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"What is a Cop Doing Here?"
John A. Gayder, Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP)

John A. Gayder is a currently serving Constable with a police force in Ontario, Canada. During his fourteen-year career he has done mostly uniform patrol work, with occasional assignments and attachments to CIB (Criminal Investigation Branch) and plain clothes anti robbery and pick pocket teams. He is a qualified Scenes of Crime Officer and is the coordinator and instructor for his service's High Angle Access Team - a group of specially trained volunteer officers who respond to a variety of calls for service in the rugged Niagara Gorge. He is also a certified member of his employers Joint Health and Safety Committee.

John's concerns with current drug laws are not the only area of public policy with which he is involved. In 1995, he was a founding Executive member of The Sporting Clubs of Niagara, a group concerned about the affects of Canadian gun laws. Taxes, prostitution, seat belt, speeding and impaired driving laws are also areas of policy that hold similar concerns for John, and for the same reasons. "Policing has, and continues to become a venue for nanny state do-gooder-ism," says Gayder, "whatever happened to our once simple mission of catching REAL criminals?"

When asked if being outspoken about controversial issues ever causes him difficulties at work, John points out that he is very lucky to have wise superiors who, although they may not agree with his positions, acknowledge free speech and the value of rational and legitimate discourse in complex matters of public policy.

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A summary of remarks made by LEAP founding Secretary John A. Gayder at
GREEN TRUTH – THE GREEN TIDE SHADOW SUMMIT
Sutton Place Hotel
Toronto, Ontario.
March 4, 2004

My name is John A. Gayder, I am the founding Secretary of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition.

Leap is an International non profit organization made of current and former members of law enforcement who believe that not only has the war on drugs been a dismal failure, it is actually making the evils it originally sought to lessen even worse.

I know a great many of you will be surprised by the presence of a currently serving police officer at a drug policy reform meeting. You are probably wondering, “What is a cop doing here?”

Please allow me to explain. My reasons are similar to those held by other members of Leap.

My objections to the drug war stem from the same reasons as you have, and a few that stem from and are unique to my profession, but before I get into that – let me give you my observations about what is going on in Canada on the drug policy reform front;

Many people in Canada and abroad have stars in their eyes about what is happening in here in regards to legislative change. I want to caution you about the new changes – despite what is being said, the new law is not the silver bullet everybody seems to thinks it is. Like most things created by government, it has some serious flaws. I encourage you to look closer at it before you think we are reaching the end of the rainbow.

Secondly, the court decision this past spring that resulted in our laws governing cannabis to be declared temporarily null and void for approximately nine months before being reinstated is being overlooked. During that time, the sky did not fall. We were not plagued by hordes of roving maniacs high on “the devils weed.” Commerce and daily life were unaffected, and this is an important anecdote for reformers that I think is being under utilized.

So why am I against the drug war?

Firstly, it puts me in an unnecessarily adversarial relationship against a large segment of the very same society I am supposed to be the friendly protector of. Lots of people use some form of drugs from time to time and its been my experience that the vast majority of users of all types of drugs – including alcohol - are hard working, non-violent, nice people. Medical cannabis for sick people should be a non-issue – a “no-brainer”. Although it is true that some people abuse drugs, these people need society’s help and support - they should NOT be the target of law enforcement. Those who want the police and the courts to continue to “do something” about drug use because it can be harmful to individuals have forgotten that one of the original main concepts of policing here in western society was to protect people from each other – not from themselves.

Secondly, I am against the drug war because of the unnecessary safety risks it adds to the workplace. Although it is obviously the job of law enforcement officers to take risks, it is equally obvious that there is no advantage in taking unnecessary risks. The drug war is a fight we do not need to be in.

Let me reiterate what most of you already know - there is virtually no such thing as the media term “drug related violence”. It’s a misattributed myth – an artificial construct.

What we do have is “prohibition related violence” in the form of turf disputes, or by drug couriers who are desperate to evade police capture. We also have to contend with the violence by participants in the black market drug trade who shoot each other because they have no access to the courts to settle their disputes over broken promises or defective goods. The parade of prohibition related violence continues through addicts who become desperate enough to rob, steal and murder to pay the artificially high prices created by prohibition for their drugs. I’ll note here however that I have never heard an instance of a cannabis user doing this.

There is also the risk of explosion connected with improvised methamphetamine labs and the danger of electrocution and fire presented by inexpertly bypassed electrical meters at hydroponic cannabis grows.

As I mentioned, all of these risks are created by the continued prohibition of drugs. And they do not just affect law enforcement – many of them pose a risk to the general public as well, and if it’s my job to protect the public – then I have to try to determine and change root causes of them.

I am very frustrated with the effect the drug war has had on society’s respect for the rule of law. When drugs first became illegal, people didn’t stop producing and using them, they kept right on producing and using them because they felt the law lacked moral justification. Creating a situation where people pick and choose what laws they will or won’t obey adversely affects the credibility of all laws – even the very most necessary ones. This is not healthy for society. Respect for the rule of law is further diminished when people observe it being used in connection with blatantly unethical schemes like asset forfeiture and the active recruitment and abuse of confidential informants, or the outright bribing and corruption of police officers.

Time won’t let me get into the maddeningly obscene diversion of already scarce funds away from proven law enforcement programs to fund the war on drugs, nor will it allow me to mention my frustration at the early release of genuine criminals from prison due to the overcrowding caused by the war on drugs.

I’d like to summarize by affirming what most of you already know - that with the exception of addiction, all of the things we hate about drugs are the result of their being illegal. I’d like to see the war on drugs end so that the law enforcement profession could be safer and regain it’s honour in the eyes of the public which has been diminished by its participation in the war on drugs.

I also want to tell you of my deep disappointment at my organization not being allowed to attend the OACP summit at Queens Park. Although I am as far from the rank of Chief as an officer can go, had Leap been given the courtesy of a response to our request to attend, we could have arranged to have one of the former Chiefs who are members of our organization attend.

Although I have not seen the Green Tide agenda and have no advanced knowledge of the conclusions they will reach - I strongly suspect, or at least will be very surprised if their solution to the problem of illegal grow ops will not be more of the same old thing. They will be asking for more “tools” to help them. They will be asking for more funding. They will ask to institute “snitch lines” that will allow people to report on their neighbors. They will be asking that the citizens of Ontario again give up even more of the civil rights left to us by our ancestors and defended by our veterans by asking everyone to submit to more surveillance, and additional relaxation of the protections afforded by the search warrant procedure. They will also ask for increased sentences for those who produce and consume drugs.

Unfortunately, I also suspect they will be given all of these things. Of course, we in this room know these measures will just make things worse by driving the costs associated with the production and distribution of cannabis upwards. In turn, the opportunity to make huge profits will be created and that opportunity will be capitalized on by people who have no business being within a mile of something so sensitive and delicate as psychoactive pharmaceuticals. As with what previously happened during the prohibition of alcohol, this creates a self-perpetuating merry-go-round of police creating job vacancies for new growers and dealers every time they arrest an old one.

I’d like to end my remarks by thanking all the attendees of the conference for welcoming me as graciously as they have even while knowing that I am a currently serving officer. Your warmth and candor has meant a lot to me. I’d also like to thank the members of Toronto Hemp Company and all of the other groups in drug law reform who have paved the way in the past for me to be here today. In activism, progress is sometimes hard to find, but without your past consciousness raising efforts - I wouldn’t have had the encouragement to speak out against the drug war, nor would my opportunity to speak here today ever have occurred. My appearance here represents progress in the quest for reform– and you all can pat yourselves on the back for making it possible.

Now get back to work.