Pubdate: Fri, 1 Aug 2008
Source: Seattle (WA)
Copyright: 2008 Tiger Oak Publications
Contact: http://drugsense.org/url/aMJA2dFF
Website: http://www.seattlemag.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/4840
Author: Yemaya Maurer
Photo: http://www.mapinc.org/images/pot.jpg
Cited: Hempfest http://hempfest.org/drupal/
Cited: Initiative 75 http://drugsense.org/pages/initiatives/wa_75
Cited: Law Enforcement Against Prohibition http://www.leap.cc/
Cited: Marijuana: It's Time for a Conversation 
http://www.marijuanaconversation.org/
Cited: NORML http://www.norml.org/
Cited: Mothers Against Misuse and Abuse http://www.mamas.org/

THE CASE FOR POT

What do a Seattle cop, an Edmonds travel writer and the ACLU have in 
common? They all want to legalize marijuana, and not just for medical 
purposes. As Seattle's annual Hempfest returns to Myrtle Edward Park 
this month, these odd bedfellows are putting Seattle at the center of 
a national conversation about marijuana reform

Hempfest: August 2006. On the shores of Puget Sound in Seattle's 
Myrtle Edwards Park, a hard rock band wraps up its set. Amid vendors 
hawking colorful bongs, hemp knapsacks and Love Your Mother bumper 
stickers, the crowd of 20- and 30-somethings applauds.

As the last strains of guitar music drift upward into the air, mixing 
with plumes of marijuana smoke, a broad-shouldered man with short, 
white hair pushes through the crowd.

In bold print, the back of his T-shirt reads: cops say legalize 
drugs. ask me why. When he takes the stage and turns around, it's 
clear why he's prompting the question: This is Seattle's former 
police chief Norm Stamper.

While Stamper isn't scheduled to appear at this year's Hempfest, at 
the event two years ago he addressed the crowd on an issue that he 
continues to speak out on: the legalization of marijuana.

So how does a cop go from busting people for pot to advocating its 
decriminalization?

Stamper recently recounted a story from his rookie year as a cop when 
he arrested a 19-year-old for marijuana possession, handcuffed him, 
put him in the back of his squad car and started driving toward the 
station. As he looked at his charge in the rear-view mirror, he 
realized he'd just arrested a young man who hadn't been hurting 
anybody. "I could have been doing real police work," Stamper says. "I 
could have been intervening in domestic violence.

I could have been stopping people from hurting other people-that's 
noble, honorable work." It was a turning point for Stamper, who made 
a vow to treat adult marijuana possession enforcement as his lowest priority.

He did so throughout his tenure as police chief, and in 2003, three 
years after he retired, Seattle residents passed Initiative 75, 
making adult marijuana possession the lowest priority for city 
police-an initiative that led to similar reforms in other cities, 
including Denver. Leadership on initiatives such as this, as well as 
advocacy by high-profile activists such as Stamper, has put Seattle 
at the center of a national conversation about marijuana decriminalization.

Stamper is one of the more unlikely advocates for marijuana policy 
reform-and he holds a position that's radical, even to many of those 
who attend Hempfest (arguably the largest cannabis reform rally in 
the world). While many reform advocates would like to see marijuana 
decriminalized, Stamper takes it several steps further: He wants 
marijuana-and all drugs-to be legalized, regulated and controlled. 
Only then, he argues, can we take power away from drug lords, get 
users the help they need and allow law enforcement to focus on violent crimes.

Stamper sits on the advisory board of Law Enforcement Against 
Prohibition (LEAP), a national nonprofit organization with 6,500-plus 
members who advocate for the end to the war on drugs.

As a member of LEAP, he often gives speeches, such as the one he gave 
earlier this year to students at Western Washington University's 
Performing Arts Center. As he paced the stage in his polished leather 
shoes and pressed black suit, he called the war on drugs the most 
damaging social policy since slavery, and a failure. "Today, drugs 
are more readily available at lower prices and higher potency than at 
any time in the drug war." Among the stats he cited: $1 trillion has 
been spent on the war on drugs; more than a half-million Americans 
are currently in jail as a result of it; and in 2006, a record 
829,627 individuals were arrested for marijuana offenses in America.

Several audience members brought up an issue frequently raised on 
this topic-whether it's moral for a government to legalize drugs that 
can hurt people and lead to addiction.

It was clearly a question Stamper had heard before.

In a passionate yet well-rehearsed response, he said that 
legalization, regulation and control won't solve the drug problem, 
but at least users will get drugs at the proper strength and have 
access to resources that will help them limit or stop their drug use. 
One student, sitting in the back row, asked the question everyone 
secretly hoped someone would pose: Does Stamper smoke pot? 
Sidestepping the question, he told the group that he cherishes his 
privacy, and that it's nobody's business whether or not he uses pot. 
The only things that get him off Orcas Island where he lives are what 
he calls the three D's-domestic violence, the death penalty and drug 
policy reform, issues that he speaks about across the country.

