Under the current prohibition approach, police are forced to endlessly chase and imprison dealers and users. When we take cops off this beat, we need not fear increased violence, crime or drug abuse, because we can apply the protective tools that regulate markets to improve public safety and health. 

As we saw in the earlier prohibition of the 1920s and 1930s, much of our street violence stems not from drug use but from the illegal nature of the drug market. In any trade, competitors vie to control markets. Under drug prohibition, rival organizations resort to violence to decide who will triumph in the marketplace. Disputes surrounding quality, delivery, price and credit are not resolved in courts or by arbitration, but at the point of a gun. In legal businesses, valuable inventory can be protected from thieves with legitimate security firms, but in prohibition, only gangsters are hired to provide protection against robbery, embezzlement or fraud. In the illegal market, price and quality information is unreliable. There is no trademark protection, no dependable quality control. 

But while today's prohibition is a failure for much the same reasons as the last one, its consequences are even graver. Whereas alcohol prohibition allowed domestic gangsters like Al Capone to rake in rich profits, today's illegal market helps fund the efforts of international cartels and terrorist networks like Al Qaeda and the Taliban. After prohibition is repealed, America will be rid of a major source of violence, crime and disorder that plagues every major city and most Indian reservations, counties and municipalities in the United States as well as communities worldwide.

The professionals of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP)know from long experience that when we arrest a rapist or robber the number of rapes and robberies in the community diminishes because "we got the guy." But when we arrest a drug dealer at any level, we simply create a job opening that is quickly filled from the endless ranks of people willing to risk prison or death for the chance of obtaining huge profits. 

After spending a trillion tax dollars and making 39 million arrests for nonviolent drug offenses, drugs are now generally cheaper, more potent and easier for our children to access than they were 40 years ago at the beginning of the "drug war."

Drug Abuse is Bad...The Drug War is Worse!
LAW ENFORCEMENT AGAINST PROHIBITION
Criminal Justice Professionals Speaking Out Against the War on Drugs
www.askleap.org