{"id":8587,"date":"2009-08-17T23:05:27","date_gmt":"2009-08-18T05:05:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dangerousintersection.org\/?p=8587"},"modified":"2009-08-17T23:19:45","modified_gmt":"2009-08-18T05:19:45","slug":"police-officers-have-epiphany-time-to-legalize-and-regulate-street-drugs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dangerousintersection.org\/2009\/08\/17\/police-officers-have-epiphany-time-to-legalize-and-regulate-street-drugs\/","title":{"rendered":"Police officers have epiphany: time to legalize and regulate street drugs"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/wp-dyn\/content\/article\/2009\/08\/16\/AR2009081601758.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em>Washington Post<\/em><\/a>, two police officers make the case that it&#8217;s time to legalize and regulate street drugs.\u00a0 Why?\u00a0 To quit squandering tax dollars, to quit filling prisons with people who don&#8217;t belong there and to protect neighborhoods and police officers.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">Only after years of witnessing the ineffectiveness of drug policies &#8212; and the disproportionate impact the drug war has on young black men &#8212; have we and other police officers begun to question the system . . .\u00a0 Drug manufacturing and distribution is too dangerous to remain in the hands of unregulated criminals. Drug distribution needs to be the combined responsibility of doctors, the government, and a legal and regulated free market. This simple step would quickly eliminate the greatest threat of violence: street-corner drug dealing.<\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s the &#8220;money&#8221; quote:<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">Harvard economist Jeffrey Miron estimates that ending the drug war would save  $44 billion annually, with taxes bringing in an additional $33 billion.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/wp-dyn\/content\/article\/2009\/08\/16\/AR2009081601758.html\" target=\"_blank\"><em>Washington Post<\/em><\/a>, two police officers make the case that it&#8217;s time to legalize and regulate street drugs.  Why?  To quit squandering tax dollars, to quit filling prisons with people who don&#8217;t belong there and to protect neighborhoods and police officers.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">Only after years of witnessing the ineffectiveness of drug policies &#8212; and the disproportionate impact the drug war has on young black men &#8212; have we and other police officers begun to question the system . . .  Drug manufacturing and distribution is too dangerous to remain in the hands of unregulated criminals. Drug distribution needs to be the combined responsibility of doctors, the government, and a legal and regulated free market. This simple step would quickly eliminate the greatest threat of violence: street-corner drug dealing.<\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s the &#8220;money&#8221; quote:<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">Harvard economist Jeffrey Miron estimates that ending the drug war would save  $44 billion annually, with taxes bringing in an additional $33 billion.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":46,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3650,34,58],"tags":[597,4032,324,4057,2794],"class_list":["post-8587","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-addictions","category-health","category-law-and-order","tag-drugs","tag-legalize","tag-marijuana","tag-regulate","tag-violence","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dangerousintersection.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8587","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dangerousintersection.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dangerousintersection.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dangerousintersection.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/46"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dangerousintersection.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8587"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dangerousintersection.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8587\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dangerousintersection.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8587"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dangerousintersection.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8587"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dangerousintersection.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8587"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}