{"id":1161,"date":"2012-01-23T11:00:00","date_gmt":"2012-01-23T16:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2012\/01\/pop-the-drug-war-balloon-legalize-and-regulate-the-drug-trade-terry-nelson-leap.html"},"modified":"2012-01-23T11:00:00","modified_gmt":"2012-01-23T16:00:00","slug":"pop-the-drug-war-balloon-legalize-and-regulate-the-drug-trade-terry-nelson-leap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2012\/01\/pop-the-drug-war-balloon-legalize-and-regulate-the-drug-trade-terry-nelson-leap.html","title":{"rendered":"Pop the drug war balloon: legalize and regulate the drug trade —Terry Nelson, LEAP"},"content":{"rendered":"LTE in the\n\nWSJ, 21 January 2012:<\/a>\n
\nThe article illustrates what I learned over my 30-year career as a\nfederal agent: Cracking down in one place doesn’t make drugs\n\n<\/a>\ndisappear, it only moves the trade elsewhere. This so-called\n“balloon effect,” combined with the insatiable demand for drugs\nacross the globe, means that no level of law-enforcement skill or\ndedication can make a significant dent.\n

\nThe only way to pop the proverbial balloon is to legalize and\nregulate the drug trade, which would eliminate the opportunity to\nmake enormous black-market profits. It wasn’t easy for me to come to\nthis revelation after dedicating so many years to enforcing drug\nlaws, but it is common sense. Law-enforcement officers don’t have to\nchase gangsters selling booze from town to town because we ended the\nfailed experiment of alcohol prohibition decades ago. It is time we\ndo the same for other drugs.\n

\nTerry Nelson\n
\nExecutive Board Member\n
\nLaw Enforcement Against Prohibition\n
\nGranbury, Texas\n<\/blockquote>\nAnd that will pop the incarceration bubble, as well, according to\n\nCCA’s own 2010 report to the SEC.<\/a> -jsq\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LTE in the WSJ, 21 January 2012: The article illustrates what I learned over my 30-year career as a federal agent: Cracking down in one place doesn’t make drugs disappear, it only moves the trade elsewhere. This so-called “balloon effect,” combined with the insatiable demand for drugs across the globe, means that no level of […]","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"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":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[97,1113,14,19,72,20],"tags":[8733,77,3173,8709,8710,1271,80,2650,79,2651,60,3172,82],"class_list":["post-1161","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-activism","category-cca","category-economy","category-history","category-incarceration","category-law","tag-alcohol","tag-drugs","tag-gang","tag-history","tag-law","tag-law-enforcement","tag-leap","tag-legalize","tag-prohibition","tag-regulate","tag-tax","tag-terry-nelson","tag-war-on-drugs"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p585fK-iJ","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1161","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1161"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1161\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1161"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1161"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1161"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}