Sylvester Salcedo Urges America To Wage Peace On Drugs–War On Drugs A Costly Failure

Sylvester Salcedo is the Don Quixote of Connecticut’s 2012 campaign season, and far beyond that, for his long-shot adventure to shake some sense into American politicians’ myopic viewpoint on the war on drugs. Sly fought the good fight on America’s behalf as a lieutenant commander who served as a naval intelligence officer for 20 years. Now a practicing attorney in Bridgeport, he speaks four languages and does a lot of quiet work helping the needy and voiceless. He’s an unknown candidate for United States Senate facing a field of folks with loads of name recognition and money such as Congressman Chris Murphy, former Connecticut Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz and Stamford State Rep. William Tong on the Democratic side, and wrestling executive Linda McMahon and former Congressman Chris Shays on the GOP side.

Salcedo is running because he wants to knock some sense into the political establishment about making cents from a drug-war hype that costs a fortune. He shares his views and solutions about waging peace, not war, on drugs in this essay for OIB.

No more Drug War.

Waging peace on America’s 40-year Drug War is a winning strategy and policy for Connecticut and the nation. We should have learned the lesson from our country’s experiment and experience with alcohol prohibition from 1919 to 1933. We should have learned, but we did not.

We changed our constitution with the 18th amendment to implement alcohol prohibition and then we repealed it with the 21st amendment. Fourteen years of alcohol prohibition may have reduced the amount of alcohol consumed in this country, but at what cost? It was a federal law that was largely ignored causing the underground liquor market to swell, while the federal, state and local governments were never able, or perhaps even unwilling, to enforce fully the prohibition laws.

Organized crime was born then, with the accompanying ebb and flow of its deadly impact in the decades since the end of prohibition on everyday American life and has never left since. The many and varied well-meaning interest groups, most were religion-based and the advocates for children and women, had very legitimate concerns and reasons in their efforts to end alcohol abuse, but prohibition went too far.

Today, alcohol is produced, regulated, distributed, taxed and consumed in a responsible way for the most part. Alcohol distributors are not gunning down their competitors with gunfire in city street corners and interstate highways across America. No new Al Capones have risen to the top of the organized crime groups because of a black market in alcohol. Instead, government regulations, mostly developed and supported by safety oriented community groups and liquor producers have resulted in a ubiquitous public awareness campaign with a simple and steady message: drink responsibly. The balance is just about right.

What about America’s drug prohibition and drug war today? How do we get our laws and national, state and local policies about drug use and drug abuse to be equally balanced, thoughtful, and right priced? Our current policies and strategies towards drugs and drug abuse have been wasteful, ineffective and counterproductive for over 40 years.

Today, we have over 2 million people incarcerated around the country. Many are jailed due to our draconian drugs laws enacted in the middle of the “Just Say No” campaign, years for low-level, non-violent drug activities. The racial disparity in the enforcement and prosecution of our drugs laws has exacerbated racial tensions and has set back the gains of the Civil Rights Movement. Our current drug prohibitionist laws has given birth to a new generation of more powerful, wealthier and more vicious groups of drug CEOs around the world who threaten and undermine countries too weak, too unstable to withstand the blistering influence of money, corruption and firearms, including our own.

But who is willing to talk and discuss a better strategy and policy? Who is willing to lead the way?

Count me in.

I believe so are the members of the Global Commission on Drug Policy. (www.globalcommissionondrugs.org) Former Secretary of State George P. Schultz, Former Chairman of the Federal Reserve Paul Volcker, entrepreneur Richard Branson, Former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, Former President of Mexico Ernesto Zedillo, Former President of Colombia Cesar Gaviria, Former President of Brasil Fernando Henrique Cardoso, and many others. This group of distinguished world leaders and global citizens lent their reputations and shared their wisdom to recognize the failure of the American War on Drugs.

My proposal is to legalize marijuana outright. Sell it, regulate it and tax it like alcohol and cigarettes with all the requisite, common-sense health warnings. So-called harder drugs like heroin, cocaine and other drugs should be placed in the hands, control and judgment of the medical and mental health professionals. Harm reduction models, including heroin maintenance programs, should be an important component. Also, I support former Mexican President Vicente Fox in his recent call for a truce (on August 26, 2011) with present-day Mexican drug cartels who have grown and flourished to unprecedented levels of power and influence as to render Mexico almost a failed state today. The Mexican press is almost non-existent in its self-censoring status due to fear of reprisals from the drug cartels. What is a democratic nation without a free press? And they are next door.

I want to put this to a vote and let the people of Connecticut decide. This is why I am running for the US Senate for the state of Connecticut. In the current field of three other fellow Democratic and four Republican candidates, not one is willing to mention or talk about this all-encompassing issue in their position statements on their campaign websites.

Ending the War on Drugs is about the economy, buy American, healthcare, education, women’s health and equality, LGBT rights, energy independence, environmental issues, government accountability, foreign policy, national security, veterans, openness and transparency, the deficit, campaign funding, job creation, and much more.

Sylvester L. Salcedo is a partner in the Bridgeport law firm of Hodges and Salcedo, LLC. He is a retired Lieutenant Commander who served as a naval intelligence officer for 20 years from 1979-1999 on active and reserve duties. He lives in Orange, CT with his wife, Timothea Ryan, MD. They have one son, Leonardo.
www.salcedoforsenate.com