Dear LEAP Supporter:

On Tuesday, December 2, Law Enforcement Against Prohibition kicked off the ‘We Can Do It Again’ project, marking the 75th anniversary of alcohol prohibition’s repeal (December 5) by calling for an end to drug prohibition. At a press conference in Washington, DC, LEAP released a new report explaining how ending the war on drugs will put dangerous traffickers out of business and will help our economy by billions of dollars.

As the new Congress addresses the current economic crisis, we don't want them to believe that we support the status quo. We want Congress to know the war on drugs is a failure. We want them to change drug laws and stop arresting people for nonviolent drug-related crimes. Law Enforcement Against Prohibition is making it easy for our supporters to tell Congress and state law makers what we think.

For the next two weeks, you can send a letter to your members of Congress and state law makers at www.WeCanDoItAgain.com . Please act now. Visit www.WeCanDoItAgain.com, and please post or forward this message to as many people as you can!

As always, thank you for your support of LEAP.

Under existing Dutch policy, licensed marijuana coffee shops can sell their wares to consumers, but have no legal means of obtaining those wares.

On Tuesday, December 2, a group of law enforcers who fought on the front lines of the "war on drugs" and witnessed its failures will commemorate the 75th anniversary of alcohol prohibition's repeal by

NEWS ADVISORY: November 24, 2008
CONTACT: Tom Angell, LEAP - (202) 557-4979 or media@leap.cc

Cops Say Legalizing Drugs Can Boost Economy by Billions

75th Anniversary of Alcohol Prohibition's End Inspires Modern Effort

WASHINGTON, D.C. - On Tuesday, December 2, a group of law enforcers who fought on the front lines of the "war on drugs" and witnessed its failures will commemorate the 75th anniversary of alcohol prohibition's repeal by calling for drug legalization. The cops, judges and prosecutors will release a report detailing how many billions of dollars can be used to boost the ailing economy when drug prohibition is ended.

"America's leaders had the good sense to realize that we couldn't afford to keep enforcing the ineffective prohibition of alcohol during the Great Depression," said Terry Nelson, a 30-year veteran federal agent and member of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP). "Now, cops fighting on the front lines of today's 'war on drugs' are working to make our streets safer and help solve our economic crisis by teaching lawmakers a lesson from history about the failure of prohibition. We can do it again."

WHO: Federal agents, street cops, detectives, corrections officials and a Harvard economist

WHAT: Release of "We Can Do It Again" report on benefits of repealing drug prohibition

WHEN: Tuesday, December 2, 2008 @ 10:00 AM

WHERE: National Press Club; Zenger Room; 529 14th Street, NW; 13th Fl.;

Washington, DC

***phone press conference also available***

"We Can Do It Again: Repealing Today's Failed Prohibition," highlights how the "war on drugs" - just like alcohol prohibition - subsidizes violent gangsters, endangers public health and diminishes public respect for the rule of law. The report also details how the newer prohibition comes with the much graver threat of international cartels and terrorists who profit from illegal drug sales. Yet, it leaves readers on a hopeful note.

"We're starting to see an emerging consensus that drug prohibition just doesn't make sense," said Seattle's retired Police Chief Norm Stamper, a LEAP member. "Three out of four Americans now say the 'war on drugs' has failed, and so do the U.S. Conference of Mayors, the National Black Caucus of State Legislators and the National Hispanic Caucus of State Legislators. Now, it's up to the new administration and Congress to follow through."

More information about LEAP and a copy of the report will be uploaded at http://www.WeCanDoItAgain.com/

# # #

This month's national elections are over, but marijuana reformers in Colorado are taking no breaks.

Municipal elections in British Columbia Saturday saw Vancouver get another in a string of pro-drug reform mayors, while a marijuana reformer was returned to the mayor's office in Grand Forks in the

Let me say right up front that Marc Emery sometimes pays me money to write articles for his magazine, Cannabis Culture, so I am not a comp

An initiative that would have provided for the nation's first legal, regulated sale of marijuana for personal use is on hold.

With the November 4 elections now less than two weeks away, most people, drug reformers included, are focused on the near term.

UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) executive director Antonio Maria Costa used the occasion of the October 8 meeting of Ministers Responsible for Public Safety in Mexico City to again blame the d

During a conference in Tegucigalpa bringing together UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) officials and drug ministers from 32 Latin American and Caribbean nations, the conference host,

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The annual marijuana harvest season each fall brings increased discussion of the hopeless process of eradicating outdoor marijuana crops on public land. Growers are damaging precious natural resources and their livelihood continues unabated even as police achieve record marijuana seizures each year.

Fortunately, the Marijuana Policy Project has introduced the only plan that could possibly address the problem:

SAN FRANCISCO -- Recent alarming reports of environmental damage caused by illegal marijuana farms in national forests and wilderness areas in California and elsewhere show that an entirely new approach is needed in order to solve the problem, officials of the Marijuana Policy Project said today.

"Year after year we hear from law enforcement and U.S. Forest Service officials about growing environmental damage caused by these criminal operations, even as law enforcement seizures of marijuana plants set new records every year," said Bruce Mirken, MPP's California-based director of communications. "What we've been doing is plainly not working and has actually caused the problem in the first place. It's time to get off the treadmill and try a new approach."

Seriously. Who in their right mind could possibly contend that we are on pace to bring this mess under control? For decades, cops in combat fatigues have been rappelling from helicopters armed with industrial strength hedge-clippers and for what? Marijuana is the number one cash crop in America and that isn’t going to change no matter how many police we send off on these ridiculous drug war nature hikes.

Californians should be allowed to grow marijuana on their own property for all the same reasons that they are currently permitted to grow grapes and make wine.

More than half of Dutch judges surveyed by the newsweekly Vrij Nederland think marijuana should be legalized, according to a repor

Yesterday I noted Cato Unbound’s online discussion series surrounding the terrific article Towards a Culture of Responsible Psychoactive Drug Use. Cato has now published the first in a series of responses, entitled Is Responsible Drug Use Possible? by Jonathan Caulkins. I had a hard time with it.

As noted by Pete Guither at DrugWarRant, the whole thing begins with a cavalier dismissal of what Caulkins calls the "by-now dull legalization debate," which just made me cringe. It’s not just that I support legalization, or even that I would still willingly debate it if I didn’t. Rather, I’m just amazed that Caulkins has shown up today to write about drug policy on the Cato website if he finds the drug policy debate boring.

Think about how silly that is. The whole point of this online discussion is to bring together experts to share differing views on drug use and the policies surrounding it. Is Caulkins going to get bored when he reads Jacob Sullum’s upcoming contribution to this same discussion? Will he excuse himself from subsequent dialogue when the conversation inevitably turns towards the efficacy of prohibition itself? I assume not, but his word choices beg these questions and it truly escapes me why he would feign disinterest in the exact debate he just voluntarily entered into.

This aversion to the drug war debate is at least partially explained in his concluding paragraph, which adopts the classic copout that drug policy reform isn’t going to happen, so we can only evaluate our options within the confines of the current policy:

American voters appear to have decided that even though responsible drug use is possible ex post, society is better off if the ex ante gamble is prohibited. Given that reality, is it responsible to willfully flout laws that are constitutional and produced by a generally fair and open democratic process? I would argue no. Civil disobedience has its place as a form of political expression, but stealthily using drugs with the objective of getting away with breaking the law is an act of selfishness, not civil disobedience. The responsible decision is to obey the law, even if doing so forecloses some pleasures, and in that respect responsible drug use is not possible in today’s society, even ex post.

I just don't agree that following the law is always inherently "responsible," except to the extent that the law will sometimes get back at you for non-compliance. Moreover, he’s responding to an article that went to great lengths to explain how prohibition interferes with the ability to use drugs responsibly (e.g., unknown purity of black market merchandise, breakdown of communication between users and medical professionals, laughably bad anti-drug education, etc.). Caulkins is entitled to his belief that it's always irresponsible to break the law, but that’s somewhat beside the point.

The concern that you can’t use drugs responsibly in violation of the law is a problem with the law, not a problem with drugs.

According to Mexican press reports this week, Mexico's Partido de la Revolución Democrática (PRD -- Democratic Revolution Party) is preparing to consider legalization of the drug trade as a respo

Last Saturday and Sunday, Seattle's Myrtle Edwards Park, a mile-long strip of land fronting Puget Sound just north of downtown, once again played host to the