U.S. Law Enforcement Officials Call on Canadian Prime Minister to Legalize Marijuana

 Canada Risks Repeating ‘U.S. Mistakes‘ with Mandatory Minimum Sentences in Bill C-10

 WASHINGTON, DC —A high-profile group of current and former law enforcement officials from the United States is calling on the Canadian government to reconsider the mandatory minimum sentences for minor marijuana offenses proposed in Bill C-10, arguing that the taxation and regulation of marijuana is a more effective policy approach to reducing crime.

On Wednesday, the law enforcers released a letter outlining their concerns, addressed to Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Canadian senators. It is signed by more than two dozen current and former judges, police officers, special agents, narcotics investigators and other criminal justice professionals, all of whom are members of the group Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP). The letter strongly reinforces the failure of U.S. crime policies that those proposed in the Canadian federal government’s Bill C-10 legislation seem to be modeled on.

“Through our years of service enforcing anti-marijuana laws, we have seen the devastating consequences of these laws,” the letter states. “Among the greatest concerns is the growth in organized crime and gang violence. Just as with alcohol prohibition, gang violence, corruption and social decay have marched in lockstep with marijuana prohibition.”

“We were deeply involved with the war on drugs and have now accepted, due to our own experience and the clear evidence before us, that these policies are a costly failure,” the letter continues. “Marijuana prohibition drives corruption and violence and tougher laws only worsen the problem.”

Bill C-10, titled “The Safe Streets and Communities Act,” is currently being heard by the Senate Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs. Among other proposals, the bill calls for stricter mandatory minimum sentences for minor marijuana offenses, including minimum six-month sentences for growing as few as six marijuana plants.

“The Canadian government believes the answer is to get tougher on criminals,” said Norm Stamper, retired chief of police in Seattle, Washington. “But as we’ve learned with our decades-long failed experiment with the ‘war on drugs,’ the stricter sentencing proposed in the bill will only serve to help fill jails. It will not reduce harms related to the illicit marijuana trade, make Canadian streets safer or diminish gang activity.”

Said retired Washington State Superior Court Judge David Nichols: “Policies similar to those in the U.S. and now under consideration in Canada have been costly failures in the United States, wasting tax dollars and bankrupting state budgets. Following our path presents obvious and significant risks to Canadians.”

Among the 28 signers of the letter are many law enforcement officials working in border areas. They pointed to the illegal cross-border marijuana trade as sustaining gang activity in the region.

“Organized crime groups move marijuana to the U.S. from British Columbia and return with cocaine and guns,” said Stamper. “Prohibition continues to fill the coffers of organized criminals, making communities on both sides of the border less safe.”

Eric Sterling, who helped the U.S. Congress write the federal mandatory minimum sentencing laws, cautions: “As counsel to the U.S.  House Judiciary Committee during the 1980's, I played a major role in writing the mandatory minimum drug sentencing laws which later turned out to not only be ineffective in reducing drug use, but which directly contributed to the disastrous overincarceration problem in this country. I urge policy makers in Canada to learn from our mistakes.”

Canadian Senator Larry Campbell, a member of LEAP’s advisory board and a former member of the RCMP and its drug squad, added: “I am hopeful that my Senate colleagues will listen to the voice of experience, and take into account the advice from leading U.S. law enforcement officials to avoid mandatory minimum sentences. The U.S. and many of its citizens have suffered greatly due to the inflexible and dogmatic nature of mandatory minimum sentences, and Canada would be wise to learn from and avoid that costly and socially destructive mistake.”

U.S. Becoming More Progressive than Canada with Marijuana Policy

While Canada moves towards stricter sentencing with Bill C-10, many states in the U.S. are shifting in the opposite direction, toward control and regulation of the marijuana trade. The law enforcement officials pointed to the 16 U.S. states and the District of Columbia that have already passed laws allowing medical use of cannabis, the 14 states that have taken steps to decriminalize marijuana possession and the initiatives to fully tax and regulate marijuana that are likely to appear on statewide ballots this November in Washington State, Colorado and possibly California.

“We assume this news will not make you consider closing the borders with the United States,” the law enforcement officials write in their letter.

For a copy of the law enforcement letter, please visit http://www.leap.cc/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/regulation-in-canada.pdf

Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP) represents police, prosecutors, judges, prison wardens, federal agents and others who want to legalize and regulate marijuana and other 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.

#       #       #

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: February 22, 2012
CONTACT: Tom Angell – (202) 557-4979 or media@leap.cc
                      Steve Finlay – (604) 315-5635 or steve.finlay@leap.cc

LEAP Letter in Washington Post

Check out this great letter to the editor in the Washington Post by LEAP speaker Eric Sterling.

An obstacle to D.C.'s medical marijuana law

By Eric E. Sterling
Silver Spring

The April 19 editorial “Medical marijuana” made a wise observation regarding the D.C. medical marijuana law — “critical details will need to be worked out in its implementation” — but did not mention the key obstacle: the federal drug law and the Drug Enforcement Administration opposition. The D.C. law and those of 14 states are messy because they need to work around federal law. D.C. and the states would benefit from DEA cooperation, not opposition stubbornly grounded on the Constitution’s supremacy clause.

