"Over 11,000 people are killed in the Mexican Drug War." We greet news like this with horror; as we should.
Why don't we have a tally of those killed North of that border?
"Isn't that strange? So far as I can tell, nobody has even tried to come up with a number.
6,487 dead Americans. Throw in overdoses and the cost of this country's paralyzing drug laws is closer to 15,000 lives." (Yes, 4,000 more American deaths per year than Mexico)
So, what caused Neill Franklin, a self-described "good soldier" in the Drug War, to research about legalizing all drugs?
"Franklin's turning point came in October of 2000. "I lost a very, very close friend of mine, a narcotics agent for Maryland State Police," he says. "His name was Ed Toatley. He was assassinated outside of Washington, D.C., trying to make a drug deal in a park. He had a wife, he had three kids. I had just spoken to him a couple of weeks prior to him getting assigned to this particular deal — he was finally going to bring this guy down, and lo and behold the guy kills him."
Definitely makes you think, doesn't it?
"Another turning point was 2002, when Angela Dawson and her five kids were murdered in East Baltimore by drug dealers. She had been trying to keep (them) from doing business in front of her house. "They fire-bombed the house late one night and the whole family perished," Franklin remembers."
"I started doing the research and asking the questions: What progress are we making on this thing? And it turns out that not only are we losing kids who are in the game, but we are losing communities and fellow cops. We had lost a number of police officers in Baltimore alone."
"I (the author) arrived at a rough estimate of 6,487 drug deaths. Using 75 percent, the toll rises to 9,731."
"And now we've got the cartel gangs coming up from Mexico," Franklin reminds me. "They're in over 130 cities in the U.S. already, and it's not going to get better."
There IS a solution, but.....
Neill Franklin's solution is radical: "You have to take the money out of it.
(Sounds simple. How would you do that?)
The ONLY way to do that is to legalize all drugs!
(I will give you a minute so that you can get that "HELL NO" out.)
Hear me out..
Make drug abuse a health issue, not a crime issue.
"Most drug-related prisoners are in prison for non-violent offenses. " In fact, non-violent offenders make up OVER half of all prison population.
Like Franklin says; "I do have sympathy. What they're dealing with is a health issue, not a criminal issue. And as long as you treat it as a criminal issue, we're treating the SYMPTOM and NOT the CAUSE."
"And WHY, exactly, don't we hear about a possibly overwhelming majority of police wanting to legalize — not just decriminalize, but legalize — major narcotics?"
"Selfish reasons," Franklin says. "There is a lot of money to be made in law enforcement. If we were to legalize, you could get rid of ONE THIRD of every law-enforcement agency in this country."
"Really? ONE THIRD?"
"And give back all the federal funds too. That's why very seldom will you see a police chief step forward and say, 'Yeah, we need to do this.'"
(They don't want to cut their own throats; financially, by legalizing. Why would they? This is a system gone bad for EVERYONE, folks.)
"The prison population is off the hook in this country," Franklin says. "In 1993, at the HEIGHT OF APARTHEID in South Africa, the incarceration of black males was 870 per 100,000. In 2004 in the U.S., for every 100,000 people we are sending 4,919 black males to prison. (We send many times more black males to prison, every year, than they did during Apartheid, in South Africa!)
And the majority of those are for nonviolent drug offenses."
"But, we'd rather send people to prison than give them information and treatment."
"I know jails are a big business and keep LOT of people employed, but it doesn't make it RIGHT."
(Emphasis is mine.)
"To review, using what seem to be very conservative numbers, our first unofficial tally of the drug war in the United States is staggering:
15,223 DEAD and $52.3 BILLION spent EACH YEAR — which is, incidentally, (and a bit ironically)
ALMOST ENOUGH TO PAY FOR UNIVERSAL HEALTHCARE."
Now, isn't THAT just a kick in the pants?
p.s. "We've got serious constitutional issues involved, too," Franklin adds. "Improper search and seizure is occurring every day (because of the Drug War)....."
But, that's a subject for another day..
http://www.esquire.com/the-side/richardson-report/drug-war-facts-090109?src=digg
