Rider lobbies for legalizing pot

Howard Wooldridge and Misty rest upon entering Sisters. photo by Nikki Lewis

After 15 years on the front lines of the drug war with the Lansing, Michigan police department, Howard J. Wooldridge retired his police cruiser.

Now he spends most of his time on his Paint horse, Misty, riding across the United States. Last week, he passed through Sisters.

He's a man on a mission. Though he doesn't work for the force, in a way, he's still a cop.

"If you cut me, I'd bleed blue," he said. "And my mission is still to protect our children from growing up in a world infested with blood sucking drug dealers and their free samples."

But his old blue uniform is gone. In its place are a well worn cowboy hat, spurs on his tennis shoes, well-fitted Wranglers and -- this is the part that gets most people -- a T-shirt that proudly reads: Cops say legalize pot.

On Monday, September 15, Wooldridge and Misty greeted the Cascades view as they rode up the Highway 126 grade into Sisters. The team is near completion of a trip across the nation making a hard point: The war on drugs is a failure.

Wooldridge is part of a group of retired professionals who call themselves Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP). This drug-policy reform group started March 16, 2002, with five people; today there are 700 police officers, retired federal judges and politicians who lobby for lifting drug prohibition.

"People are listening, they understand, they see that this policy (drug prohibition) condemns our children," said Wooldridge.

"Our goal is to educate people on the failure of this war; it's the 200-pound gorilla in the living room no one wants to talk about," said Wooldridge.

According to LEAP, a system of regulation and control concerning drugs is more effective than prohibition.

"The choice to partake in drugs is a personal responsibility, it should not be a government decision," said Wooldridge.

And it hasn't always been one.

The early 20th century marked the beginning of the war on drugs. According to Charles Whitebread, Professor of Law, USC Law School, at the turn of the century the nation was more consumed with drug addiction than it is today.

Most addicts got hooked accidentally, through patent medicines that contained potent narcotics.

The 1906 Pure Food and Drug Act created the Food and Drug Administration, which in turn deemed many patent medicines not safe for human consumption. According to Whitebread, new safety measures did more to reduce drug addiction than any criminal law ever has.

The Harrison Act was the first criminal law at the Federal level designed to criminalize the non-medical use of drugs. It was enacted in 1914.

Doctors were taxed a dollar a year to give prescriptions and a $1,000 tax was placed on the exchange of non-prescribed drugs (which were nearly 200 times more expensive than even a large quantity of the popular drug heroin or any of its derivatives).

Marijuana prohibition hit in 1937 under the Marijuana Tax Act with the underlying theme espousing the dangers of the plant. The most influential evidence against the use of marijuana was from the Commissioner of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, Harry Anslinger.

Anslinger testified that, "marijuana is an addictive drug which produces in its users insanity, criminality and death."

Wooldridge and the other members of LEAP don't agree.

"I have been on the front lines of the drug war for the last 30 years," Wooldridge said. "I have never had a call that directly related to the influence of marijuana -- no domestic violence related to marijuana use, no accidents, no death."

What Wooldridge and other members of LEAP have seen are drugs that have become cheaper, stronger and easier to get.

"I have never seen one drug dealer die or go to prison that wasn't immediately replaced," said Wooldridge.

He plans on continuing to advocate lifting prohibition and will be heading to New Hampshire with another member of LEAP -- a retired federal judge -- to inject drug reform into the presidential debate.

"This is a national problem that we need to change," said Wooldridge. "Right now the law enforcement (officials) are just mosquitoes on the rear of an elephant."

The trek across the country from Savannah, Georgia, has itself been a unique experience for Wooldridge and his horse. He plans to let Misty take it easy after the trek is done.

Misty will go three months without a saddle after they finish. "She's a trooper, but it's time for a break," said Wooldridge.

And while Wooldridge has lost more than 10 pounds, Misty hasn't even lost one.

Once they're off the trail, Wooldridge expects to continue to lobby from his home in Texas for a while.

"This was a once in a lifetime adventure -- neither of us will do it again," said Wooldridge.

Visit www.leap.cc for more information.