Those of you who enjoyed our previous, in-depth interview with Major Neill Franklin, the Executive Director of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, will be pleased to hear that we ran into him at the 2010 Netroots Nation conference in Las Vegas, NV this past weekend.
Major Franklin is a 32-year law enforcement veteran. Many things he experienced doing that work led him to speak out against drug prohibition, but there were two events that really changed him. First off, he served on Mayor Kurt Schmoke’s Board for Needle Exchange in Baltimore. Mayor Schmoke was an advocate for rethinking our policies regarding the war on drugs. Then in 2000, he lost a good friend named Edward Totely. Mr Totely was assassinated while making an undercover drug buy. That is when Mr Franklin began to examine the negative consequences of the war on drugs.
We got to talk briefly about a number of things, the panel he sat on at Netroots Nation (Marijuana Policy and Politics, which we have video of and will be posting clips from very soon), President Obama's belief that legalization is not part of the answer to the economy, California's Prop 19, and what you can do to get involved.
You can click here to find more of our videos from this year's Netroots Nation.