April 03, 2008 issue
Should Illicit Drugs Be Legalized?
Nationally Recognized Drug Enforcer Speaks Saturday
Story by Kathleen McFadden
Hardly a week passes in Watauga County without at least one report of a drug-related arrest. Local law enforcement officers—just like their counterparts across the country—are on the front lines in the country’s war on drugs, and it’s easy to assume that all officers are committed to eliminating drugs and punishing drug dealers and users.
That assumption, however, would be wrong.
In 2002, current and former members of the law enforcement and criminal justice communities formed an organization called Law Enforcement Against Prohibition to speak out about the failures of the country’s existing drug policies. According to LEAP, U.S. policies have failed, and continue to fail, to effectively address the problems of drug abuse, especially the problems of juvenile drug use, the problems of addiction and the crime resulting from the criminal black market in drugs.
This Saturday, April 5, Jerry Cameron will speak about these issues at 12:00 p.m. in Room 011 of the Old Library Classroom Building at ASU.
Cameron spent a considerable part of his 17-year law enforcement career fighting the war on drugs. He was chief of two small-town departments and also a graduate of the 150th Session of the FBI National Academy, the DEA Basic Drug Enforcement Course and two DEA Advanced Drug Enforcement Professional Institutes. Cameron participated as a front-line warrior in street enforcement and was recognized nationally for developing a street enforcement technique known as Operation Pressure Point.
Toward the end of his career, however, Cameron began to question the efficacy as well as the morality of the war on drugs. When he began doing serious research on the subject, he concluded that the war on drugs was a total failure and had caused tremendous damage to the country.
Cameron has seen first hand the devastation of neighborhoods, perversion of the law enforcement mission and the squandering of resources that are the result of prohibition. Today he speaks out against decades of failed policy and encourages the re-legalization of drugs. He believes that re-legalization is the only way to decrease the amount of drugs falling into the hands of children, to make room for violent offenders to serve their full terms in prison and to return law enforcement to its legitimate function of protecting citizens.
Want To Go?
Date: Saturday, April 5
Time: 12:00 p.m.
Location: Room 011, Old Library Classroom Building, ASU
Cost: Free
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