Solving the Drug Violence Problem - An Ex-Drug Smuggler's Perspective
By Brian O'Dea, Chicago Tribune;
I was one of the "masterminds" behind the importation and sale of approximately 75 tons of pot from Southeast Asia to the U.S. in 1986 and 1987. It was the culmination of a 20-year career as a drug smuggler, a deal that netted in excess of $180 million wholesale. And the only thing the government got out of those drug hauls was the sales tax from the cash
More..my gang spent. There were, of course, some financial forfeitures once my gang was finally rounded up some years later. However, had rational minds prevailed over the past 70-plus years, the U.S. government would have reaped huge benefits from organizations like ours.
But no. Rather than accept the fact that some 30 million Americans cannot possibly be criminals, our society has squandered almost a trillion dollars in a futile effort to stop drug use.
We're hearing a lot about drug-related violence in Mexico these days. But listening to the news recently, I heard of a police sweep in Toronto-where I live some months out of the year. The operation involved more than 1,000 police officers and netted, among other things, a vast quantity of firearms, including loaded AK-47s, sawed-off shotguns and 34 handguns, none of which were obtained legally. These weapons came from the United States and were smuggled north. Here is how it works ( I know firsthand ): Canadian gangs grow pot in apartment buildings, putting everyone who lives there in danger. Once harvested, the pot is traded to U.S. gangs for cocaine and guns. America's arcane drug laws provide the currency for these gangs to exist.
South of the border, it's even worse. Some analysts say Mexico is on the slipperiest of slopes toward becoming a failed state, and illegal drugs are playing a huge part. Drug traffickers are able to operate only because they have currency. Take away the currency, you take away the drug traffickers.
In my days in that business, guns were nowhere to be found. Now, however, I cannot imagine anyone being in the trade without a gun. It has to stop, but how?
Steve Lopez, a Los Angeles Times columnist, recently wrote, "I'm sitting in Costa Mesa with a silver-haired gent who once ran for Congress as a Republican and used to lock up drug dealers as a federal prosecutor, a man who served as an Orange County [California] judge for 25 years. And what are we talking about? He's begging me to tell you we need to legalize drugs in America."
A judge is saying this. Say it ain't true, baby, but it is. And he's not the only one saying it. Former Seattle Police Chief Norm Stamper ( in whose jurisdiction I was sentenced to 10 years in prison ) says the same thing. That's why he is involved with Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, a group of former and current police officers, government agents and other law-enforcement agents who oppose the war on drugs.
According to LEAP, "After nearly four decades of fueling the U.S. policy of a war on drugs with over a trillion tax dollars and 37 million arrests for non-violent drug offenses, our confined population has quadrupled, making building prisons the fastest growing industry in the United States." More than 2.3 million U.S. citizens are in jail, and every year we arrest 1.9 million more, guaranteeing prisons will be busting at their seams. Every year, the war on drugs will cost U.S. taxpayers another $69 billion.
While the U.S. has only 5 percent of the world's population, it has 25 percent of the world's known prison population. This startling number is due to one major factor: our arcane drug laws. It is time we stopped treating a medical condition with law enforcement.
Ultimately, does the fact that people smoke pot make them criminals? Is the struggling heroin addict a criminal? If he is, it is only because we are not treating the root of the problem.
It is time to legalize marijuana. The tax revenue generated could then be used to help addicts. I work with these folks every day, in one way or another, and not one of them wants to live the way they do, but they don't know how to stop. They need help, not punishment.
Back in the 1920s, America saw one of the most violent organized criminal elements in history. Who can forget the tommy guns, the blood on the street and names like Luciano and Capone? Well, they exist today, it's just that the names have been changed to Escobar and Huerta Rios.
As LEAP so succinctly puts it: Alcohol prohibition, drug prohibition, same problem, same solution.
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NOTE: Brian O'Dea, one of the biggest marijuana smugglers in U.S. history, is now a film and television producer in Toronto, Canada. He is the author of "High: Confessions of an International Drug Smuggler", due out in May.
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Pubdate: Sun, 12 Apr 2009
Copyright: 2009 Chicago Tribune Company
Website: http://www.chicagotribune.com/
Author: Brian O'Dea
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Added: Apr 17 2009 In: other
Recorded on: Apr 12 2009
By: Macky_J 
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Comments - sort by newest to oldest
the Drug War ONLY creates violence and does virtually nothing to stop folks from using drugs.
what is the point anymore? i wish everyone analyzed the situation like we do.
Posted Apr-17-2009 by "MaxBlacks" (R)
Devil weed!!! lmfao...love to buy a bag and not have to worry bout the Gastapo bustin' my balls over a seed bearing plant put here on earth by God for all mankind to use...
Posted Apr-17-2009 by "Ruger17" (R)
The Gov't is selling drugs....please...
look at Afganistan.... the drug growth exploded when we got there...LOL
iran/contra... cia/pakistan link...
it's a cash crop, and it plays into the PRIVATIZATION OF PRISIONS....
Posted Apr-17-2009 by "josephbocchino" (R)
The U.S government and other nations have certainly been involved in the drug trade in the past, though I'm not willing to say they still are currently without actual evidence to back it up.
But they don't need to actually sell the drugs these days in order to profit massively from them.
@Max Blacks - people don't like to analyze things intelligently like we do when it comes to drug prohibition because it is a 'war', and over the years people have been brainwashed into believing that analyzing the policies or even thinking about alternatives to the 'war' is essentially treasonous - it makes them the 'enemy'.
Hence why so many pro-drug prohibition individuals are so militant towards anyone who dissents from the official position. Every war has to have an enemy and inanimate materials(the drugs themselves) don't make a very good enemy by themselves, so anyone who uses drugs or even speaks against the official line of thought are the 'enemy' as well.
These days though reformists are getting more coverage in the mainstream media and as such the number of 'dissenters' is growing steadily. Even those who don't necessarily support legalization recognize that the 'war' in the current form has already been lost. Even Fox has aired interviews with reformists lately, including LEAP's own Judge Gray.
More people are beginning to analyze prohibition policies as we do, we just have to be patient.
Posted Apr-17-2009 by "Macky_J" (R)