Police forces routinely support measures that ratchet up the drug war because police are brave and noble people who joined the force to protect their community and uphold high moral values while doing it. What they see on a daily basis is quite often the underbelly of drug addiction. The bloodiest of drug deals gone bad. The exploitation of addicted young girls. The neglected children of spaced out junkies. Police see the drug war at its rawest on a daily basis.

For example, Inspector Brad Desmarais is head of the Vancouver Police Department’s Drugs and Gangs section. He’s the unfortunate soul that has the unenviable job of staring the failure of the drug war in the face on a daily basis. I spend a lot of time pondering the drug war, but this guy has to take the drug war home with him every day. And that deserves respect.

It’s understandable that police form the opinion that they do on the issue of legalizing drugs. However, I do not believe for a second that all police believe the only approach is to continue to wage the war on drugs. There are many approaches that could be considered but, for the most part, individual police will never publicly contradict the official position of the police department as a whole. We should not confuse the silence from individual cops as unanimous support for the Department’s position.

So as I sit here and read that the Vancouver Police Department has gone to the media with its displeasure over the amendment made to Bill C-15 I’m not all that shocked, nor do I believe that all cops in the VPD support this position. After all, what should the VPD do? As long as marijuana is illegal they can’t come out and support measures that make it harder to enforce the law. They have a point since it is true that the way the bill is now worded we will see more smaller grow ops spring up in VanCity (Woo Hoo!). This will inevitably make the cops jobs harder. However, we should not be confused into thinking that this is a problem caused by marijuana, it is in fact a problem being caused by marijuana prohibition.

The actual amendment that got the VPD so upset removed mandatory minimum sentences for grow ops less than 200 plants in size. This was done so as to not ensnare mom and pop operations that supply themselves (and maybe a friend or two, wink wink) with cannabis. ie: Lets not go crazy here and throw a guy with a closet of 20 plants in prison for a year. “A.” We don’t have the 80,000 tax dollars to spend imprisoning him, and “B.” If guys like this can grow their own they don’t need to buy it from gangsters.

I think you’d agree that its probable that there are numbers of VPD officers who do not support the official VPD position. I think this is probable because I know VPD cops are for the most part smart individuals and critical thinkers. I have faith that there are a large number of VPD officers who believe things that they dare not say out loud. After all, being a supporter of ending the war on drugs is not a popular position amongst a group of people who earn a living off of enforcing drug laws. Its also not a good way to get yourself promoted. It’s the police equivalent of committing career suicide.

However, do you know what helped end alcohol prohibition? You guessed it, cops started to support the repeal of alcohol prohibition and that helped get the laws overturned. It took the help of doctors, teachers, and all sorts of other walks of life, but having the cops support certainly helped get the anti-booze laws struck down. Today during our drug prohibition nightmare a new group has formed to help repeal drug prohibition. L.E.A.P. - Law Enforcement Against Prohibition.

L.E.A.P. is an organization comprised of current and former cops, judges, lawyers, etc that are advocating for an outright end to drug prohibition. Legalize, tax, regulate and prescribe would be verbs that describe their position. They’ve found through their work experience that the drug war is un-winnable and has not achieved any of its goals - after spending a shit load more than any tax payer actually realizes!

I invite members of the VPD who want to get off the drug war runaway train to join L.E.A.P. or at the very least be a closet follower. I understand why you are not speaking your mind but please do what you can to make sure the absurdity of drug prohibition - or at the very least cannabis prohibition - ends. Do as your fellow officer from Victoria has bravely done and join L.E.A.P.