Whack-a-mole vs legalization: Save a cop's life: end the drug war

Save a cop's life: end the drug war - baltimoresun.com: "We don't need another task force. We don't need to redouble the efforts that have led to almost 35,000 deaths in Mexico since the end of 2006 and countless others here in the U.S., where we don't even attempt to tally those killed in illegal drug wars.

What we desperately need is to end this 'war on drugs' which has done so little to prevent people from using drugs but which has done so much to enrich organized criminals who do not hesitate to use violence to protect their black market profits.

What we need is pure honesty from Attorney General Holder and his colleagues in Washington and in our state capitals. We need our elected officials to summon the collective maturity and political integrity to acknowledge what millions of Americans have known for a long time: The war on drugs has failed, it has made our drug problems much worse and it can never be won.

That's because the root cause of last month's violence in Mexico and West Virginia is drug prohibition, not the molecules that people ingest. There is no level of law enforcement commitment, skill or courage that can ever eliminate obscenely profitable, tax-free drug markets that deliver prized commodities to millions of people."


OpEd by Neill Franklin, executive director of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (www.copssaylegalizedrugs.com), who did narcotics enforcement with the Maryland State Police and the Baltimore Police Department over a 34-year career.