Legalize street drugs, ex-cop urges
Retired Seattle police chief says regulation would restrict use, protect
kids, help abusers
Ian Mulgrew
Vancouver Sun
Wednesday, April 12, 2006
Retired Seattle police chief Norm Stamper pulled no punches Tuesday when
he told a Fraser Institute lunch crowd the War Against Drugs is an
abject failure.
After spending $1 trillion since president Richard Nixon declared the
war in 1969, the U.S. has a worse drug problem than before, Stamper said.
He blamed every subsequent U.S. federal administration for maintaining
an immoral, inefficient and uneconomical policy that is corrupting
institutions, destroying neighbourhoods and endangering children.
Canada has been doing the same. The current criminal prohibition,
Stamper said, is being kept in place by a coalition he called the Drug
Enforcement Industry -- President George W. Bush, the Drug Enforcement
Administration, the FBI, some police, the wine and alcohol producers and
organized crime.
"When Nixon declared a war on drugs, he was really declaring a war on
people -- minorities and young people," the retired cop said, pointing
to the disproportionate ratio of Hispanic and African-Americans now
imprisoned.
The century-long prohibition has made drugs more available, not less.
"Kids can score easily today," he said. "Worse, every major police
corruption scandal of the last several decades -- okay there might be
one or two minor ones that don't -- but every major scandal has had its
roots in drug enforcement."
If the government were to regulate drugs, they would be less available,
their purity would be assured, crime would be reduced, our communities
made safer, our children would be better protected and our chances
improved of weaning people from abuse and even deleterious use.
Tobacco use, for example, Stamper said, has fallen 50 per cent but no
one needed to be thrown in jail or threatened with charges.
"Education works," he added.
If drugs were regulated instead of criminalized, kids would be better
educated and be better able to make choices because they would not be
subjected to the Reefer Madness propaganda of some law-enforcement
agencies and Washington, D.C.
Stamper thinks the anti-drug DARE program used in some B.C. schools is a
lie.
He stopped it in Seattle and we should stop it here, he said.
"Marijuana is not a gateway drug: DARE says it is and that's a lie,"
Stamper told the packed audience that included former Vancouver mayor
Philip Owen, a huge fan, and B.C. Attorney-General Wally Oppal.
"Sure there are many abusers of marijuana, but there are many more
marijuana users -- and I don't think that's an oxymoron. ... Alcohol is
the worst drug."
Regardless, it's not what people choose to put into their bodies that
should be criminalized, but their behaviour if they chose to ingest
substances and then hurt another person or society.
A member of a fairly recent and growing group across North America
called Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, Stamper has been trying to
educate people through speaking engagements such as Tuesday's luncheon.
He drew 750 recently in Abbotsford.
In Stamper's view, public policy must be changed: More than 2.2 million
Americans are currently incarcerated and in the last five years nine
million people have been arrested for non-violent drug offences.
"The more dangerous the drug, the more reason to legalize it and
regulate it," he said.
Stamper wants the roughly $70 billion a year spent in North America on
interdiction and enforcing the prohibition to be spent on prevention,
education and treatment.
After a 34-year career in law enforcement, he is the quintessential
anti-drug war warrior -- erudite, nattily dressed, humourous, informed
and steeped in experience from the law-enforcement side of the fence. He
exudes credibility.
And he likes to tell people he's got good wingers supporting his point
of view -- former U.S. secretary of state George Shultz, news icon
Walter Cronkite, uberconservative thinker William F. Buckley Jr. and
Nobel laureate economist Milton Friedman.
"Prohibition simply does not work," Stamper said. "It creates untold
problems for the credibility of government and it invites police
corruption. Let's face it, drug dealers would be out of business the
minute the ink dried on legalization legislation."
I chatted briefly with Attorney-General Oppal afterwards and he was full
of praise for Stamper.
"I've known him since the early 1990s," the former B.C. Court of Appeal
judge said. "This is something we need to think about."
I ribbed him about some of his cabinet colleagues who remain stridently
opposed to such ideas, such as Solicitor-General John Les.
He grinned. Changing the anti-drug law, as Oppal noted coyly: "It's
really up to the federal government."
I chuckled: Ex-judges can learn to play politics.
imulgrew@png.canwest.com
Interview with Norm Stamper.
