Former officer: Time to make drugs legal
LEWISBURG - Legalize drugs, end modern prohibition. It's a message you don't expect to hear from a former police officer.
But it's a mission to which Howard Wooldridge is dedicated.
Wooldridge strongly advocates for legalization of drugs, with regulation.
"Give these dangerous drugs the same rules as whiskey," he said.
Next week will be the second time in three years he will share it with Valley residents. Since his most recent visit, counties have embraced drug courts as alternatives to integrate drug treatment into sentencing.
But the war on drugs continues unabated.
Case in point: A November drug sweep in Northumberland County netted 104 suspects, many from in and around the city of Sunbury.
Earlier this year, Pennsylvania Auditor General Jack Wagner noted that nonviolent offenders, including those involved in drug crimes, account for 39 percent of the inmates in state prison as the corrections system population swells. There are 51,487 prisoners in Pennsylvania, with more than 2,100 prisoners added during 2009. Each prisoner costs the state approximately $33,000 annually, for a total yearly cost of nearly $1.7 billion.
A retired police detective, co-founder of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition" and executive director of Citizens Opposing Prohibition, Wooldridge will talk about decriminalizing marijuana and many other topics in several venues in Union, Snyder and Northumberland counties next week.
Wooldridge invites the public to come and be informed, he said "that a 40-year running, trillion tax-dollar spending policy on the war on drugs -- drug prohibition -- has given us no return on that investment."
The unintended consequences, he said, have been everything from funding terrorist groups to deaths and cartel takeovers in Mexico and Central America, and an explosion of gang violence.
"Most importantly," he said, "our young people are suffering in two ways: we are not catching pedophiles in chat rooms because we're flying around in a helicopter, looking for a green plant."
The current policy, he said, "has generated a job option for our young people to sell drugs."
Statistics show, he added, that 1 million teenagers are employed from drugs, and every day, two to three of them are shot.
"This is a tragedy of an immense scale," he said.
Wooldridge's visits are being sponsored and co-sponsored by the American Civil Liberties Union, Central Susquehanna Chapter, in Lewisburg.
"It's a very timely subject," said ACLU chapter secretary David Young. "It's also an issue which would save taxpayers millions and millions of dollars. It would be beneficial to all kinds of families whose sons or daughter or family members are in some way involved in using drugs."
"It's more effective for everybody if we emphasize treatment instead of incarceration," he added.
The evidence clearly shows the prohibition of drugs isn't working, Young said, and many Libertarians, conservatives and progressives agree.
"What we have been doing is not working," he said. "There are other models that are more effective and less expensive."
Northumberland County Judge Robert Sacavage said Drug Treatment Court is in its fifth year, and when compared to what could have been spent for incarceration, it has saved the county millions of dollars.
"From my experience, there are some offenders who absolutely need to be chastened," he said, "and others who are candidates for treatment."
To decide which, a detailed intake and analysis are taken by professionals assisting the court.
Drug Court is reserved for Level 3 offenders, Sacavage said, "those who have at least one felony under their belt."
First-timers are often sent to intermediate punishment programs, such as Accelerated Rehabilitative Disposition, keeping them out of jail.
"We've always had drug crimes," Sacavage said. "They weren't invented 20 to 30 years ago. They have been expanded and well-defined."
New drugs are always being introduced, he said, such as bath salts last year, "which just came out of nowhere," he said.
It's difficult for him to say that drug offenses shouldn't be punished.
"People subject to addiction -- by their very nature are going to feed their habit," he said.
"They are a one-person crime spree in the neighborhood," he said. "It graduates, no question."
Though drug courts are doing some good, Wooldridge said it still does not take care of the problem.
"Drug courts still require my profession to chase the Charlie Sheens of the world," he said, "and every time we chase a Charlie Sheen or Willie Nelson, we have less time for a drunk driver, less time for a pedophile."
The job of law enforcement, he said, should be "100 percent pure public safety."
Personal safety of individuals, including those with drug addictions, he said, is the responsibility of family and friends. "The government can't fix stupid," he said.
Wooldridge was a police officer in Michigan for 18 years, and retired as a detective.
LEAP, the organization he co-founded in 2002, is made up of current and former members of the law enforcement and criminal justice communities who speak out about the failures of existing drug policies. Their goals are to educate the public about these failures, and restore respect for police.
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