DRCNet is pleased to welcome Jay Fleming to the Speakeasy. Fleming was for many years a deputy sheriff and narcotics officer in Washington, Montana & Idaho. He is now retired in the US southwest (Arizona) and is a speaker with the organization Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP). Fleming has graciously agreed to serve as a regular, featured guest blogger here in the Speakeasy, focusing on the impact of drug prohibition on the western United States. The war on drugs affects our world's environment and threatens conservation efforts, far more than most of us realize. A recent article from NewScientist, Drugs, crime and a conservation crisis, pointed out some of the problems as they are manifested in western states:

New Scientist's inquiries suggest that the narcotics trade is a serious but largely neglected impediment to conservation efforts.

The drug war runs on money, and money depends on arrests and forfeitures. Because of this, the manpower for drug enforcement is concentrated in populated areas. Remote areas in the west have always been a hide out for outlaws. The combination of remoteness and lack of law enforcement, make these areas as popular with outlaws today, as they were in the 1800's. I live in Mohave County Arizona where, as New Scientist points out:

Remote biodiversity hotspots make ideal bases for narcotics production and trafficking.

As a resident deputy I lived in a remote town 50 miles from the sheriff office; I covered the south end of the county along with one other deputy. There was never time to go to the remote areas of my area. I was responsible for a large chunk of wilderness area; it could only be accessed by horse back or on foot. Since the sheriff's office didn't have horses, if I had a call in the wilderness area, I had to borrow a horse from the Forest Service. I understand why law enforcement doesn't have the manpower to patrol some of the remote areas. What I don't understand is why someone doesn't figure out that drug prohibition is the direct cause of the damage done to these fragile areas. P.S. DEA = Department of Evil Agriculture, the plant police? Click here to submit a letter to the editor to New Scientist or here to share your thoughts with their Online News desk. E. Jay Fleming Speaker Law Enforcement Against Prohibition [email protected] Mohave Valley, AZ www.leap.cc LEAP Introduction Video http://www.leap.cc/audiovideo/LEAPpromo.htm Trust in our country is disappearing, parents can’t trust children, husbands can’t trust wives, and people can’t trust their government. Some how our country has lost site of some of the basic principles it was founded on. Those who are to protect us have gone from Peace Officer, to Law Enforcement Officer. Men in black uniforms with hoods over their faces break down doors, in the name of the law, many times killing innocent citizens. Criminals charged with major drug crimes who turn in several others for minor drug crimes, spend little or no time in jail. Undercover cops infiltrate and seize our homes and assets, take children from parents, over a plant that has never killed anyone. E. Jay Fleming 2004