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Hello and welcome to Freedom Watch your daily dose of raw liberty streaming online...
...at FOX News dot com. I'm your host Judge Andrew Napolitano here defending freedom,
defending your natural rights and defending your right to have...
...a government that stays within the confines of the Constitution.
[Judge Andrew Napolitano] We've been covering the war on drugs or rather the failure...
...of the war on drugs on Freedom Watch for
the past several weeks. Our focus comes at a time...
...when states like California and New Jersey for instance...
...are grappling with public pressure and just...
...pure common sense that it's finally time to...
...legalize marijuana and other recreational drugs in...
...the privacy of one's home. It's also time for...
...the federal government to come to terms with its failure...
...in fighting this so-called war on drugs. Here with...
...first hand insight into this failure is Jack Cole.
A retired Detective Lieutenant with...
...the New Jersey State Police Jack has a long and
distinguished career in law enforcement and
in drug enforcement education. Jack fought first...
...the government's fight and now he's fighting back against...
...the government's war.
Lieutenant Jack welcome to Freedom Watch.
Thank you very much for having me on Judge.
Pleasure to have you Lieutenant. Why should recreational drugs in the privacy of one's...
...own home finally be made lawful?
Well, actually you know they were lawful up until 1914 we never had an illegal drug in...
...this country until that year and we hadn't turned into a nation of...
...drugged-out zombies back then and we don't feel like we will do that if we...
...re-legalize these drugs as they should have been all along.
But the impulse in the government to punish people who use and punish people who...
...distribute these drugs is so strong, so overwhelming, so filled with almost...
...limitless resources - you were once part of that impulse.
Why is it that the government is so aggressive on punishing essentially harmless,
almost always private behavior?
Well, there's a lot of money to be made on it even before...
[Jack Cole] ...you start talking about the corruption...
...that is rampant because of the prohibition laws.
But even before that in the last 40 years since we started the war on drugs...
...in 1970 we have spent well over a trillion...
...of our tax dollars on this war on drugs and today we spend...
...70 billion dollars minimum every year we continue it.
And what have we to show for that money?
We've made more than 39 million arrests in the United States alone for
non-violent drug offenders. We've done everything we can do to destroy their lives,
put as many in jail as we can possibly do. Which is a lot.
We now have 2.3 million people in prison in the United States for
all offenses, not just drugs.
Half a million of them are there for non-violent drug offenses.
And despite all this, Judge. Despite all this money so ill-spent,
all these lives crippled, today drugs are cheaper.
They're more potent and their far easier for our children to access than they were in...
...1970 when I started buying them as an undercover officer.
Now, that is the very essence of a failed public policy, Sir.
Now, you and I in the state of New Jersey spent some of that money.
I mean, you were an undercover agent who risked his life to entrap people into selling...
...your drug so that you and your colleages could arrest them.
I was a life tenured superior court judge who sent people to jail for essentially...
...using drugs in the privacy of their own home because we took an oath to uphold...
...the law and that's what the law was at the time.
But you and I are not alone today in our determination that our former behavior...
...was wrong and that freedom should reign. Are you not a part of a large group of...
...former state police, former FBI, former DEA, former prosecuters,
even former judges like I who believe that this war on drugs is doomed to failure and
is more based on control than on anything else?
Absolutely. It's called Law Enforcement Against Prohibition.
[Jack Cole] The acronym is LEAP - what we're known by.
We now have well over 15,000 members. Cops, judges, prosecuters,
prison wardens, FBI, DEA agents as you mentioned and
we have membership in 76 countries.
Uh, people are fed up with this. Not just in the United States. They're fed up...
...with this government intrusion around the world and they want it to stop.
I just returned from Brazil. I was only down there at the behest of...
...the Brazilian government for five days. I went down to speak to...
...the Brazilian Commission on Drugs and Democracy and
they are trying to revamp their laws.
They can't legalize because they know that if they legalize the drugs in Brazil...
...the United States will, you know, attach economic sanctions to them but what...
...they're going to try to do is decriminalize such as they did in Portugal.
Which basically means look the other way when there is no physical harm to...
...third parties as a consequence of the private use of the drugs.
Is the legalization in the United States the linchpin,
the key to ending the war on drugs all around the world then, lieutenant?
It absolutely is. We are the people that started this thing, we're the people that...
...instigated what's known as the 1961 Single Convention Against Dangerous Drugs at...
...the United Nations and that has the effect of being an international treaty.
It's signed-on by almost every country in the world except a couple of little islands...
...out in the Pacific and what it says basically is...
[Jack Cole] ...any drugs that are considered illegal in the United States...
...are also considered illegal in our country.
So, the United States is the driving force on drug policy around...
...the world and they are the people we have to change first.
And what is the driving force in the United States? Is it some victorian attitude?
Is it some reluctance on the part of the government to recognize that...
...people should have the freedom to do what they want?
I mean in your and my home state - I hate to make this comparison but I will -
you can kill a baby in the womb up to the moment of birth if a doctor does it lawfully but
you can't smoke a marijuana cigarette in your own house.
What is the mind set that keeps this prohibition going, running, spending money, and
destroying lives at the hands of the government?
Well, as I said, is a lot of money to be made. It's a very good thing for
politicians to run on, it's very easy to say, "vote for me and I will cut the drug use...
...in the United States by 25% before I'm out of office".
People have been saying that for the last 40 years and ofcourse every year instead of...
...cutting the use the use gets larger. Let me explain how much larger.
[Jack Cole] According to the Federal Drug Enforcement Administration when we started...
...this war they said we had about four million people above the age of 12...
...in the United States who had used an illegal drug.
[Judge Andrew Napolitano] What's the number today?
[Jack Cole] Well, let me tell you that was 2% of that population.
Today they're telling us we have 114 million people above the age of 12 who've used...
...an illegal drug. That's 46% of this population.
I don't know what it will take for the government to learn but I'm grateful as are most...
...of the people watching us now for your good work. Lieutenant Jack Cole,
thanks very much for joining us on Freedom Watch.
Thank you for your time.