OLYMPIA, WA — A number of law enforcers who once waged the “war on drugs” submitted testimony yesterday in support of a bill to legalize and regulate marijuana in Washington. The bill, HB 1550, sponsored by Rep. Mary Lou Dickerson, was heard by the House Committee on Public Safety & Emergency Preparedness.

Norm Stamper, a retired Seattle chief of police, wrote that legalizing marijuana “would provide a great benefit for public safety by allowing the state’s police officers to focus on the worst crimes, protecting the people of Washington from burglaries, rapes, shootings, and drunk driving. Not only would it free up police resources, it would bring in much-needed new revenue for the state.” Stamper and the other criminal justice professionals that testified today are speakers for the organization Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP).

According to Rep. Dickerson, the bill could generate $400 million in new revenue for the state every two years. Seventy-seven percent of the revenues raised would be dedicated to health care and 20 percent to substance abuse and treatment. It would legalize the use of marijuana for adults age 21 and over and allow it to be sold through state liquor stores, with commercial growers applying for a license through the Liquor Control Board.

“Drug cases and marijuana cases in particular occupy an inordinate amount of money and time,” testified David Nichols, a retired Whatcom County Superior Court judge. “In addition to the court resources they waste, I witnessed the damage they inflicted upon individuals and their families and communities. And for what? Marijuana laws are not keeping anyone from using marijuana.”

Also submitting testimony today were retired U.S. Customs inspector Arnold James Byron, former police officer James Peet and former Washington State Department of Corrections probation officer Matt McCally.

The full text of the bill and other information can be found at http://apps.leg.wa.gov/billinfo/summary.aspx?bill=1550

Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP) represents police, prosecutors, judges, prison warders, federal agents and others who want to legalize and regulate drugs after fighting on the front lines of the “war on drugs” and learning firsthand that prohibition only serves to worsen addiction and violence. More info at http://www.CopsSayLegalizeDrugs.com.

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Daily Toker Tunes

Law Enforcement Against Prohibition Speaker’s Corner

• Joseph McNamara, Norm Stamper, Stephen Downing, and Kyle Kazan explain why cops say Yes on Prop 19

Radical Rant

• Steve Berker joins me to discuss YouTube censorship of his pro-Prop 19 parody video, “Should Be Legalized”

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Daily Toker Tunes by Marijuana Music Awards . com

• Variety Tuesday – ‘Smokin and Drinkin’ by Howard Glazer and the EL34s

Government at Work

• ARCHIVE: Norm Stamper, former Seattle Police Chief, reacts to the appointment of his successor, Chief Gil Kerlikowske, as the nation’s new “drug czar”.

California Marijuana Report will appear tomorrow in lieu of Cannabis Science.

Three out of four Americans believe the “war on drugs” is a failure and can never be won. Serious people like Sen. Jim Webb, former Mexican president Vicente Fox, Congressmen Barney Frank, Charlie Rangel, Steve Cohen and others, even a growing body of right-of-center analysts and politicians have been saying it’s time to fundamentally reshape our approach to drug control.

So, why this divide between massive public opposition to current policies and the positions taken by our leaders? Fear, of course. They’re afraid of being punished for touching what has been perceived, mistakenly, as a third rail issue.

And the cause of this “drug war dementia”? I’m guessing it has something to do with a brilliant 2004 poll on the topic of medical marijuana. The poll asked two questions, the first confirming what had already been shown over and over again: that about 70 percent of people support the idea of legalizing marijuana, at least for medical purposes.

But then, pollsters asked something interesting:

“Regardless of your own opinion, do you think the majority of people support making marijuana medically available, or do you think the majority opposes making marijuana medically available?”

The result? In Rhode Island, where the poll was conducted, only 26.5 percent thought that most people support medical marijuana.

The lesson here? While many of our elected representatives privately support serious changes to our failed drug laws, they believe they are alone. They think if they stick their necks out they’ll be handed their heads come election time.

Which is why we must rise up and let our elected officials know they are safe to support drug law reform. And in considerable political danger if they do not.

via Norm Stamper: Progressives Push Against Drug War: Will Dems Listen?.

This is also why we must come out of the cannabis closet and make ourselves known as the responsible, taxpaying, normal-with-an-a, law-abiding-(except-that-law) citizens that we are.  When the only public image of the cannabis community is the “stoner”, the people who support our issue will only do so quietly, lest they be lumped in with the “burnouts”.

