to accept, that the only way to truly be free, is that you agree, in return, to allow other people to be free, even if it offends your personal sensibilities. What’s more; if it’s not directly hurting you and you forbid it, then you can be sure that it will create unforeseen circumstances, which WILL have an adverse affect on YOUR wellbeing! — Actually, a large proportion of those arising circumstances may not come as such a surprise to those of us who are capable of paying due attention to historical precedent.
If you support prohibition then you’ve helped trigger the worst crime wave in history.
If you support prohibition you’ve a helped create a black market with massive incentives to hook both adults and children alike.
If you support prohibition you’ve helped to make these dangerous substances available in schools and prisons.
If you support prohibition you’ve helped raise gang warfare to a level not seen since the days of alcohol bootlegging.
If you support prohibition you’ve helped create the prison-for-profit synergy with drug lords.
If you support prohibition you’ve helped remove many important civil liberties from those citizens you falsely claim to represent.
If you support prohibition you’ve helped put previously unknown and contaminated drugs on the streets.
If you support prohibition you’ve helped to escalate Theft, Muggings and Burglaries.
If you support prohibition you’ve helped to divert scarce law-enforcement resources away from protecting your fellow citizens from the ever escalating violence against their person or property.
If you support prohibition you’ve helped overcrowd the courts and prisons, thus making it increasingly impossible to curtail the people who are hurting and terrorizing others.
If you support prohibition you’ve helped evolve local gangs into transnational enterprises with intricate power structures that reach into every corner of society, controlling vast swaths of territory with significant social and military resources at their disposal.
Malcolm, your examples are all theoretical. In real life they don’t work.
Right now we can keep a medical marijuana worker on a construction site from smoking marijuana on his smoke breaks because its still illegal federally. We don’t want him driving a heavy forklift or hanging off the side of a tall building in a harness. This is a real situation that construction companies have to deal with, not your theories.
Stop the crime and the suppression of farmers in Latin America by convincing people to stop taking illegal drugs. They are only contributing to military dictatorships and our drug cartels who may include the CIA.
From the heart of every drug cartel tell out there they thank you for the billions of dollars that you want to keep in their pockets. As a matter of fact have a beer on your smoke break and get back to work.
In other words, “Just Say No” has been such a spectacular success we should do more of that.