Shortly before he died, Gil wrote the Op-ed below for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. As the accompanying note explains, a book he had just finished will be published next year.)

November 7, 1999
From The Seattle Post-Intelligencer
editpage@seattle-pi.com
http://www.seattle-pi.com/
By Gil Puder, Special To The Post-Intelligencer
Note: The author is a decorated 18-year veteran of the Vancouver, B.C.,
Police Department. His book, "Crossfire: A Street Cop's Stand Against Violence, Corruption and the War on Drugs," is scheduled for publication by Douglas and McIntyre next year.

THERE'S MORE TO DRUGS THAN 'JUST SAY NO'

The Republican governor of New Mexico, Gary Johnson, recently made an astounding public statement. He said America's war on drugs is a multibillion-dollar failure, that it has unjustifiably jailed thousands of people while lying about the dangers of marijuana, and that many illegal drugs should be legalized and strictly regulated.
See
New Mexico Governor Speaks To Anti-Prohibitionist Student Group:
"Then you do marijuana for the first time, and it's not so bad.
It's kind of cool. That's when kids find out it's been a lie.''
Johnson is now the highest-ranking elected official in the United States to say, in effect, "The emperor has no clothes."

I've spent my career in law enforcement, and I believe Johnson is absolutely right.

In 1984 an armed heroin addict robbed a bank. I fired a fatal round that cost that man his life. Two years later, another junkie with a gun took the life of my friend, Sgt. Larry Young. More recently, I had to tell a woman that her son had died from a drug overdose. The experience was devastating -- not only for her, but for me, as well. I don't dislike the drug problem; I hate it.

Yet, while the governments of both our countries spend billions of our tax dollars every year fighting the so-called war on drugs, the shameful truth is, it hasn't worked. It never will. I don't want to lose another friend or bring more mothers the same bad news. It's time
for all of us to wake up.

When I deliver this message to local business leaders at Seattle Downtown Rotary Club's luncheon on Nov. 17, I expect many to be apprehensive.
(Marijuananews note: Sadly, he never made it.)

But perhaps the need for a change in policy will begin to sink in when my co-speaker, Dr. Alonzo Plough, director of Public Health-Seattle and King County, outlines the increasing gravity of the situation.

With some 10,000 addicts, King County has one of the worst heroin problems in America, and it's getting worse. Last year, according to data compiled by the state Division of Alcoholism and Drug Abuse, more people died in King County from heroin-involved overdoses than died in motor vehicle crashes.

Who am I to be talking about your problems? Someone who recognizes we've got plenty of our own in Canada. In my city, Vancouver, B.C., residents are dying from drug overdoses at the rate of about four a week. An injection-drug HIV epidemic has drawn international attention to our neighborhood known as the Downtown Eastside. I know that good neighbors should tend to their own problems first, but this is a common problem, and I believe good friends should look for shared solutions.

Your neighborhoods and mine are under siege. Being a street cop, witnessing the tragedy firsthand, I've become convinced that drug prohibition -- not drugs themselves -- are driving the HIV epidemic and the systemic crime that has swamped our criminal justice systems.

Unfortunately, this is nearly impossible to admit if you're a politician who built your "law and order" image by vilifying drugs and demonizing addicts as the epitome of moral decay.

Yet "rabid junkie" stereotypes are seldom reality -- certainly not the housewife addicted to prescription painkillers or the 14-year-old boy shot at a Vancouver-area high school.

People who have heavily invested in the status quo chant mantras of zero tolerance mandatory minimum sentences while both the supply and demand for drugs increases and jails burst at the seams. For 80 years, we've waged the war on drugs with a central focus – criminal sanctions. Anyone who thinks we're winning has their eyes closed, or simply doesn't want to see.

I know there's no silver bullet for this monster, but there are more effective solutions.

First, we must accept reality: Drugs, including alcohol and tobacco, are here today. Not all drug users are abusers, and not all abusers become addicts. Once we acknowledge these fundamental truths, the responsible approach for dealing with drugs becomes clear -- shift some of our resources away from interdiction and punishment toward treatment and education.

Next, we must understand that drug addiction is, above all, a medical and public health issue. Like alcoholism, it is a form of disease that an be successfully treated to reduce harm to society.

Crime must be punished; violent crime and crimes against children must be punished severely. But we could dramatically reduce drug-related crime and its horrendous human and financial costs by decriminalizing and strictly regulating drug use.

The benefits of such reform would be immediate. Windfall savings on criminal justice dollars could be plowed into health care and rehabilitation, which are the only methods proven to correct substance abuse.

Not every drug should be treated the same. The sale or distribution to children, as well as trafficking, importation and exporting, should remain crimes, with perhaps even stronger penalties. By focusing law enforcement on these areas, police efforts might actually make a difference.

Finally, the messages we send our children should be based on facts, loving concern and useful guidance, and not on fear, threats and propaganda.

Copyright: 1999 Seattle Post-Intelligencer.