Never has this point been so crystal clear to me as during this last weekend’s family campout for Independence Day.This was a campout for my wife’s immediate family, which sounds like a cozy get-together until you realize she is the fifth of fifteen kids.  When all the brothers and sisters plus their spouses and children gather, it’s an event with about sixty people.  Most of the younger brothers and sisters are former marijuana smokers, but they’ll tell you they “outgrew that” or “had to become a mom/dad”.  Yet four of them were eager to stop by our tent for a puff of Oregon’s finest.

That’s right – tent.  It was such a 180° from last weekend’s Mountain High Camping Weekend, where I gathered with an all-male group of cannabis activists and medical marijuana patients.  Pipes, bongs, joints, and vaporizer bags were plentiful and marijuana buds and hash were openly shared by all.  But at this weekends’ family festivities, my tent had to be set up in the furthest corner and all my tokes had to be surreptitiously sneaked behind zippered doors.

One cousin, three years older than me, came in and offered to light us up with what he had brought from Idaho.  It was that sad golf-divot-looking, alfalfa-smelling pressed brick Mexican schwag that I’d last seen six years ago before moving to Portland.  “Put that away,” I chided, “because not only will that not have the slightest effect on me, but I also won’t smoke anything that’s killing innocent Mexicans.”  He explained that chunk of hemp pressboard was all they could get in Idaho; I explained how 7,000 Mexicans are murdered per year as cartels smuggle that crap to the states.  We then lit up the fine crystally Oregon bud.  He was just one hit in when his eyes sparkled.  That was all he needed, he said, and it showed.

This cousin then explained to me how he used to smoke cannabis regularly, but now he had become a father and had to “play grown-up” and couldn’t do that anymore.  I had taken a vow of neutrality for my wife that I would shelve my political persona for the weekend (just “Russ”, not “Radical Russ”) – so I didn’t tell him about all the incredible parents I know who are regular cannabis smokers.

Later that weekend, this cousin got very drunk and slept away most of the next day with a splitting hangover… while his child was taken care of by the rest of the adults.  So much for “playing grown-up”.

Which leads me to the booze.  I will not make the obvious joke about my wife’s family’s Irish heritage and the bottle – this scene could’ve played out in any American family of any heritage.  But all weekend, every day, cooler after cooler of beer was filled and emptied.  At the center camping table where toddlers sat to eat and play were bags of chips, cookies, candies, and one-third of the table covered with bottles of gin, rum, vodka, tequila, whiskey, and liqueurs.  One female cousin got particularly “well served” and babbled and laughed to the point where my eleven-year-old niece is teasing her for being “a drunk”.

I don’t mean to paint this picture to show my wife’s family as reckless or irresponsible.  Those kids are well-watched, they know that alcohol is for adults, and everyone drinking there handles their alcohol responsibly (even if that is to responsibly puke in the bushes away from camp).  Nobody drives, gets violent, or allows the kids to drink.  But as I watched this scene, I wondered just how much of a turd in the punchbowl I would’ve been if I had simply loaded a bowl in my Starfish Designs pipe and smoked it as I enjoyed the campfire.

Every one of them who were drinking, even to excess, are fine responsible parents with great kids.  It wouldn’t occur to any of them that becoming parents meant they had to stop drinking to become “responsible”.    Yet to a person every one of them offers some sort of excuse that growing up and becoming parents forced them to stop smoking cannabis.  When I dig deep enough, I find that it is their fear of legal sanctions and losing their kids that is the true reason.

And now we get back to that Rhode Island poll where almost 3 out of 4 people support medical marijuana, but only think 1 out of 4 of their neighbors do.  These in-laws of mine, they know their cannabis use doesn’t make them bad parents, but they think others would consider them bad parents if their cannabis use was known.  They don’t know what to tell their kids about cannabis if they used it; they don’t know how to tell their kids that they should always obey the law and respect police, except when it comes to mommy and daddy’s smokable plant.  With alcohol they can say, “wait til you’re older”.  With cannabis, they are so conditioned to think of it as an act of juvenile rebellion that they feel immature and irresponsible when they use it.

I think next year, after the kids go to sleep, I will have to just take out a joint and start smoking it.  Especially after the umpteenth offer of alcohol from one of my in-laws, which I refuse every time with, “No thanks, I’m only choosing safer drugs in my old age.”

The drug war rests on a constellation of harebrained laws, most of them enacted by earlier generations of frightened, ignorant, often racist lawmakers. It has been fueled by nonstop lies and propaganda, and kept alive over the years by a succession of eight U.S. presidents in concert with one generation after another of federal, state, and local law enforcers.

Dismantling the decades-old, massively bureaucratized and financed drug war machine is a daunting task. Knowing this, given all he’s currently facing, shouldn’t we cut Obama some slack?