No one is happier to have Stamper on the side of legalizing pot than 
Vivian McPeak, executive director of Hempfest and self-described 
traditional hippie (his gray dreadlocks and long beard fit the part). 
McPeak devotes himself full time, year-round to organizing Hempfest. 
"If someone would have told us in 1991 [the year Hempfest started] 
that 15 years later the chief of police would be on our stage, 
speaking our same message of freedom and responsibility, I'd have 
said, 'You're crazy,'" McPeak says, adding that Stamper adds a lot of 
credibility to Hempfest and has helped generate positive media 
coverage. Too often, he says, media coverage has focused more on the 
festival component of the event, rather than the forum it provides 
for discussion about marijuana policy reform.

"People who dismiss us as a bunch of people smoking pot in the park 
are completely missing the point," says McPeak. "This movement is 
about people losing their homes, their jobs and their kids, kids 
getting kicked out of school, people being incarcerated for an equal 
or greater amount of time than those committing violent crimes.

It's not funny." McPeak, who has been with Hempfest from the 
beginning, originally got involved to celebrate personal freedom.

But over the years, he has focused more on what he calls the 
unjustified and inequitable incarceration of otherwise innocent 
people who are caught with marijuana in their possession. In 2006 
alone, according to the FBI, 44 percent of drug arrests made were for 
marijuana-more than any other drug. And 89 percent of those arrests 
were for possession only, not trafficking.

The ACLU of Washington is another organization involved with marijuana reform.

This winter, it launched "Marijuana: It's Time for a Conversation", a 
multimedia campaign that casts marijuana policy reform as a matter of 
civil liberty and racial justice, an argument that is slowly 
experiencing increased traction.

According to Alison Holcomb, Washington ACLU's Marijuana Education 
Project director, marijuana prohibition is rooted in racism.

Until the 1960s or '70s, marijuana was viewed by the public as 
primarily the intoxicant of marginalized people, such as immigrants 
and black jazz musicians. Because these outsiders' use of "wacky 
tobaccy" scared mainstream Americans, prohibitionists relied on fear 
to push anti-marijuana laws through federal legislation. Marijuana 
laws are still enforced disproportionately against people of color: 
While 74 percent of marijuana users are white and 14 percent are 
African American, African Americans account for 30 percent of 
marijuana arrests.

The ACLU's educational campaign has another unlikely marijuana 
advocate as host: renowned Edmonds-based travel writer and TV 
celebrity Rick Steves. The campaign's Web site and television program 
(available 24/7 to Comcast On Demand subscribers) features likable, 
uncontroversial characters such as Steves who encourage people to 
talk publicly about marijuana and its prohibition. The ACLU supports 
a public health approach to drugs, including marijuana.

Holcomb says that marijuana is a safe way to start addressing the war 
on drugs, and that Steves is the ideal person to start the 
conversation: He's the father of two teens; he and his wife, Anne, 
are active philanthropists in their community; he's a committed 
member of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America; and he often 
writes and speaks publicly about his deep concern for this country.

When asked why he's chosen to focus on marijuana rather than other 
pressing social issues, Steves' answer is simple: "Anybody can talk 
about homelessness and everyone claps, but people are afraid to talk 
about marijuana.... I can speak out and survive.

I don't need to be elected or promoted." Steves' successful 
company-which publishes guidebooks and hosts overseas trips-employs 80 people.

The nature of his business means that he spends a good chunk of each 
year traveling the world, where he sees firsthand how many other 
countries have addressed their drug problems more successfully than 
the United States. He's occasionally smoked marijuana while abroad 
and doesn't want to lie about it to his kids or to anybody else. He 
believes this country can adopt a pragmatic policy toward marijuana 
with a focus on harm reduction and public health, rather than tough 
but counterproductive criminalization. When he accepted the Luther 
Institute's Wittenberg Award, recognizing outstanding service to 
church and society earlier this year, he didn't pull any punches as 
he talked about drug policy reform to the mostly conservative crowd.

For most, Steves' message is a little more palatable than Stamper's, 
as Steves advocates for decriminalization, not legalization. He 
points to the Netherlands, where marijuana is decriminalized-sales 
are not legal and regulated, but the criminal penalties are absent-as 
an example of a country that approaches marijuana from a public 
health perspective rather than a criminal one. The Dutch government 
invests more in marijuana education, prevention and treatment than in 
prosecuting and jailing users. "They don't have all the answers, but 
they're comfortable with the gray zone," says Steves.

