COPS FOR POT

Ex-Law Enforcement Officials Say Keeping Pot Illegal Does More Harm Than Good

Calling low-level marijuana arrests a "waste of time" that take up
valuable crime-fighting resources, a group of law enforcement
officials this week called on California voters to pass Proposition
19 to legalize marijuana for their own sake.

Comprised of police chiefs, judges and prosecutors, the group Law
Enforcement Against Prohibition said marijuana's illegality is doing
more harm than good by jamming the justice system with misdemeanor
possession offenses that have had no impact on the usage rates and
availability of the weed.

"It's not working and it hasn't reduced the use of marijuana. No one
makes that argument," said Joe McNamara, the former San Jose police
chief who now serves as a research fellow with Harvard's Hoover Institution.

Legalizing marijuana would do more to undercut the flow of money that
illicit marijuana sales provide Mexican drug cartels than any other
effort, McNamara said, citing federal estimates that cartels derive
60 percent of their profits from weed alone. "This is a chance for
the voters to strike much more of a blow than law enforcement can
ever strike against the cartels by taking away those profits," McNamara said.

But another law enforcement group, Public Safety First, says
Proposition 19 is poorly written and will lead to multiple unintended
consequences, including hampering employers' efforts to attain
drug-free workplaces and financial and legal complications given
marijuana's illegality under federal law.

Those are many of the same arguments voters rejected in passing
California's landmark medical marijuana law, Proposition 215, about
15 years ago, McNamara said. "I think the attitudes of the public are
very clear. They don't buy into the argument of opponents of Prop.
19, that we should do much of the same thing," he said.

With 60,000 fewer misdemeanor marijuana arrests to process, the
justice system would be able to direct more resources toward more
serious crimes that are not getting the proper attention, said James
Gray, a retired Orange County Superior Court judge, noting that
scores of rape kits remain untested.

Apart from support for legalization, there's another stark difference
between the law enforcement groups weighing in on the proposition:
most of the officials who support Proposition 19 are either retired
or former officials. Gray said the politics of law enforcement
officialdom preclude many other officers from speaking out in favor
of legalization.

On Monday, LEAP members released a letter urging voters to pass
Proposition 19 in November.

"As criminal justice professionals, we have seen with our own eyes
that keeping cannabis illegal damages public safety -- for cannabis
consumers and non-consumers alike," read the letter, signed by a host
of current and former law enforcement officials, among them former LA
County Deputy Sheriff MacKenzie Allen and retired LAPD Deputy Chief
Stephen Downing.