Pubdate: Fri, 09 Dec 2011
Source: Lincoln Journal Star (NE)
Contact:  2011 Miami Herald Media Co.
Website: http://www.journalstar.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/561
Author: Glenn Garvin, Miami Herald
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?233 (Law Enforcement Against Prohibition)

IN WAR ON DRUGS, DISSENT 'UNPATRIOTIC'

I owe Kyle Vogt an apology. A former military policeman, he's now a 
member of a group called Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, or 
LEAP, a group of former cops, prosecutors and judges that supports 
ending the war on drugs.

When I interviewed Vogt for a column earlier this year, everything he 
said about the high cost and low results of the war on drugs made 
perfect sense. But he made one claim that, though I smiled politely, 
I didn't believe and didn't use in my column: that dozens and dozens 
of drug cops have contacted LEAP to express their support.

"They're afraid," Vogt said. "Any policeman who says he thinks drugs 
should be legalized gets fired." In civil-liberties-conscious 
America, patrolled by attack squadrons of ACLU lawyers? Get real, 
buddy, I thought. The war on drugs does enough damage without piling 
on with paranoid delusions.

But in the war on drugs, the line between paranoia and reality turns 
out to be a thin one indeed. Over the weekend, The New York Times 
carried a story on Bryan Gonzalez, a young agent fired by the U.S. 
Border Patrol. Grounds for dismissal: Gonzalez told another agent 
that legalizing marijuana would save lives both in the United States 
and Mexico. And he mentioned LEAP.

When the other agent reported the conversation to his superiors, it 
triggered an internal affairs investigation that ended with an 
official letter dismissing Gonzalez for holding "personal views that 
were contrary to core characteristics of Border Patrol Agents, which 
are patriotism, dedication and esprit de corps."

For starters, that sentence is a flat-out lie. The Border Patrol's 
"core values," according to its own Web page, are serving the 
American public "with vigilance, integrity and professionalism." 
There's not a single word about patriotism, dedication or esprit de corps.

But what if there was? Since when is it unpatriotic to advocate a 
change in the U.S. criminal code? If Gonzalez had told his fellow 
Border Patrol agent that he thought prison terms for drug smugglers 
should be doubled, would that have been unpatriotic, too?

Gonzalez did not light up a joint or bring a pan of Alice B. Toklas 
brownies to work. He did not let a drug smuggler go. He did not even 
sell guns to the Sinaloa Cartel. (Though, to be fair, that's 
apparently not a firing offense in the Obama administration.) All he 
did was express an opinion.

But, as Vogt tried to tell me, having the wrong opinion about the war 
on drugs is enough to get you fired from a law-enforcement job these days:

* Last month, former Arizona probation officer Joe Miller filed suit 
to get his job back after being fired for signing a letter in support 
of a ballot initiative (in another state!) to legalize personal use 
of marijuana.

* Jonathan Wender, a sergeant in the Mountlake Terrace, Wash., police 
department, was fired for supporting the decriminalization of 
marijuana. He won a court case that got him an $815,000 settlement 
plus his job back, but decided to quit anyway.

* Canada, which hosted so many American draft dodgers trying to stay 
out of the war in Vietnam, apparently is taking a less tolerant view 
of dissent from its own war on drugs. When city officials in 
Victoria, British Columbia, invited local cop David Bratzer to give a 
speech outlining his support for legalization, Bratzer's chief 
canceled it, then warned him not to criticize drug laws while within 
the city limits.

Clearly, the war on drugs has escalated to a war on talking about the 
war on drugs.

I'm sorry I doubted Vogt. As the old joke goes, even paranoids have 
real enemies. Though nobody's laughing at this one.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom