Tony Kant Column

Right about now, all over Vancouver Island, home gardeners are nurturing
precious bedding plants, feeding and watering them and hardening them off
, getting ready to plant them outside where they will respond to the sunshine
and warmth that sustains all growing things. This annual rite of spring has
been going on for years and will continue into the foreseeable future,

People find comfort and joy in the thought that these seedlings will become
vigorous, health plants capable of providing food in the form of
vegetables, beauty in the form of flowers and in some cases healing and
well-being in the form of certain herbs. It is the latter category that
will prove the most troublesome, especially if you are one of the thousands
of Islanders who grow the herb cannabis sativa in your garden.

Cannabis, commonly known as hemp, is considered a narcotic by the federal
government and you could end up in jail for growing the it Just why this
is
so is beyond comprehension for some people, especially a Vancouver Police
officer who has some ideas on drug enforcement that run counter to the
usual propaganda that RCMP headquarters wants the public to see.

Constable Gil Puder, a member of the Vancouver Police force for the past
15 years, does not go along with the official federal government position on
cannabis 96in fact he objects to it strenuously and has even gone as far
to speak publically against the barbarian pot policy we live with. It wouldn't
be the first time I've heard a police officer disagree with the
government's position on the substance but it's certainly the first time
we've seen it done in the glare of public scrutiny. Const. Puder made the
headlines recently when he defied the City of Vancouver's police chief
and publicly delivered a scathing attack on police efforts to respond to
widespread drug use in canada.

Offering a rare glimpse into the inner workings of the police, Const. Puder
criticized officers who make drug arrests to further their own careers, and
senior managers who publicize gang crime and drug money to push for bigger
budgets, a story in The Globe and Mail, datelined Vancouver, stated on
April 22.

Puder, the story states, accused police representatives of misinforming
the public about the dangers associated with drug use. Some officers have
unnecessarily shot and killed unarmed people while making drug arrests,
adding that until police accept that they cannot win the war on drugs,
the killing will continue.

Puder has not exactly enamored himself with the chief of the Vancouver
Police with his earlier statements about decriminalizing drugs but he
really got Chief Bruce Chambers92 dander up when he found out Puder
intended to give a speech at a public conference sponsored by the Fraser
Institute.

Puder's speech was titled Recovering Our Honor: Why Policing Must Reject
the War on Drugs. This was contrary to a direct order from the chief who
told Puder that anything Puder said at the conference would need his
approval.

Const. Puder stood up at the conference anyway and made the following
comments: While strongly believing in devotion to duty, I subordinate the
unique requirements of my profession to my to my responsibilities as a
human being, a parent and a Canadian citizen who has no desire to raise
his children in a country torn by needless criminality.

Outlawing narcotics and trying to enforce the law is history's most
expensive failed social experiment, said Constable Puder, who is also a
part time instructor at the B.C. POlice Academy. Billions of dollars and
countless lives have been spent to prove that criminal prohibition does
not protect society, he added.

Some of Constable Puder's criticism of police enforcement include:

1. Drug-related arrests can be extremely easy to make and officers who make
them are rewarded with promotions and large amounts of overtime pay to
cover court time. But police rarely catch the wealthy drug lords.

2. Self-proclaimed police drug experts readily contradict scholarly analyses
and medical research with smear tactics and conjecture. Law-enforcement
spin doctoring reinforces the theory that the truth is war's first
casualty.

The constable recommended that as an alternative to the so-called war on
drugs, police should make fundamental changes to their strategies and a
government-regulated distribution system for marijuana should be instituted
and research projects should be undertaken on the decriminalization of
narcotics.

My congratulations go out to Const. Gil Puder for his enlightening
approach on this subject.

His bravery in saying what he did ranks up there with Frank Serpico's
whistle blowing about police corruption in New York City almost three
decades ago. We also extend condolences to Const. Puder who most certainly
will face disciplinary action for his frank analysis of a system that
makes criminals of little old ladies who dare to grow a few cannabis
plants for their own use.


Checked-by: Mike Gogulski