New York Times has a fantastic story on the fate of a few law enforcement officials who’ve been fired for questioning the wisdom of the war on drugs, and are now likely to win big settlements from their former employers. How ironic that the attempt to silence their ideas has resulted in high-profile media coverage that will surely create new LEAP members all over the country.
This kind of story is a perfect nightmare for the drug war’s defenders, as it explains A) that lots of people in the law enforcement profession privately think the war on drugs is utterly stupid and wrong, and B) that you cannot legally fire people on the basis of their personal feelings about our drug laws. That second part is particularly damaging, because once police get the message that they are free to speak their minds and that they can even win money if you punish them, the frequency with which frustrated cops come out swinging against our disastrous approach to drugs has the potential to increase dramatically.
A story like this would never have been possible without the years of hard and dedicated work by our friends at Law Enforcement Against Prohibition. It seems like every time we turn on our computers, those guys are making huge headlines in new and exciting ways. Somebody should give them a million dollars.
Permission to Reprint: This content is licensed under a modified Creative Commons Attribution license. Content of a purely educational nature in Drug War Chronicle appear courtesy of DRCNet Foundation, unless otherwise noted.
Add new comment