SEAN KIRST
POST-STANDARD COLUMNIST
Jack Cole isn't surprised. He predicted, last spring, that a police
crackdown on Syracuse street violence had absolutely no chance to succeed. Just
over five months later, the city has set a record with 24 homicides recorded in
this calendar year, with five weeks yet to go.
Not all that mayhem, of course, involved
street gangs or drug disputes. And city officials say the crackdown is still a
work in process. But Cole, an ex-cop, said all the killing underlines his point.
"That's what happens, I'm afraid, every time we try to get tougher," Cole
said Wednesday, speaking from his home in Massachusetts. "You can see it didn't
have a very good effect on Syracuse. I don't know what I'd do if I was mayor,
but if I was mayor of anything, I would try and lessen the harm done by the war
on drugs. I personally don't think anything will get better until we end
prohibition."
By that, he means legalizing heroin, cocaine and other narcotics. Cole
spent 26 years with the New Jersey State Police, including many years as a
narcotics investigator. What he saw on the job, he said, caused a complete
reversal in his outlook. He is a member of ReconsiDer, a Syracuse-based forum on
changing national drug policy. And he is founder of LEAP, or Law Enforcement
Against Prohibition.
Cole's essential theory is that violence on city streets, under existing
laws, cannot be controlled. The problem, he contends, is easy drug money.
Impoverished and poorly educated children will be drawn to "slinging" drugs on
the corner until the chance for a quick profit is gone, Cole said.
It is American drug money, Cole said, that lies beneath most bloodshed in
struggling neighborhoods. It is American drug money, he said, that inflames gang
rivalries over turf. It is American drug money, he said, that funds
international drug cartels and many terrorist groups. And it is American drug
money, he said, that creates destructive role models for rebellious children,
lacking hope.
"Think of what happens if you strip the profit motive from drug
distribution," Cole said. "All this tension would vanish between richer and
poorer neighborhoods. People wouldn't be shooting each other on the corners.
There'd be no more little kids looking up to drug dealers because they have the
cars and the women and the money. Gone. All of that would vanish."
Cole maintains narcotics should be legalized, and he offers a
detailed proposal on how the government should control distribution. He points
to tobacco use as the best model for his plan. Cigarette smoking plummeted, Cole
said, once the government and the schools began to actively campaign against
smoking.
As for the dangers of legalization, Cole argues that it is more difficult,
right now, for a wandering teenager to buy a six-pack of beer than it is for
that same teenager to buy marijuana or crack cocaine.
His philosophy generates debate even within ReconsiDer itself, where
suggestions vary from the mild, such as revising the Rockefeller drug laws, to
the relatively moderate, such as legalizing marijuana, to the full legalization
of narcotics that is advocated by Cole.
Others outside the group, such as Syracuse Police Sgt. Frank Fowler, warn
of the results of widespread legalization. Fowler is president and founder of
CAMP 415, an organization of minority police officers in Syracuse. He spends
many hours working with teenagers on the street. Fowler said existing laws need
revision. He believes in treatment, not incarceration, for drug users arrested
for the first time. He believes that state and federal laws should be
"equalized" so that, "People from certain aspects of society who can't afford
fancy attorneys get the same sentences as people from other aspects of society."
But Fowler, who grew up in a rough part of St. Louis, offers no sympathy
for convicted drug dealers.
"They need to be punished," Fowler said. "If you legalized drugs, you'd
have a community in a stupor. The same people affected the most by illegal use
would be affected by legal use. They wouldn't be able to use motor vehicles, or
attend to their jobs, or attend to their children in a safe fashion. "I don't
think, by legalizing drugs, that you get rid of the problem."
Still, with prisons bulging and with far too much bloodshed on the streets,
Cole and Fowler certainly agree on one thing: The only solution is to somehow
renew a sense of belief in countless children, cast adrift on city streets. "I
just think we spend millions of dollars on finding people who use drugs because
they have problems in their lives," Cole said, "and then we make those problems
1,000 times worse."
His prediction remains the same: Street crackdowns will not work.
Sean Kirst is a columnist with The Post-Standard. His
columns appear Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Call him at 470-6015 or e-mail
him at citynews@syracuse.com.
Associated
links:
© 2002 The Post-Standard. Used with permission.
Copyright 2002 syracuse.com. All Rights Reserved.
Hope you are enjoying your Tidbits. If you're not a member of
ReconsiDer and
would like to join, please fill out our membership application. And be sure to visit our
website.