When he can get mainstream people talking about marijuana policy 
reform, Steves feels like he's putting his fame to good use. He 
writes op-ed pieces in newspapers such as the Los Angeles Times and 
the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, he speaks about the issue on public 
radio and he appears on television shows such as Evening Magazine. 
But when he talks each year at Hempfest, he worries that he's 
preaching to the choir. "It would be great if everyone there would 
buy a few less T-shirts and take that money to support advocacy 
groups such as NORML." The group, on whose advisory board Steves 
sits, lobbies Congress and state legislatures for more rational and 
cost-effective marijuana policies.

He finds it disappointing when people smoke marijuana recreationally 
and responsibly, but do not get involved in advocacy.

Mostly he sees Hempfest as a celebration of a subculture, a good 
thing in and of itself. "But if you want to win the war on 
criminalization, you've got to cut your hair, put on a shirt and go 
talk outside the choir."

Some experts involved in drug policy reform have concluded that the 
facts are in and there's nothing to discuss.

The Office of National Drug Control Policy (DCP), a component of the 
Executive Office of the President, for one, stands firmly behind the 
federal law, which states that marijuana is illegal and that getting 
high on marijuana can impede human development and impair judgment.

Under federal law, possession of any amount is punishable by up to 
one year in jail for a first offense and a minimum fine of $1,000-the 
punishment increases with each offense; the sale or cultivation of 
any amount less than 50 kilograms is a felony punishable by five 
years in jail and a $250,000 fine. In Washington state, possession of 
40 grams or more can result in five years in prison and a fine of up 
to $10,000.

Other experts, such as Dr. Roger Roffman, a professor of social work 
at the University of Washington, say that marijuana is harmful and 
that criminalizing people for its use is even more harmful.

Roffman has studied marijuana use for 40 years, initially among 
service personnel in the Vietnam War. He currently researches 
marijuana dependence and, with federal funds, studies counseling 
approaches to treating adults dependent on marijuana.

He argues that even with the ACLU's recent efforts and with Hempfest 
gaining more credibility as a reform rally, major strides in 
marijuana policy reform will not happen until reform advocates 
acknowledge that marijuana can be harmful, should not be used by 
children and should not be used continually by teens or people with 
certain health issues.

Only when advocates acknowledge this, will the public become 
comfortable talking rationally and openly about marijuana 
decriminalization, he says.

No matter where they fall on the spectrum of proposed policy reform, 
decriminalization advocates and many legal experts and politicians 
agree that our current marijuana laws are not working.

Today, 98 million Americans-a third of our population-admit to having 
tried marijuana. They acquired the drug from dealers who had all the 
control during the transaction. "The way things are now, we can't 
control how strong the pot is, what pesticides are used, whether it's 
been laced with cocaine, nothing!" says the ACLU's Holcomb. To those 
who argue that marijuana is a gateway drug, Steves counters that it 
only has that role in that it puts young people out in the streets 
with people who have a financial incentive to sell harder stuff.

Hempfest is one way marijuana policy reform proponents are trying to 
get their message out, using the hook of entertainment. But once 
there, organizers work to impart advocacy.

Sometimes the two have mixed, as in a performance on the Hempfest 
main stage in 2005 by Alison Holcomb. To prove that what the 
messenger looks like does matter if you want to be heard, she started 
her speech wearing an over-the-top hippie chic outfit, complete with 
tie-dyed muumuu and peace-sign glasses; by the end, she'd stripped 
down to her customary lawyer attire-black pant suit, Barbara Bush pearls.

Other decriminalization activists focus on reaching out to parents. 
Sandee Burbank, the founder and executive director of Mothers Against 
Misuse and Abuse (MAMA), an Oregon-based group with 2,000 members who 
want to help people make informed decisions about drugs, travels 
around the country talking about drug consumer safety.

One stop on her annual tour is Hempfest, which gives her the 
opportunity to talk with parents about the potential dangers of all 
drugs-including prescription drugs and over-the-counter 
medications-compared to medical marijuana, which she believes is far 
more useful and less harmful. She would like to see marijuana 
legalized so people have the option to choose it over other, more 
dangerous drugs.

Medical marijuana is the most successful realm of drug policy reform, 
at least at the state level.

Voters in Washington state passed the Medical Use of Marijuana Act in 
1998, which allows patients with certain chronic, fatal and 
debilitating diseases to possess a 60-day supply of marijuana with a 
doctor's authorization. (The state Legislature has mandated that the 
Washington State Department of Health spell out exactly how much a 
60-day supply constitutes; a decision on the matter was expected 
around July 1, after this issue went to press.) Other states have 
similar measures, but none of them change federal marijuana laws, 
which do not recognize state medical marijuana laws: Anyone who 
grows, distributes, dispenses or possesses marijuana for any purpose 
may still face federal prosecution-felony charges, jail time, fines 
and loss of financial aid.

If Seattle's marijuana advocates have their way, people across the 
nation will stop with the Cheech and Chong jokes and start talking 
about marijuana decriminalization around their dining-room tables, in 
front of their legislatures and, for two days each August, at a 
waterfront celebration in honor of a plant called pot. 
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake