Canadian cop says, "All drugs should be legal and regulated"

David Bratzer is an active police officer in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. In his off-duty time, he volunteers for LEAP (Law Enforcement Against Prohibition), a volunteer organization of current and former members of the law enforcement and criminal justice communities opposed to the War on Drugs.


Bratzer joined LEAP in 2008, largely in reaction, he says, to the 2007 murder trial of Robert Pickton, who is accused of killing dozens of sex workers from Vancouver's Downtown Eastside and is already convicted for six of the murders. Bratzer claims that "if this country had sensible drug laws, some or all of these women might still be alive. Women should not have to resort to street prostitution - and all of the risk that entails - in order to fund a drug addiction."

Recently, Maui Time newspaper interviewed Bratzer about drug prohibition and why Canada should abandon the War on Drugs. It's worth reading the interview in full. I've posted a couple of thoughtful quotes below.


OK, let's run through a few classic anti-legalization arguments. First, legalization will make it easier for kids and teens to get pot.

I disagree. Look at a place like the Netherlands. They have decriminalized marijuana, meaning that small quantities are legal for the end-user to purchase. Their population has a lifetime usage rate of marijuana that is half that of the United States. That is [based on] data from the World Mental Health Surveys, as compiled by the World Health Organization. So why is this? First, the Netherlands has managed to make drug use boring for young people. There is nothing rebellious about smoking a joint in Amsterdam. Second, the Netherlands uses regulatory measures to control the sale of marijuana to consumers. For example, the cannabis coffee shops have age minimums, alcohol is banned and advertising is prohibited. It's not a perfect system but it's far more effective than what we're doing in the United States and Canada.

Second, marijuana use will erode the moral character of people and communities.

The moral position here would be a compassionate drug policy based on scientific evidence. Consider this: the United States has some of the harshest penalties in the world for drug offenders and yet its lifetime incidence of marijuana use is among the highest in the world. If that is an indicator of moral character then the United States is behind Nigeria, Lebanon, France, Germany, Mexico and Italy and many other nations. However, I don't think that's the case. I've traveled throughout the United States and I believe this is a great country with strong values. We need to move away from framing the debate around the morality of drug use. Drug use may be moral or immoral but that's not an argument for criminalization. It would be like saying that cheating on your spouse should be an arrestable offence. We know that behavior is wrong but a police officer doesn't throw someone in jail for it. Instead, we should be asking ourselves questions like these: what is an effective drug policy? What actually works? How do we minimize the potential harm from drug abuse?

Finally, and most famously, marijuana is a "gateway drug" that opens the door to other, harder drugs.

The gateway theory of drug use was discredited ages ago. I don't even want to talk about it. However, the gateway theory of drug trafficking is very much alive. That is, teenagers begin selling marijuana in high school. It's a lucrative job and it guarantees them money, friends and dating opportunities. As they get older they start trafficking more dangerous drugs and in larger quantities. They become entrenched in a criminal lifestyle as professional drug dealers. Eventually they wind up dead or in prison. But consider what would happen if all drugs were legal and regulated for adult use. One might still see the occasional adolescent marijuana dealer, but the career option of becoming a mid- or high-level criminal drug dealer simply wouldn't exist. Being a teenage pot dealer would be a dead-end job rather than an entry point for gang membership and a life of organized crime.

So what is LEAP's stance on harder drugs?

[LEAP] believes that all drugs should be legal and regulated. The argument in favor of regulating these drugs is not that they're harmless, but rather that they're so dangerous they should be controlled by the government. Remember that under prohibition the government has no control. It's the violent drug dealer who decides the price, purity, cutting agents, advertising methods, business location and hours of operation. And these drug dealers certainly are not asking kids for ID, or encouraging their customers to seek addiction treatment. We need to move away from prohibition and begin considering models that give the government control over the market for these drugs


[via Transform]