James Gierach, member of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP), gave a lecture about the failed drug policies of America, last Monday at the library.
The event was sponsored by the Joseph Loundy Human Rights Project.
Roosevelt University Professor Bethany Barratt said that this lecture was intended to educate students on the prohibition issues of drugs in America.
“We want to focus issues on what the drug policies are,” Barratt said. “Try to advocate for social justice on drugs.”
Gierach said he’s not an advocate of drugs.
“No matter what you hear today, nothing that I am saying is pro-drug or advocating drug use,” Gierach said. “Drugs are dangerous, they are addictive and they are deadly and lethal.”
According to the LEAP Web site “LEAP is made up of current and former members of the law enforcement and criminal justice communities who are speaking out about the failures of our existing drug policies.”
LEAP members give lectures to universities and other organizations in order to educate the masses about their cause of repealing the prohibition of drugs.
“[We want to] educate the public, the media and policy makers about the failure of current [drug] policies and to restore the publics respect for police,” Gierach said.
Gierach became interested in the war on drug’s after leaving his job as a prosecutor in the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office in the early 1970’s.
“I would read headlines in the city of Chicago that twelve kids were killed or kids were sleeping in bathtubs in order to miss gunfire to their homes,” Gierach said. “I would listen to the politician’s holding office and their inability to adapt and try new solutions after they have seen the polices they advocated not work.”
Gierach’s lecture was centered around America’s never ending drug war and how it has failed and fueled even more addiction and violence over the years.
Gierach said that the drug war has been going on for the last 30 years and believes it has gone on so long because both the drug dealers and people for the policies benefit from it.
“People for it are the people who build the prisons, make the outfits for prisons and benefit from the more criminals we put away,” Gierach said. “The drug dealers benefit from the supply and demand idea of the drugs...if the cops make seizures of drugs, they demand will be greater and more competition will occur.”
According to LEAP’s Web site America currently holds 22.5 percent of the worlds prisoners.
Gierach said the more drug crimes there are will continue this rise in prisoners and create more debt for the country.
“No hope without change for drug policy,” Gierach said. “You can’t pay the bills with a policy that cause the problems we are trying to prevent.
Although Gierach said LEAP would like changes immediately, he agrees that the polices need to change gradually.
“The U.S. Has the worst drug policy,” Gierach said. “I think we need to look at the legalization of drugs at the alcohol example...these ideas of repelling prohibition will cause less crime and violence in our country.”
2 comments
You can buy Hemp products at wal-mart, but Americans are not allowed in the so-called free market system to compete with these products themselves. How can that even be justified?
What if, just what if, the police were allowed to be the sellers of cannabis. The original Marijuana tax act allowed this to be law, but we don't talk about it. But if they could they would be like the ice cream man on a hot summer day.