This Washington Post story on LEAP's Howard Wooldridge is just awesome:



Yes, that is exactly what he's like. I'm honestly not sure I've met anyone in the reform movement as intensely focused as Howard. All he ever does is lobby for reform everywhere he goes, anyone he meets. He rode across the country on horseback doing this. Twice, if I recall correctly. He even lobbied me to support legalizing drugs, which was unnecessary, but I must admit that I did become slightly more convinced.

I didn't get a chance to mention this on Thursday and I didn’t want any of you to miss it:

The leader of a congressional effort to reform the criminal justice system said Thursday that all issues — including drug legalization — need to be on the table.

Sen. Jim Webb (D-Va.), who has made criminal justice and prison reform a signature issue of his this year in Congress, is the most high-profile lawmaker to indicate openness to drug decriminalization or outright legalization.
…
"Nothing should be off the table," he said. [The Hill]

Indeed, why begin the inquiry by politicizing the discussion and arbitrarily dismissing approaches whose merits have yet to be explored? Hopefully, this means we'll be seeing some actual discussion of alternatives to prohibition taking place in Congress.

After all, keeping things on the table implies that we will be talking about them rather than pretending they don’t exist. Surely, our opponents aren't afraid to debate the subject and would welcome a lively conversation about the pros and cons of legalizing drugs.

Back in my day it was a regular thing to read about 176 people up on 200 charges and this happened every three months or so.The RCMP would run one,Vancouver would run one various local forces ran them

Sounds like Iran/Contra but without the CIA.I sent the article to Dave but you may have to google[24hrsWed April,2009]It shows the Canadian and provincial action plan for dealing with a gang problem.T