In my post “Criminalization Creates Criminals” I touched on the perception people have for cops and the general dis respect for the law that marijuana prohibition causes.

As level-headed as I may attempt to be, even I get a pissy attitude when thinking about cops.

“Geez, I don’t want to have to deal with this guy. He’s just going to look for a reason to book me anyway.”

or

“There are a few cops over that way. Let’s go around.”

Why? Why, when I see a couple cops roaming an outside event do I decide to keep my distance? I rarely do anything even remotely illegal. I never have anything on my person that would constitute an arrest.

So why do I feel this way about our police officers?

I think it has a lot to do with our individual outlooks. We know that marijuana prohibition is silly. And we know a lot of cops feel the same way (LEAP for example). But at the end of the day, whether a police officer agrees with a law or not, they have to act in regard of it.

So, to my point of appreciation.

You Will Fall To My Powers Of Logic

I went to the mall last weekend and as we walked along the second floor we noticed a line of tables and booths on the first floor. Some sort of mini expo was going on. You could see blue and red lights flashing about 150 yards away. GASP!

Could it be? Could God have graced me with cops gallore with which to discuss marijuana legalization?

Don’t these guys know who I am? I’m a pro-legalization blogger. I’m going to thrust into the fray and make these cops wish they never showed up!

With my wife and kids in tow, I hurry to the epicenter of the action.

And here we are. In the midst of what seems to be a table for each and every type of law enforcement with every agency and department represented. K9 units have a table. Traffic cops have a table. And of course, the DEA has a table.

My eyes were wide at the site of brochures and pamplets strewn about. As far as I could see, propaganda lined the walkways. Naturally, most of what was available was aimed at kids.

Awesome.

I picked up as many of the paper lies as I could. I’m going to read these and force the pushers into a conversation about marijuana. I know I have the knowledge and logic on my side. Now is my chance to confront them publicly.

“Dude,” I say to my wife. “These guys won’t know what hit them.”

But then, I read them. I asked my fam to chill a sec while I thumbed through a few brochures on “keeping your kids off drugs” and “how to tell if your child is using marijuana.”

Wait. What the hell is this shit?!

Exactly What I Want To See

I wanted so badly to catch a lie in any of these brochures. But, I didn’t. In fact, I was quite pleased with the message selected for use.

At just under 30 years of age, it isn’t too difficult to remember being a child. I remember that the last thing I liked was being treated as a child. I try to keep this in mind with I speak to my oldest, a son of 9.

When we talk on drugs, I don’t regurgitate the DARE BS. I don’t lie to him. I would never tell him that if he smokes marijuana, that his life will suddenly fall apart or that he will kill a family member.

Instead, at his age, I try to lump all drugs into a singular object. Right now all he needs to know is that drugs are for adults, and usually initiated by a doctor or someone of qulification.

“Tylenol is a drug. That is why we don’t let you have them. We, as your parents or a doctor will decide on your use.”

I also explain that alcohol is a drug, however different it may seem. It is a drug that people use for recreational purposes, but only when they are much older, and only in a responsible manner.

We don’t talk on the consequences of use of drugs, as much as we discuss the consequences of abuse.

In my house, drugs share the same category as guns. Guns don’t kill people themselves. Guns are tools used to solve specific problems. However, the abuse of guns has a very serious, very real consequence. This is why only adults use guns, and only responsibly.

For now, this is sufficient. He needs to know one fact: Drugs are not for kids. That’s it. They are not good or bad.

What he doesn’t need to know is that marijuana will make black people think they are as good as white men, or that if he ever smokes it he will inadvertantly kill his little sister. And rest assured that when he is old enough to understand the very real danger of hate, I will show him why marijuana is really illegal.

So to see that these pamplets seem to speak in the same tone as I was a real releif. It was nice that the sentiment that I feel for my children was the same as the message these cops were promoting. There were no fake statistics used or baseless facts about marijuana. Simply, kids shouldn’t use it.

Not only were these cops peddling decent information, I got to overhear a few conversations between a lot of them and a few parents.

Even at one point one lady went halfway into a tirade about how she would beat her kid silly if she ever found a joint in his room. The officer directly in front of her explained how that would only escalate, and that sitting with her kids on a regular basis to openly talk would be more effective. He never told her to say “drugs are bad,” but that instead she should consistently ensure that the lines of communication are open. He asked “would you rather your son go out smoking and driving with his friends, or would you rather he approached you when he tried it?”

The day went nicer as I got to sit in one of the unmarked cars. Though my wife had to slap me when I accidently exclaimed “heh, never been in the front seat before!”

The Lines Aren’t So Clear…

…and that’s a good thing. With the advent of LEAP and with what seems to be even a few police officers looking at marijuana with a bit more logic, there seems to be less of a ‘good guys vs. bad guys’ attitude. At least, in this case.

