In a new Pew poll published on Wednesday, 54 percent of Americans show support of the legalization of marijuana and two-thirds believe drug policy should focus on treatment rather than prosecuting drug users. Law Officer magazine has their own poll while shows that a majority of law enforcement officers also support marijuana policy reform.

The poll was comprised from the readership of the publication, 97 percent of which are former law enforcement. Overall, 66 percent said that marijuana possession should be legalized, decriminalized, legalized for medical reasons or illegal but only with fines.

In a response by Law Enforcement Against Prohibition‘s executive director, Major Neil Franklin (ret.), a reader of Law Officer, states why there needs to be change in the way that law enforcement deals with the war on drugs. He wrote:

We are the ones who see–every day–that the prohibition of drugs, just like the prohibition of alcohol, is what provides the tremendous profits to the criminal organizations that provide the drugs on our streets. That picking up the petty drug dealer on the corner–the kinds of arrest that federal grants and asset forfeiture laws incentivize–does nothing to affect the long-term supply of drugs and only causes more violence as rival gangs battle to fill power vacuums.

Within the officers and law enforcers who support some sort of change, 37 percent support legalizing marijuana, 27 percent support selling it in large  quantities and 36 percent support some form of change from the current model.

The support for decriminalizing possession of other drug use was lower with 14 percent who said they support change in policy. Franklin believes that the next step is for officers to take the same critical eye that they are looking to regulate marijuana to the prohibition of other drugs.

Wrote Franklin, “Regulation and control doesn’t mean that heroin will be available at the neighborhood convenience store or even in stores dedicated to the purpose. It simply means that governments, rather than criminals, will decide who gets to buy what where and when.”

If both the American public and law enforcement are for policy reform, we should be looking forward to some changes in the near future.