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U.S., Canadian Cops: "End drug prohibition!"
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| Dopey |
http://www.canada.com/theprovince/n...90-5880e1fc3fe2
| quote: | End drug prohibition, Canada, U.S. cops say
The Canadian Press
Published: Sunday, April 15, 2007
It's a familiar scene on TV newscasts: wads of cash, rows of guns and bags full of drugs displayed neatly on a table by police officers posing by their latest set of trophies.
But some former law-enforcement officials in Canada and the U.S. who have spent years fighting the ongoing war on drugs say it's a losing battle.
Their views about how prohibition has failed to make a dent in the drug supply, while millions of dollars continue to be wasted on criminalizing recreational drug users, are told in the National Film Board documentary Damage Done: The Drug War Odyssey.
It premiered in Victoria yesterday, and will be shown today at Vancouver International Film Centre on Seymour Street at 12:30 p.m. It will air on Global TV April 28.
Most officers featured in the film are part of a growing U.S.-based organization called LEAP -- Law Enforcement Against Prohibition -- which also includes corrections officers, retired and sitting judges and prosecutors.
Mike Smithson, a spokesman for LEAP, said from Medford, Mass., that about 330 of the organization's 7,000 international members are Canadians.
They include Sen. Larry Campbell, a former RCMP drug squad officer and Vancouver mayor who ran on a platform of reducing harm from drug use.
Campbell, whose views are featured in the film, said in an interview that drug laws need to be reformed so addiction is treated as a health issue exacerbated by problems like poverty, homelessness and mental illness.
He said his law-and-order stance as a Mountie changed radically when he became Vancouver's chief coroner in 1996 and saw the devastating effects of drug overdoses.
"When I really took a hard look at it, I realized that what we were doing was not saving lives. In fact, we were seeing the deaths increase . . .[Now] my position is, we legalize marijuana and we tax the living hell out of it -- and we put all of the money we get from it back into health care," he said of B.C.'s $8-billion-a-year industry. |
About ing time. What will gangs sell when drugs are legal? Prostitution? Alright what about when that's legal? What do gangs sell in Holland? I guess there it's profitable to sell to neighboring countries, but if Canada and the states legalize everything, who are gangs going to sell to? |
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