Aside from the Mexican drug trafficking organizations, the big challenge for the next DEA administrator is to help the states and D.C. implement their medical marijuana laws. President Obama’s nominee, Michele M. Leonhart, has been at the top of DEA for seven years as deputy and acting administrator. Previously she was DEA special agent-in-charge in both San Francisco and Los Angeles. Since 1997, she has led DEA in resisting state medical marijuana laws. She lacks an essential qualification: a commitment to working with the states to implement these compassionate laws. The Senate Judiciary Committee should look closely at her record and her willingness to carry out that mission.

The writer is president of the Criminal Justice Policy Foundation.

LEAP Testifies for Marijuana Decriminalization in Virginia

LEAP speaker Eric Sterling, former counsel to the U.S. House Judicary Committee and current president of the Criminal Justice Policy Foundation, will testify on LEAP's behalf today in favor of a bill that would decriminalize marijuana possession in Virginia.

Here are his prepared remarks:

Hearing of the Criminal Law Subcommittee of the Committee for Courts of Justice of the Virginia House of Delegates Richmond, Virginia H. Morgan Griffith, Chairman

January 27, 2010

Statement of Eric E. Sterling, J.D.

on behalf of LAW ENFORCEMENT AGAINST PROHIBITION (LEAP) in support of House Bill No. 1134 Marijuana Decriminalization

Mr. Chairman and distinguished Members of the Subcommittee, thank you very much for the opportunity to present the views of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP) in support of H.B. 1134, introduced by the highly distinguished, Delegate Harvey B. Morgan.

LEAP is an association of current and former law enforcement officers, prosecutors, judges and criminal justice professionals at every level of government who are speaking out about the failure of our drug policy, and I serve on the Advisory Board. LEAP has 544 members in Virginia.

For nine years during the Reagan Administration, I was counsel to the Subcommittee on Crime of the U.S. House Judiciary Committee. I oversaw federal law enforcement and helped develop legislation regarding drugs, pornography, organized crime, money laundering, military assistance to law enforcement, and other issues. I staffed the enactment of many provisions in the Comprehensive Crime Control Act of 1984, the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986, and the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988. I am best known for my role in developing the mandatory minimum sentences for drug offenses in 1986 after Maryland basketball star Len Bias died from using cocaine. More recently, I am a part-time professor teaching Criminal Justice and Sociology at George Washington University in Washington, DC. I am the President of the Criminal Justice Policy Foundation in Silver Spring, MD.

H.B. 1134 is a very well developed bill to remove the criminal penalty for the possession of marijuana for personal use. The bill maintains society’s disapproval of marijuana use by continuing a civil penalty of up to $500 for such possession, but provides that proceedings be initiated by summons instead of by arrest. It recognizes that marijuana is a substance that can be abused like other drugs and alcohol and it provides that minors who commit this offense can be required to undertake substance abuse screening, testing and treatment.

This bill will produce important efficiencies for the Commonwealth’s law enforcement agencies and could save in the range of $250 to 300 million in police, prosecution and incarceration costs related to marijuana possession, using estimates prepared for the Criminal Justice Policy Foundation by Dr. Jeffrey Miron, Professor of Economics at Harvard University.

According to the 2008 Crime Report from the Virginia State Police, police in Virginia made 19,911 arrests for marijuana offenses in 2008 out of a total of 33,217 arrests for all drug offenses – 60.5 percent (pp. 62-63). Unfortunately, unlike most states and the FBI, this data does not distinguish between simple possession, and offenses of manufacturing and distribution.

These roughly 20,000 marijuana arrests compare to 21,811 reported violent index crimes (p. v). Does marijuana deserve that kind of police and prosecutor attention? No rational analysis of law enforcement resources would make that equivalence. This emphasis on marijuana arrests takes officers off the streets and puts them in booking rooms and courts instead of focusing on much higher priority law enforcement matters.

Of course LEAP, like other law enforcement organizations, does not endorse or condone marijuana use, but that is not the issue here, because to remove the criminal penalty for the use or possession of small amounts of marijuana is not an endorsement or condonation of its use.

As you face a budget shortfall for the next biennium of $4.2 billion you need to change laws that will result in changing police practices to maintain a focus on public safety priorities. For example, on Monday, the Clarke County Sheriff, Tony Roper, reported that his office is planning for a 22 percent cut. The article is available here: http://www.clarkedailynews.com/sheriffs-department-braces-for-virginia-budget-cuts/1472/. Throughout the Commonwealth you are going to need to look for practical ways to save money. This bill deters marijuana use and protects public safety without wasting very scare public safety dollars.

The policy of this bill is the policy recommended by the National Commission on Marihuana and Drug Abuse, chaired by Pennsylvania’s Republican Governor, Raymond P. Shafer in 1972. Following that report, by 1978 Oregon, Alaska, California, Colorado, Mississippi, New York, Nebraska, North Carolina, and Ohio enacted marijuana decriminalization laws. Studies of the comparative prevalence of marijuana use demonstrate that these laws did not result in greater rates of marijuana use than comparable, neighboring states. In a state that many see as a political bellwether, 65 percent of the voters in Commonwealth of Massachusetts approved a state marijuana decriminalization law in November 2008.

## #

Eric Sterling's comments on bill C-15

Eric Sterling is a member of the advisory board for Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, and he is also president of the Criminal Justice Policy Foundation. On October 28th, he testified by videoconference before the Canadian Senate Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs. It was in regards to bill C-15 which proposed a mandatory minimum sentence of six months in jail for as little as six marijuana plants.

The committee hearings are over now, but his testimony still raises some good points, namely:

1) The manner in which mandatory minimum sentences dilute the impact of law enforcement resources.

2) The inability of drug courts to scale to demand.