On reflection, yes.

via – The Huffington Post “Obama: (Reefer) Madness to Tackle Legalization?“

A Rasmussen Reports poll released this week shows that 40% of Americans have joined with such public figures as the late Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman and former Seattle Police Chief Norm Stamper in saying that marijuana should be legal. 

Interestingly, legalization enjoys its greatest support among those Americans who refuse to identify with either major political party. According to Rasmussen:

Sixty percent (60%) of Republicans are opposed to the legalization of marijuana. Democrats are more evenly split on the question, giving legalization the edge by five points….

Among adults not affiliated with either major political party, 49% favor legalization of marijuana, while 41% oppose it.

While Democratic politicians have usually proven more willing than Republicans to discuss alternatives to prohibition, policy is another matter. Former Democratic President Bill Clinton initiated federal raids against medical marijuana dispensaries in states that have legalized marijuana for medical uses, and current Attorney General Eric Holder has long been an enthusiastic booster of harsh drug policies. So it’s not surprising that unaffiliated and third-party voters would show the strongest support for legalization.

Now if only we didn’t have a political system that almost mathematically and financially guarantees third parties don’t have a chance.

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On this day one year ago, I took over as permanent host of the NORML Daily Audio Stash and founder of the Stash Blog.  Now we’re getting around 3,500 hits a day… and we’re still standing!  No “lightweights” here.  Vaporizer bags for everyone!

On today’s Stash we talk with Norm Stamper, the former Seattle Police chief, about his successor, Chief Gil Kerlikowske, perhaps being the next Drug Czar.

In Cannabis Science, Dr. Mitch answers all your questions about this testicular cancer study scaring cannabis users this week.

My interview with NORML Advisory Board and LEAP (Law Enforcement Against Prohibition) Advisory Board Member Norm Stamper, who was the police chief prior to Gil Kerlikowske in Seattle, Washington, on Kerlikowske’s rumored selection as President Obama’s next head of the cabinet-level position of director of Office of National Drug Control Policy.

Download today’s Daily Audio Stash at 4:20pm Pacific when I discuss the potential appointment of Chief Kerlikowske as Drug Czar with his predecessor, former Seattle Police Chief and current member of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, Norm Stamper.

(Seattle P-I) Seattle Police Chief Gil Kerlikowske has accepted a job in the Obama administration, most likely overseeing the nation’s drug policies, according to sources familiar with the chief’s plans.

Kerlikowske, who has led the department for more than eight years, has told the department’s top commanders he expects to leave to take a top federal position, said the sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they aren’t officially authorized to disclose the information.

Sources say Kerlikowske is expected to be named head of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, a Cabinet-level position otherwise known as the drug czar. The office, established in 1988, directs drug-control policy in the U.S. It’s subject to Senate confirmation.

Kerlikowske had also expressed an interest in the top job at the federal Drug Enforcement Administration but apparently has not been tapped for that post, one source said.

Kerlikowske won credit for stabilizing the police department after the stormy departure of Norm Stamper as chief in the wake of the 1999 World Trade Organization riots in Seattle, as well as the department’s initial failure to unearth a detective’s alleged theft of money at a crime scene. A genial Kerlikowske reached out to citizens. In addition, crime rates dipped during his time as chief, reaching historic lows in recent years.

Kerlikowske lists one of his accomplishments as the development of less-than-lethal force options for officers, equipping dozens of officers with Tasers. He also oversaw the installation of cameras in the department’s patrol cars.

He has been an advocate of gun control and fought to pass the assault-weapons ban and has championed closing the background-check loophole at gun shows.

Kerlikowske’s possible role in shaping drug policy for the Obama administration was applauded Tuesday by local medical-marijuana advocates.

In 2003, Kerlikowske opposed a city ballot measure, approved by voters, to make marijuana possession the lowest law-enforcement priority, saying it would create confusion. But in doing so, he noted that arresting people for possessing marijuana for personal use was already not a priority.

“Oh God bless us,” said Joanna McKee, co-founder and director of Green Cross Patient Co-Op, a medical-marijuana patient-advocacy group. “What a blessing — the karma gods are smiling on the whole country, man.”

McKee said Kerlikowske knows the difference between cracking down on the illegal abuse of drugs and allowing the responsible use of marijuana.

Douglas Hiatt, a Seattle attorney and advocate for medical-marijuana patients, said his first preference would be for a physician to oversee national drug policy.

But Kerlikowske would be a vast improvement over past drug czars, who have used the office to carry out the so-called “war on drugs,” Hiatt said.

Kerlikowske is a “very reasonable guy” who would likely bring more liberal policies to the job, Hiatt said.