FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: February 9, 2010
CONTACT: Tom Angell - (202) 557-4979 or media //at// leap //dot// cc
EL PASO CITY COUNCIL VOTES ON MARIJUANA LEGALIZATION
Ending Prohibition Would De-Fund Murderous Mexican Cartels
EL PASO, TX -- The El Paso City Council will consider a resolution on Tuesday that calls for the legalization of marijuana as way to strip Mexican drug cartels of the rich profits they make from the illegal market. The resolution is aimed at putting a stop to the cartel violence that has killed almost 10,000 people since the beginning of 2007.
"When I worked to defend the border in El Paso, I witnessed the failure and futility of the war on drugs firsthand," said Richard Newton, a retired Customs and Border Protection agent and a speaker for Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP), a global network of pro-legalization cops, judges and prosecutors. "After 40 years of waging the drug war, we've only made the cartels stronger and richer than ever. It's clearly time for a new approach like legalization, which would bankrupt the cartels and put a stop to their killings."
Previously, the El Paso City Council set off a nationwide debate on the merits of legalization in early 2009 when it unanimously passed a resolution that merely called for serious consideration of ending prohibition as one possible option. Mayor John Cook vetoed that resolution and the council refrained from overriding the veto only after receiving threats from Congressman Silvestre Reyes that the city would lose federal stimulus money if it insisted on supporting a discussion of the merits of legalization.
The current resolution that explicitly calls for the legalization of marijuana can be viewed at http://www.elpasotexas.gov/muni_clerk/agenda/02-09-10/02091011A.pdf
Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP) is a 15,000-member organization representing police, prosecutors, judges, FBI/DEA agents and others from around the world who want to legalize and regulate all drugs after fighting on the front lines of the "war on drugs" and learning firsthand that prohibition only serves to worsen addiction and violence. More info is available at http://www.CopsSayLegalizeDrugs.com.
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...and the council refrained from overriding the veto only after receiving threats from Congressman Silvestre Reyes that the city would lose federal stimulus money if it insisted on supporting a discussion of the merits of legalization.
ReplyDeleteThis should be grounds for dismissal -- a high-ranking politician dangling a bunch of money over an entire city in order to get them to play along with some legislative bias of his. The El Paso City Council has no ability to change state or federal policy; this was a resolution. And still it was too much. Still it was snuffed out by the prohibitionist status quo.
There's only one way to stop politicians from acting like this: holding them accountable for their behavior at the voting booth. A California state rep votes in favor of AB390? We need to make sure he gets re-elected. Some arrogant jerk wields veto power in an attempt to silence dissent? It's up to us to make sure his opponent wins the next election.
Unfortunately, even with support of recreational marijuana legalization pushing 50%, politicians from either side of the aisle can still safely maintain a prohibitionist stranglehold without any significant political consequences.
Shouldn't the qualifications of any drug czar contain some chemical background education? A better question is why have one in the first place sence they cause more problems than they solve, like Bill Bennet or as we called him "bungelo bill"!
ReplyDeleteGood to hear they're plugging away!
ReplyDelete