My name is Jack Cole, I am a retired NJ State Trooper. I spent 26 years in the state police. For the bulk of it, I worked under cover in narcotics. I was certainly there long enough to see all the horrors we created with the War on Drugs. After I retired I moved up to Boston to get my education because I figured I needed a union card if I wanted to get accepted doing drug policy work. I went to U Mass and graduated with a masters in public policy, now I am working on a PhD. The reason I am doing all that is because I felt so terrible about what we did with the War on Drugs. Like penance, to do something about it.

Probably over 1,000 young people went to jail as a result of what I did. For most of them because they wanted to put something into their body I didn’t want to put into mine. Not a good enough reason for me anymore.

About two years ago, LEAP went public. We were actually working on it for four years before we went public with it. Myself and four other founding members, all of us former cops except for one who is currently and employed police officer in Ontario. The five of us got together and we created this organization called “Law Enforcement Against Prohibition.” It’s an organization to give voice to all the law enforcement officers, both current and former, that feel the War on Drugs is not only a dismal failure, but a terribly destructive policy. We would rather support alternative policies that will lower the rates of disease, death, and crime and addition without destroying generations of the lives of our young people by arresting them.

We think the policy that will do that would be ending the War on Drugs completely, ending drug prohibition just like we ended alcohol prohibition in 1933 and that means one thing- legalizing all drugs. Not so we can all go out and party, but so that we can regulate them and control them and keep them out of the hands of our children, something which so far the War on Drugs has been unable to do for 34 years, despite a budget of so far, well over half a trillion dollars.

Every year now, we are spending at least 69 billion more dollars to continue that war, that useless war. So in the last two years, we have gone from those 5 founding members to over 1,500 members in LEAP, with over 70 speakers. We have given more than 800 presentations all around the world.

Our reception has been beyond our wildest dreams. We feel absolutely sure that after they hear us speak, 80% of the people we talk to are on our side. And we don’t just go out and preach to the choir. We speak at civic, professional, religious and educational organizations, plus some public events. But the ones we really target are the civic organizations; Rotary clubs, Lions clubs, Kiwanis clubs, Chambers of Commerce. These tend to be rather conservative folks. Before we come on the scene, I am sure they vast majority of them agree with the drug warriors. But in 30 minutes to an hour, we are converting at least 80%. I’ve had standing ovations from Rotaries. Strangely enough, it seems the conservatives seem to get it quicker than anybody.