In Washington state, some cops quietly support legalizing pot
Lawmen Against the Law
By TIMOTHY EGAN, NYT
SEATTLE - Last November, the former chief federal prosecutor from Washington State took the stage before a hall full of cops and tried to persuade the people who enforce the drug laws to change them - specifically, to get aboard what will most likely turn out to the nation's first successful campaign to legalize marijuana.
The sheriffs and police chiefs listened politely to John McKay, a silver-haired, Jesuit-educated lawyer who had been appointed prosecutor by President George W. Bush. The marijuana laws - "giving us the right to come to your home and take away your personal liberty for something that much of the community thinks is not a crime" - are a travesty, a farce and a crime generator, he said.
Afterward, the cops voted not to support the ideas that became Washington's Initiative 502, which would legalize recreational use of marijuana for adults. But many officers pulled McKay aside and quietly cheered him on.
"They came up to me and said, 'We know you're right - we just can't say so,'" McKay recalled in an interview this week in Seattle.
(More here.)
By TIMOTHY EGAN, NYT
SEATTLE - Last November, the former chief federal prosecutor from Washington State took the stage before a hall full of cops and tried to persuade the people who enforce the drug laws to change them - specifically, to get aboard what will most likely turn out to the nation's first successful campaign to legalize marijuana.
The sheriffs and police chiefs listened politely to John McKay, a silver-haired, Jesuit-educated lawyer who had been appointed prosecutor by President George W. Bush. The marijuana laws - "giving us the right to come to your home and take away your personal liberty for something that much of the community thinks is not a crime" - are a travesty, a farce and a crime generator, he said.
Afterward, the cops voted not to support the ideas that became Washington's Initiative 502, which would legalize recreational use of marijuana for adults. But many officers pulled McKay aside and quietly cheered him on.
"They came up to me and said, 'We know you're right - we just can't say so,'" McKay recalled in an interview this week in Seattle.
(More here.)
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