Does Marijuana Interdiction Amount to Reefer Madness?

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From Law Officer's Facebook Page:

Please comment on how ending the war on marijuana would be the best thing law enforcement could support—it would allow officers to focus on real crime!

—Mark B., via Facebook

This might surprise some of you, but Ol' Bullethead agrees with the idea that we—as a society—put way too many resources into messing with weed. I eventually stopped buying the idea that it was a "gateway drug" any more than alcohol or other drugs. What makes this topic interesting is that many cops out there still believe weed is a huge issue and will go after pot the way others might go after a violent criminal.

Back when I was working as a patrol cop, Ol' Bullethead did enough marijuana grows to get my own column in High Times. If there was nothing going on that needed immediate attention, and if I couldn't find anything else, I had a ton of fun finding a guy with some ganga! I'd pull enough info out of him to go find his dealer and from there the wholesaler. Eventually I'd be standing in a backyard or a basement or a warehouse inside of an MJ jungle.

Some old-time crusty narc pulled me aside one day and told me I was doing great work but he questioned why. I was spending time generating reports, involving evidence people, sometimes creating the need for follow up by detectives. Then he told me the crooks—or farmers or whatever you want to call them—were getting a day of jail time per pound or per plant. And that was for the mature plants: nothing for the young plants.

I was never one to worry much about what the courts do since it's way outside of my ability to control. I do, however, get much more satisfaction from pulling a real violent bad guy off the streets and stopping him from ever taking another step as a free man vs. going after some guys growing weed and watching them get a few months. What I did get from those days chasing MJ was a great understanding of 4th amendment issues. I further developed my ability to work informants, write warrants and talk my way into places. I also had a ton of fun and that's really why I was doing it.

We should all enjoy our job but just by saying I did it to have fun begs the question: Should we be doing it? Should we take away people's freedom, take their possessions and direct all those resources toward marijuana when I was only pursuing my own interests?

Those were olden days. Where I work today, reefer has been decriminalized. Not legalized, unless your doctor says so. Even with the decriminalization, we still direct plenty of resources toward making it go away. This happens while booze flows freely; hard drug pills are prescribed to and swallowed by soccer moms like they're Tic Tacs; and all of this at the expense of directing resources toward other more important policing problems.

Frankly, I don't see it helping us much either. Just last week my team took down a house where a guy selling the green monster had set up shop. This came in as a complaint from the dealer's neighbors. Our whole narc team spent about three weeks working on this case. We helped them by stopping cars, getting weed and giving out tickets to those who didn't have their doctor's permission. In the end we used both units to do a remote takedown on the dealer and a roll back to the house. This guy sold to the Man three times and we found a bunch of evidence on him and at his house. He will be out in about a week.

What could have happened is all his customers could have gone to a store instead of bugging the people in this neighborhood. There could have been a supply line from the ground to the pothead's bongs that employed farmers, pickers, processors, transporters and a store. On the government side these same customers could have supported regulators for every step and a tax base for federal, state, county and city taxes. These taxes can support services for citizens, salaries for government employees and probably an endowment for the arts—we writers need a place to express ourselves.

Maybe you think Ol' Bullethead has lost it and gone soft. Oh no! Criminals need to get stuck in a pit. Cops need to enforce the law. But we also need to use our resources to educate the public about weed. It may be time to support elected officials who see marijuana as a cash crop so we can concentrate on putting violent crooks in jail.