« MEDICAL MARIJUANA HITS STOCK MARKET | Main | Canadian government gets draconian »
FORMER POLICE CHIEF CRITICAL OF HARPER’S DRUG MOVE
By Hempology | April 6, 2006
The former chief of the Seattle police, Norm Stamper, was in Calgary lifting weights in a hotel gym on Monday, at the same time as Canada’s conservative prime minister, Stephen Harper, appeared on television in a live broadcast of his speech to the Canadian Professional Police Association’s meeting in Ottawa.
Among other things, Harper promised to introduce tougher minimum sentences for drug offences and to drop the Liberals’ legislation that would have decriminalized possession of small amounts of marijuana.
“That won a standing ovation from the police,” says Stamper. “It made me appreciate that I’m going into a number of venues where I’ll be talking to police officers.”
A member of the group Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, Stamper is touring cities in western Canada to talk about drug enforcement policies. On April 12, the Vancouver Island Compassion Society is bringing him to Victoria.
Stamper was a police officer for 34 years, serving his last six years as the chief in Seattle, including during the WTO riots in 1999. He retired in 2000, and recently published a book, Breaking Rank: A Top Cop’s Expose of The Dark Side of American Policing. “I had inklings, even as a beat cop,” he says, “that what I was doing wasn’t productive or succesful at creating healthier, safer communities.”
In the 1990s he started speaking publicly about the failures of the war on drugs. “I think the drug war has failed abysmally and it has been very costly in terms of dollars and cents and in human lives,” he says. “It’s not a war on drugs, it’s a war on people.” The people who get the brunt of it, especially in the United States, are predominantly poor and of colour.
While members of LEAP agree that prohibition needs to end, says Stamper, there is debate on how to move forward. “My personal view is we ought to look at government licensing agencies to sell drugs,” he says. He proposes a system of control and regulation, similar to what we do with alcohol.
“I don’t see it as oxymoronic that people can take drugs responsibly,” he says. But when someone becomes an addict, they need help to be available, in the same way an alcoholic would need help.
Harper’s promise of stiffer sentences, Stamper says, is the wrong approach. “The impulse is, ‘let’s round them up, lock them up and throw away the key.’ That’s a recipe for disaster.” Despite the federal change in direction, the executive director of VICS, Philippe Lucas, says there are promising signs in Victoria. “I think in Victoria we’re getting the rhetoric right now,” he says. “But we’re seeing a real disconnect between the rhetoric and action.”
Norm Stamper will speak from noon to 1 p.m. on Wednesday, April 12, in the City of Victoria council chambers at 1 Centennial Square ( Douglas and Pandora ). Free. Call 884-9821 for information.
Topics: Articles | Comments Off
Comments are closed.