FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: July 28, 2010

CONTACT: Tom Angell - (202) 557-4979 or media//at//leap//dot//cc

New Head of Pro-Legalization Police Group Praises Congressional Actions Against "War on Drugs"

Former Baltimore Cop Saw Colleagues Killed in "Drug War"

WASHINGTON, DC -- As the U.S. House passed separate bills this week to scale back penalties for crack cocaine and to create a commission to reconsider the entire "war on drugs," a group of pro-legalization police officers, judges and prosecutors announced that it has hired a former Baltimore narcotics cop as its new executive director.

Neill Franklin, a 33-year police veteran who led multi-jurisdictional anti-narcotics task forces for the Maryland State Police and training for the Baltimore Police Department, officially took the helm of the legalization group, Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP), on July 1.

"The 'war on drugs' has done nothing to reduce drug use," said Franklin. "But this failed prohibition policy has achieved some results: far too many cops killed in action, billions of tax dollars wasted, powerful and well-funded drug cartels and out-of-control violence in our cities. It's great to see our elected representatives finally beginning to address these problems, but there's still a lot more work to be done."

The pro-legalization criminal justice professionals of LEAP are working to change the current debate about the "war on drugs" to help more people understand that current drug policies harm public safety and that only by legalizing and regulating drugs can we actually control them and thereby reduce death, disease, crime and addiction.

To that end, LEAP is actively organizing cops, judges and prosecutors who are campaigning for Proposition 19, the statewide marijuana legalization initiative on California's ballot this November. Representatives of the organization's 100-member speakers bureau have also testified for drug policy reform measures in recent months in places like the District of Columbia, Hawaii, Iowa, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Virginia and Washington.

"When my good friend Ed Toatley was killed in the line of fire during an undercover drug purchase, Maryland lost one of the best narcotics cops in our state's history," said Franklin.  "It is in his honor, and in the names of all the good cops whose lives have needlessly been lost in this failed 'drug war,' that I will work with LEAP to change these deadly drug laws."

On Tuesday the House passed H.R. 5143, which would create a blue ribbon commission to study the criminal justice system from top to bottom and recommend reforms.  Sen. Jim Webb, sponsor of the Senate companion bill, said that the commission should study drug legalization. On Wednesday, the House passed S. 1789, which would lower the disparity between sentences for crack cocaine and powder cocaine from it's current 100-to-1 ratio down to 18-to-1. That bill unanimously passed the Senate in March.

Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP) and its 30,000 supporters represent police, prosecutors, judges, FBI/DEA agents, US marshals and others from around the world who want to legalize and regulate all drugs after fighting on the front lines of the "war on drugs" and learning firsthand that prohibition only serves to worsen addiction and violence.  More info at http://www.CopsSayLegalizeDrugs.com.

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The one year anniversary of the new LEAP blog is coming up soon (August 17th). Lots of blogs don't even last a month so I'm glad we've managed to stick around. It's hard to believe how fast the time has passed! LEAP speakers have published over 310 posts resulting in over 60,675 unique visitors. There have been over 100,000 page views.

The blog has developed a group of regular visitors who frequently leave comments. I am very grateful to you - the readers - who have helped to develop a sense of community around the LEAP organization and everything that it stands for.

I am looking for some ideas about how we can celebrate. I would like to do another book giveaway contest but I am open to other ideas as well. If anyone has any suggestions please post them in the comment section. Thanks!

Here is the final video in LEAP's three part parody of the Mac vs. PC ads:

A friend of mine has just written a very insightful article about Calderón's War on Drugs. You can read it here.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: July 22, 2010
CONTACT: Tom Angell - (202) 557-4979 or media//at//leap//dot//cc

Federal Drug Agency Bans Pro-Legalization Police Group From Conference

SAMHSA Doesn't Want Views Expressed at Treatment Event in Chicago

CHICAGO, IL -- A group of police officers, judges and prosecutors who support legalizing and regulating drugs is crying foul after a federal agency reneged on a contract that gave the law enforcers a booth to share their anti-prohibition views at a government-sponsored treatment conference in Chicago next week.

