COPS UNDER PRESSURE TO DENY THEY SUPPORT LEGALIZING MARIJUANA

During California gubernatorial debates last week, Meg Whitman was
asked about her position on Proposition 19 and marijuana legalization
and said: "Every single law enforcement official in this entire state
is against Proposition 19."

Former San Jose Chief of Police Joseph McNamara disagrees.

"She's absolutely wrong," said McNamara. "A lot of police officers
both retired and on duty are in favor of passing it because they
realize that the 'war on drugs' has failed and is going to fail."

For example, McNamara noted, hundreds have joined the advocacy group
Law Enforcement Against Prohibition.

"I think she misstated what she believed," he said.

Whitman's office did not immediately respond to a HuffPost query
requesting clarification.

One thing is true: California's active-duty police officers can't
speak up in favor of legalizing marijuana for fear of losing their
jobs.

For instance, scores of former officials recently signed a letter
saying that marijuana prohibition only fuels more dangerous crime by
enriching Mexican drug cartels who put guns on American streets -- but
every member of the California police department waited until after
they'd retired to sign.

HuffPost talked with cops who support Prop. 19 about the element of
suppression.

"It's difficult, there are all kinds of factors that inhibit police
officers from taking a public stance," said David Bratzer, a police
officer for the Victoria Police Department in British Columbia who
supports legalizing the drug. "They're worried about career
advancement; harassment from colleagues or supervisors -- these are
all issues that serving police officers have to consider."

Bratzer told HuffPost in an interview Wednesday night that even though
many law enforcement officers will agree with him privately, only a
handful of cops have been willing to make their opinions known publicly.

"The paramilitary structure of law enforcement discourages police
officers from speaking out against the status quo even if that status
quo is causing enormous damage in terms of wasted lives and
resources," said Bratzer, who was careful to emphasize to HuffPost
that his views are his alone and should not be attributed to his
police department.

Groups ranging from The National Black Police Association to the
California NAACP have endorsed Prop. 19, arguing that police waste
valuable resources targeting non-violent cannabis consumers, while
thousands of violent crimes go unsolved. Still most officers wait
until they've left their jobs in law enforcement to take a stand.

"I was with the LAPD when Nixon declared the 'war on drugs' over 40
years ago and was one of the 'generals' on the front lines who helped
implement that same failed drug policy that is still in effect today,"
said Stephen Downing, a retired LAPD deputy chief of police.

"By keeping marijuana illegal, we aren't preventing anyone from using
it," added Downing in a statement. "The only results are billions of
tax-free dollars being funneled into the pockets of bloodthirsty drug
cartels and gangs who control the illegal market."

Downing is not the only former police chief who has come out against
prohibition.

McNamara, now a research fellow in drug policy at Stanford University,
has argued that the 60 percent of the cash that supports violent drug
cartels comes from the sale of illegal marijuana.

"I think many veteran officers start out as I did being a drug war
warrior," explained McNamara, who, since he began studying drug policy
academically, has become increasingly convinced that the problem is
prohibition not the plant.

"We were participants in the war on marijuana," he said. "But after a
while, I realized that the majority of the cops I hired during my 18
years as a police chief had used marijuana before we hired them."

"I don't personally use it," he said, "but I think it's really stupid
to put people in jail for that reason."

Still, McNamara insists there are good reasons for cops not to speak
out in favor of marijuana legalization while they're on active duty.

"You take an oath to support the law, not just the laws you agree
with," he told HuffPost in an interview. "You're under the authority
of elected officials and so you can't speak out on policy issues in
opposition to what your superiors say."

If police officers feel they can't enforce a law in good conscience,
they can always leave. But often, McNamara said, they don't.

"People don't commit career suicide," he said. "So they do the best
they can. Whether they agree with them or not, they have to carry out
the laws." When he was a cop, McNamara said he tried to keep things in
perspective. "I did, within the area of my discretion, enforce the law
with as much common sense as I could," he said.

A poll of 1,067 likely voters released Thursday found 44 percent of
likely voters said they plan to vote for Prop. 19, while 49 percent
plan to vote against it. That's an 8-point drop in support since
September when 52 percent of likely voters said they would vote for
it.

"Personally I think it's a shame that more serving California police
officers are not supporting reform publicly," said Bratzer. "History
will remember this as a failure of leadership at the highest levels of
law enforcement in the state."