© The Vancouver Sun 2006
Copyright © 2006 CanWest Interactive, a division of CanWest MediaWorks
Publications, Inc.. All rights reserved.
kids, help abusers
Ian Mulgrew
Vancouver Sun
Wednesday, April 12, 2006
Retired Seattle police chief Norm Stamper pulled no punches Tuesday when
he told a Fraser Institute lunch crowd the War Against Drugs is an
abject failure.
After spending $1 trillion since president Richard Nixon declared the
war in 1969, the U.S. has a worse drug problem than before, Stamper said.
He blamed every subsequent U.S. federal administration for maintaining
an immoral, inefficient and uneconomical policy that is corrupting
institutions, destroying neighbourhoods and endangering children.
Canada has been doing the same. The current criminal prohibition,
Stamper said, is being kept in place by a coalition he called the Drug
Enforcement Industry -- President George W. Bush, the Drug Enforcement
Administration, the FBI, some police, the wine and alcohol producers and
organized crime.
"When Nixon declared a war on drugs, he was really declaring a war on
people -- minorities and young people," the retired cop said, pointing
to the disproportionate ratio of Hispanic and African-Americans now
imprisoned.
The century-long prohibition has made drugs more available, not less.
"Kids can score easily today," he said. "Worse, every major police
corruption scandal of the last several decades -- okay there might be
one or two minor ones that don't -- but every major scandal has had its
roots in drug enforcement."
If the government were to regulate drugs, they would be less available,
their purity would be assured, crime would be reduced, our communities
made safer, our children would be better protected and our chances
improved of weaning people from abuse and even deleterious use.
Tobacco use, for example, Stamper said, has fallen 50 per cent but no
one needed to be thrown in jail or threatened with charges.
"Education works," he added.
If drugs were regulated instead of criminalized, kids would be better
educated and be better able to make choices because they would not be
subjected to the Reefer Madness propaganda of some law-enforcement
agencies and Washington, D.C.
Stamper thinks the anti-drug DARE program used in some B.C. schools is a
lie.
He stopped it in Seattle and we should stop it here, he said.
"Marijuana is not a gateway drug: DARE says it is and that's a lie,"
Stamper told the packed audience that included former Vancouver mayor
Philip Owen, a huge fan, and B.C. Attorney-General Wally Oppal.
"Sure there are many abusers of marijuana, but there are many more
marijuana users -- and I don't think that's an oxymoron. ... Alcohol is
the worst drug."
Regardless, it's not what people choose to put into their bodies that
should be criminalized, but their behaviour if they chose to ingest
substances and then hurt another person or society.
A member of a fairly recent and growing group across North America
called Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, Stamper has been trying to
educate people through speaking engagements such as Tuesday's luncheon.
He drew 750 recently in Abbotsford.
In Stamper's view, public policy must be changed: More than 2.2 million
Americans are currently incarcerated and in the last five years nine
million people have been arrested for non-violent drug offences.
"The more dangerous the drug, the more reason to legalize it and
regulate it," he said.
Stamper wants the roughly $70 billion a year spent in North America on
interdiction and enforcing the prohibition to be spent on prevention,
education and treatment.
After a 34-year career in law enforcement, he is the quintessential
anti-drug war warrior -- erudite, nattily dressed, humourous, informed
and steeped in experience from the law-enforcement side of the fence. He
exudes credibility.
And he likes to tell people he's got good wingers supporting his point
of view -- former U.S. secretary of state George Shultz, news icon
Walter Cronkite, uberconservative thinker William F. Buckley Jr. and
Nobel laureate economist Milton Friedman.
"Prohibition simply does not work," Stamper said. "It creates untold
problems for the credibility of government and it invites police
corruption. Let's face it, drug dealers would be out of business the
minute the ink dried on legalization legislation."
I chatted briefly with Attorney-General Oppal afterwards and he was full
of praise for Stamper.
"I've known him since the early 1990s," the former B.C. Court of Appeal
judge said. "This is something we need to think about."
I ribbed him about some of his cabinet colleagues who remain stridently
opposed to such ideas, such as Solicitor-General John Les.
He grinned. Changing the anti-drug law, as Oppal noted coyly: "It's
really up to the federal government."
I chuckled: Ex-judges can learn to play politics.
imulgrew@png.canwest.com
Interview with Norm Stamper.
© The Vancouver Sun 2006
Copyright © 2006 CanWest Interactive, a division of CanWest MediaWorks
Publications, Inc.. All rights reserved.