By Shelley Fox-Loken
Special to the Leader
WASHINGTON COUNTY, Ore. — People are sometimes surprised to hear that someone who dedicated her life to public safety would favor the legalization of marijuana.
But as someone who dedicated her life to promoting the public good, not the conventional wisdom, I believe that law enforcement officers are uniquely positioned to understand the harms that the prohibition of marijuana has caused in this country, and that more of us believe in legalization than feel comfortable stating so publicly.
Because marijuana is illegal, there are tremendous profits to be made in its sale. This both incentivizes violence and ensures that our efforts to prosecute our way into reduced drug use will fail, for there are always more dealers willing to take the place of those arrested. The prosecution of users has proved futile as well – despite marijuana being illegal since 1937, the majority of Americans ages 18 to 64 have tried marijuana.
Most will suffer no ill consequences, eventually grow out of it, and look back on their youthful indiscretions with a sly grin. But for those who are prosecuted, there’s no moving past it. Their criminal record will forever haunt them. If the difference between those who were prosecuted and those who were not were random, we would brand it a cruel, ineffective system. But it’s worse than random; it falls so consistently along racial and economic lines, the criminalization of marijuana should be a crime in itself.
Read the rest: Retired Oregon corrections officer makes a public safety argument for legalization of marijuana (guest column)