OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — A national group of current and retired law enforcement and legal personnel wants to end the war on drugs by legalizing them.
Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, or LEAP, has put up a billboard in Oklahoma City that reads: “Drug Abuse is Bad. The Drug War is Worse.”
“We’re all calling for an end to drug prohibition. We want to end it just like we ended alcohol prohibition in 1933,” said Jack Cole, LEAP’s executive director and a retired undercover narcotics officer from New Jersey.
“The day after we ended that nasty law, Al Capone and all of his smuggling buddies were out of business.”
LEAP boasts roughly 13,000 members, among them 102 in Oklahoma; only 11 of the state’s members have law enforcement experience. Cole said the reason for this ad campaign is to open the public’s eyes to the true cost of the war on drugs.
Mark Woodward, spokesman for the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs, said legalizing and regulating drugs would cause more problems than it would solve.
“It’s frightening and reckless that a group of law enforcement officers would endorse something like that,” Woodward said.
“Look at what happened when we legalized alcohol and prescription drugs. Now they’re the two most abused substances globally.”
According to the Office of National Drug Control Policy, President Barack Obama called for $14.1 billion to support the war on drugs for the 2009 fiscal year.
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Information from: The Oklahoman, http://www.newsok.com
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