Former Sheriff advocates legalization of pot

quote:

---

But one law enforcement group is in Juneau this week advocating for the legalization of recreational marijuana, an issue Alaskans will decide with an August ballot initiative.

“Tax and regulate, that’s all we’re saying,” Lance Buchholtz, a 59-year-old retired sheriff from Wisconsin, told the Empire on Wednesday.

Buchholtz is scheduled to meet with six state legislators on behalf of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, an international nonprofit organization that calls for the end of the War on Drugs. Its members are primarily current and former police officers, prosecutors and judges who reject a blanket prohibition and propose a tightly regulated system to control the drug market.

---

quote:

---

“(Drug use,) it’s a medical issue, it’s a mental health issue, it’s a spiritual issue, it’s an issue for the communities and their families,” Buchholtz said. “It’s just not a cop issue, it’s not a law enforcement issue. We can’t arrest our way out of this problem.”

---

quote:

---

Law Enforcement Against Prohibition is an international 501(c) 3 nonprofit organization of criminal justice professionals who bear personal witness to the wasteful futility and harms of our current drug policies.

Our experience on the front lines of the “war on drugs” has led us to call for a repeal of prohibition and its replacement with a tight system of legalized regulation, which will effectively cripple the violent cartels and street dealers who control the current illegal market.

---