Ep109 - Diane Goldstein: Will the Cops Ever Get Behind Legalization?
Most cops have never been fans of legalization. Diane Goldstein, Executive Director of the Law Enforcement Action Project, explains why and how she's working to change hardened minds.
An extensive 2020 survey of 3615 law enforcement officers revealed that a large chasm that still exists between changing our out of date drug laws and changing the minds of the people who enforce those laws. While 37 US states have some form of medical or adult use laws, the police are still being trained to associate the devil’s lettuce with criminality, a designation that was created by drug laws themselves.
Here 's a sampling of the study’s findings:
75% of cops surveyed had never used cannabis or used it less than four times.
Two thirds agree that “marijuana is less dangerous than other Schedule 1 drugs” but over 75% still believe it is a gateway drug and that legalization leads to use of harder drugs.
Over half of the cops surveyed in illegal states still believe that enforcing misdemeanor possession charges is a worthwhile use of their time.
These statistics explain why I invited Diane Goldstein on to the podcast. Diane was a cop for 20 years and today she heads LEAP, the Enforcement Action Partnership. She is a cop who saw the failures of the Drug War from a professional and personal point of view and now works to educate and change hardened minds within the law enforcement hierarchy. We’ve all heard cops say, “We don’t make the law, we only enforce it,” but the truth is that cops have a vested interest in and receive massive amounts of state and federal funding to maintain the prohibition status quo. “Cops often repress reform because it doesn’t support their agenda,” is how Diane expresses it in this interview.
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It’s no secret that Diane’s task is Herculean, but she is optimistic that change is afoot. “Yes,” she says, “we must change laws but we also have to show Law Enforcement that they’ll still have plenty of tools they need to do their jobs effectively.” In other words, reward them with the same funds they would have used to investigate marijuana crimes. “Before talking about defunding the police [a misleading and dreadful phrase to explain reapportioning funds in my humble opinion], we should defund the drug war first. Drug law enforcement is a bludgeon that drives racial disparities in policing across the country.”
ALSO...Be sure to check out the “Trusted Brands'' tab on the Brave New Weed website. We recently launched in response to frequent questions from listeners about products. Alas, we are not able to test every product that comes our way our catches our interest, but those that we’ve been able to vet are on this small, growing list. Keep checking it as we’ll be updating it regularly.