Former cop endorses drug legalization

Drug war called a failure in talk at Princeton University

By: Marjorie Censer
   Former New Jersey State Policeman Jack Cole calls the war on drugs a failure — and says legalization would allow for better control of the products and less violence.
   Mr. Cole spent 26 years in the State Police, much of that time in the narcotics division. During the course of his tenure, he said the drug problem in the United States grew far more serious — even as law enforcement’s war on drugs escalated.
   In a talk delivered Wednesday in Princeton University’s Frist Campus Center, Mr. Cole criticized the actions of police, admitting that he himself "fudged statistics" during his time as a policeman.
   "We didn’t just lie about the weights of drugs" we seized, he said. "We also lied about the values."
   Mr. Cole, founder and executive director of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, said police highly publicized drug seizures and made them look more significant than they actually were, consequently drawing more people into the drug trade.
   Simultaneously, he explained, drugs became more dangerous as their price fell while their purity increased. For instance, the cost of getting high once from heroin was roughly $3.90 in 1980, but it had dropped to 80 cents by 1999, Mr. Cole said.
   He emphasized that the problems associated with drugs are primarily the result of prohibition — rather than of drugs themselves. For example, the reason people die of overdoses, Mr. Cole explained, is that they use a "hotshot," or a hit of heroin that is not diluted enough.
   "It is a function of drug prohibition," he said. "When you prohibit something, you cannot regulate or control how it’s produced."
   In addition, he noted, the illegality of drugs has resulted in more violence — between dealers and between police and dealers.
   Mr. Cole said the war on drugs has resulted in arrests of infrequent or one-time users and destroyed lives that could have been successful. He noted that many political leaders, including former President Bill Clinton, have now admitted they used drugs.
   "All those folks used drugs and hopefully put them behind them and went on to have good productive lives — depending on your politics," he said.
   But Mr. Cole said he could accept the destructiveness of the policy — if he felt drug use was decreasing as a result.
   "It’s the longest war in the history of the United States," he said of the war on drugs. "What do we have to show for it?"
   He said drug use is more prevalent than ever — noting that teenagers say it is easier to buy illegal drugs than to buy alcohol or cigarettes.
   Mr. Cole outlined a plan for drug legalization under which the federal government would produce the drugs and distribute free maintenance doses to anyone who requested them. The money saved from no longer enforcing prohibition would be redirected, he said, to programs "that offer hope for the future." The funding could be spent on rehabilitation centers, education, health care, job training and housing, among other options.
   Mr. Cole assured audience members that legalizing drugs would not create "a nation of drugged-out zombies." He said that drug users can receive free doses from the government in Switzerland and Holland — and those users tended to be more likely to quit, because they established relationships with the people who provided the drugs. In the same buildings where drugs were available were counselors who could help users quit and find jobs.
   Legalization is worth a shot, he said, because it’s clear that the war on drugs has been a failure.
   "If it didn’t work out, couldn’t we always go back to prohibition?" he asked.