After accepting registration payment from Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP), the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration initially told the police group that it was canceling its booth at the National Conference on Women, Addiction and Recovery because of overbooking and space concerns.  However, Sharon Amatetti of SAMHSA's Center for Substance Abuse Treatment later informed LEAP that, in a decision rising all the way to SAMHSA Administrator Pamela Hyde's office, the group was actually being disinvited for its viewpoint.

"It's alarming that the federal government is trying to silence the voices of front-line police officers who just want to network and collaborate with treatment professionals to achieve our shared goal of preventing substance abuse through effective public policy," said Neill Franklin, a former narcotics cop with the Maryland State Police and Baltimore Police Department who is now executive director of LEAP. "Perhaps the administration was most concerned that LEAP's law enforcers planned to shine a spotlight on the fact that under President Obama, the White House's drug control budget maintains the same two-to-one funding ratio in favor of harsh enforcement tactics over effective public health approaches."

On a phone call with LEAP, Pamela Rodriguez of conference co-host TASC, Inc. of Illinois said that the police group wasn't welcome at the event because "our policy perspective and our policy objectives are different from you guys."  She added, "It is the emphasis on prohibition vs. legalization that, for me at least, is the glaring dissonance with regard to our agenda."

SAMHSA has since refunded LEAP's money.  The conference takes place July 26-28 at Chicago's Downtown Magnificent Mile Marriott Hotel.

Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP) and its 30,000 supporters represent police, prosecutors, judges, FBI/DEA agents and others who want to legalize and regulate drugs after fighting on the front lines of the "war on drugs" and learning firsthand that prohibition only serves to worsen addiction and violence. Info at http://www.CopsSayLegalizeDrugs.com.

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A couple of days ago I did a brief three minute interview with Marcia MacMillan from CTV News. We talked about the Vienna Declaration and the fact that drug prohibition is fuelling the AIDS epidemic. This was my first live news interview so I tried to give my best talking head impression. :-)

Chávez Chávez, the head of the PGR (the Attorney General’s office for Mexico) has publicly stated that Mexicans should not worry, there is no narco-terrorism, despite the use of a cell-phone operated car bomb used to ambush police and emergency workers in Juárez.
In one aspect, Chávez Chávez is correct, the use of the car bomb in this instance was not strictly a terrorist act, if we refer to the definition provided by Princeton University: "the calculated use of violence (or the threat of violence) against civilians in order to attain goals that are political or religious or ideological in nature; this is done through intimidation or coercion or instilling fear" (wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn).

But, according to this definition, the cartels are engaged in terrorist acts throughout all of the country, which is evident to anyone who has been following the escalating violence, the bodies hanging from bridges, hand grenades thrown into crowds of party-goers, faces stitched to soccer balls and left in public parks, and the kidnappings, killings and torture of any and all who get in the way (whether in their own homes or at private functions). Terrorism is a loaded term, especially with all that has happened all over the world in the last decade, but refusing to acknowledge what is, in fact, happening will not make it go away and only further diminishes what little credibility the Mexican government has.

On another note, under the freedom of information act, the national newspaper "El Universal" has revealed that, since the beginning of Calderón's War, 208 Federal Police officers have been killed in the line of duty. The following break down parallels the escalating violence in Mexico from the war on drugs:
2006 - 1   death
2007 - 11 deaths
2008 - 63 deaths
2009 - 75 deaths
2010 - 53 deaths (from January to June)

These statistics cover only the Federal Police and does not include State Police or Municipal Police officers (who make up nearly 95% of the police force in Mexico and have less training, inferior equipment and more contact with the narcos and thus a higher body count, although statistics have not been released).


For a map of the killings: click: Narco-killings

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