I would never ask a police officer to disregard his or her responsibilities by looking at the reality of mairjuana use and let an “offender” slip away, but I wouldn’t advise against it either. Hell, simply feeling that some of these guys might actually let someone go without a problem is somewhat of a relief.

A Good Reminder

This felt good. The whole experience reminded me to make sure I look at each situation individually. Usually, when I see the materials used for a DARE presentation, I end up quite angry.

I make no mistake. The threat of the arrest of someone with a few grams in their pocket is still real. One or 2 cops hanging out on a saturday morning isn’t going to change that. But it did remind me that they are human, and the grand majority are damn good people.

To approach the situation in which I had just been was unjustifiable. To not look at all the sides before I passed judgement; to no take into account the facts before I made the assumption of misinformation. Well, that was wrong on my part.

It reminded me of the people that fight for prohibition. I just did what they did. Thankfully there was a sufficient pause before I jumped into action.

Those guys would have totally been sorry.

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It may not make you a bad person, but the law is the law.

And that’s a problem for more than just our selfish reasons. Sure, the desire to smoke legally, without fear of having your kids and possessions taken away would be really nice (and much deserved). But there’s a bigger issue here.

And that’s the state of our country in regard to the perception of our law enforcement.

They Aren’t Bad Guys

If you think about it, cops aren’t bad guys. They are just guys doing a job. I don’t mean this in a negative way, but they are little more than pawns in the legal system. So yeah, it sucks that they pull you over and give you a ticket, but they are just following orders.

That’s closer to the truth of the situation than it is the reality. In reality, we collectively hate cops for knocking down our doors, hauling friends and family members to jail and breaking up families. We hate that they take us down for responsibly taking part in an action that doesn’t hurt anyone around us, but helps to relive the stress of our daily lives.

We Abide By The Law (Well, Except That One)

Right or wrong, marijuana use is illegal. But it’s a law that is broken by millions of Americans every day, and substantially more at least once in their lifetime. But other than that, most marijuana smokers are rather law-abiding. They pay taxes, they take care of their families and they help their neighbor with their lawn (even though we work all week and really don’t want to deal with it on a nice Saturday morning).

Sure, we speed sometimes, or throw a piece of garbage out the window, but generally we don’t kill, rape or beat people up all the time.

It isn’t difficult to find a resident of your local county jail who has no priors, no history of violence or criminality, but has found himself sleeping in a small bunk for up to a year for possession. Now he’s a “criminal.”

Bad Timing

Do you know why airplane crashes are such a big deal on T.V.? Because they are so rare relative to successful flights. When an accident finally occurs, it’s a big deal. But, it looks bad when you see a few of them in a few month’s time. In reality, flying is still pretty safe, but too many pictures of burning debris strewn about the ground and you start to consider walking as a means of transportation.

This is the same thing with cops, and the timing is pretty bad. With the advent of camera phones, we are seeing more and more instances of “cops gone wrong.” From harassing EMTs to beating the hell out of 15 year old girls, cases of police brutality are all over the Internet.

However, though I have no numbers to back this up, I feel like this is a case of perception rather than reality. I feel like there are way more “good” cops than bad. Just as there are way more “good” marijuana smokers than bad.

A Dis-Respect For The Law

Tie these 3 thoughts together, and you have a large group of people that begin to dis-respect the law on a larger level, thus promoting further illegal activity, however minor.

We are constantly playing in an underground industry, forcing us to deal with people to whom we wouldn’t otherwise even converse. We have to hide our stash when driving, and are constantly looking in the mirror to see if the “fuzz” is onto us for that joint in the ash tray (Hint: don’t keep your joint in the ash tray, or any other location in plain view).

We start to regard cops as “them” instead of “us.” I don’t like murderers. I would like to think of cops as on the same side as I. But I can’t help to think of the harassment cases when I see a cop on the side of the road. I can’t help think “that dick is just waiting to bust some guy with a joint.” And that’s a real problem.

It’s Time To Come Together

I know this sounds cliche, but for as long as we divide this country into opposing sides on so many issues we only hurt ourselves. When we finally get marijuana legalized, millions of people will have few excuses to look at cops as enemies. The underground trade of marijuana distribution will diminish, lowering crime rate all around (I do have numbers for this statement, but I want to keep this post as a “thought provoker” than another war of statistics).

We will be able to free the time our cops usually spend taking some guy into jail, filling out paperwork and stressing tax dollars just to hold him. That time could be used to find the guy that took my buddy’s license plate. Or perhaps spend a few extra man hours on the thousands of kids that go missing every year. Or maybe solve that rape or murder case.

In the end, our cops are just doing their jobs. But right now, a large chunk of that job is hurting everyone involved whether you use marijuana or not. And in the end, by keeping marijuana illegal we aren’t getting rid of criminals, we are creating them.

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