RETIRED POLICE CAPTAIN SPEAKS FOR SENSIBLE DRUG POLICY

There is no drug war in America, only a prohibition that will never
succeed, retired police Capt. Peter Christ said Friday.

Christ, a veteran of the Town of Tonawanda Police Department in Western New
York, spoke to more than 30 members of the Syracuse University community
Friday in Bowne Hall about the state of drug policy in the United States.

The event was presented by Students for Sensible Drug Policy at SU. Member
Garrett Wilkin, a sophomore computer science major, said it was important
that people came out to hear Christ speak.

"He showed that drug laws cause more harm then good," Wilkin said.

For 20 years, Christ enforced drug laws that he did not agree with. Now
retired, he speaks to groups throughout New York State about legalizing
drugs and controlling the problem instead of prohibiting them. Christ
lectures as a part of a national group called ReconsiDer, a forum on drug
policy. He is also helping to organize a new organization known as LEAP:
Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, which would be composed completely of
former law enforcement workers.

"We can't make drugs go away," Christ said. "We have to learn to live with
drugs so that they do the least amount of harm possible."

He proposes legalizing drugs that the Food and Drug Administration
classifies as Schedule I drugs, including marijuana and heroin, Christ said.

Regulation, education and control is the policy Christ wants to see
implemented, rather than simply banning the drugs.

"When you ban substances you lose all control over them," Christ said. He
compared an alcoholic to a heroin addict, explaining how regulation reduces
harm. He said that an alcoholic knows exactly what he is ingesting because
of government-mandated labels on the sides of alcoholic beverages. A heroin
addict has no guarantee of the purity or dosage of the drug. "This is how
people die," Christ added.

Christ cited recent progress in combating teen pregnancy as an example of
effective education.

"The teen pregnancy rate in this country didn't go down when only
abstinence was taught," Christ said. "With safer sex education in schools,
real progress occurred."

The way drug users are treated in the United States also causes a problem
for Christ.

He said that current drug laws are racist, and cause unintended
consequences for the poor. Crack cocaine, used more in minority
populations, carries a sentence five to 10 times longer then the powdered
variety, he added.

He pointed out that zero tolerance laws, intended to keep drugs out of
public housing, have had unintended effects. An elderly couple lost its
home because of its grandchildren's drug use in an adjacent parking lot, he
said.

"Drugs are bad, they destroy lives, but what we are doing is worse. We have
the ability to change, " said Christ.

Students attending the lecture found Christ's views provocative.

"The lecture was very informative," said Doug Carll, a freshman broadcast
journalism major. "He presented a good argument, and opened my eyes to
things I didn't know before."