Pubdate: Fri, 15 Apr 2011
Source: Orange County Register, The (CA)
Copyright: 2011 The Orange County Register
Contact:  http://www.ocregister.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/321
Author: David Whiting, Columnist, The Orange County Register

JUDGE WORKS TO LEGALIZE MARIJUANA

There are times when our convictions take us places we never wanted to go.

With the smell of marijuana wafting into the Anaheim Convention 
Center during last year's Know Your Rights Expo, an unlikely speaker 
walks past bongs, pipes and buxom women dressed as nurses.

Nearly everyone in the crowd wears T-shirts and jeans. The "nurses" 
hawk bargain-basement prices for medicinal marijuana cards.

The speaker, retired Superior Court Judge Jim Gray wears a blue 
blazer, light slacks and a button-down shirt as he takes the stage. 
He is there to advocate legalizing marijuana, or as he puts it, 
"ending prohibition on illicit drugs."

I expect wild applause. After all, Gray once sentenced dozens to 
prison for selling drugs.

Instead, the retired judge is met with criticism for supporting 
legalization, particularly from underground marijuana growers 
interested in protecting their incomes. Gray's unfazed. He's suffered worse.

Nearly 20 years ago, Gray stood on the steps of the Orange County 
Courthouse and called for an end to the war on drugs. It was a bold 
and brave move. Gray's family, even his father   a venerable federal 
judge who died shortly before his son's speech   strongly advised 
against taking a public stand.

But Gray decided to move forward with what he believes to be his 
duty. As he saw it, billions of tax dollars and tens of thousands of 
lives were at stake.

Now, as the 2012 election less than 18 months away, Gray smells victory.

Let's clear the air about one thing. Does the judge inhale?

Gray says he's never taken an illicit drug. I believe him. After 
asking the question different ways, I got a taste of the judge's tone 
with repeat offenders.

Steely impatience.

Gray says his drug of choice is a glass of wine at dinner. Alcohol, 
he says, is far worse than marijuana.

But the retired judge, now a private mediator for ADR Services, 
softens as his dog, Devon, a golden lab, wags his tail.

Recalling his first public statements against the drug war, Gray 
offers, "Dad didn't want me to hurt myself."

Gray knew his public stance meant he would never receive an 
appointment above superior court judge, that he would be ostracized, 
that he might face recall, that he could receive death threats.

But, sworn to uphold the law, Gray concluded that he and thousands of 
other judges were sending people to prison for no good reason.

"I felt then as I do now, that drug prohibition is the biggest failed 
policy in the United States, second only to slavery."

When discussing the war on drugs, Gray has the bearing of a military 
man. At one point, he tells me he wrote to President Obama offering 
his services, stating, "I know how to give orders and I know how to 
take orders."

After living in a fraternity and graduating UCLA in 1966, Gray served 
two years in the Peace Corps in Costa Rica. Then he joined the Navy. 
He is careful to acknowledge that he volunteered, in part, to control 
his destiny during a draft.

Such frankness is typical. So is an ability to exist and even thrive 
in seemingly contradictory worlds.

In 1970, a month before being sent to Vietnam where he patrolled 
rivers, the former ROTC officer let his superiors know he was 
planning to march in an anti-war rally. They told him not to wear his uniform.

The warning was unnecessary. Gray would never dream of such a thing. 
He's a by-the-book guy.

In the Navy, Gray served in JAG Corps. He went on to become a federal 
prosecutor in Los Angeles and, in 1983, was appointed to the bench by 
Republican Gov. George Deukmejian. As a municipal judge, he was 
exposed to the broader legal and social problems of alcoholics. It 
was an awakening.

Before taking the courthouse steps in 1992, Gray read legal briefs to 
ensure that condemning drug laws wouldn't affect his cases. He talked 
to the chief superior court judge and conferred with the state 
judicial ethics panel (it split).

Since then, Gray says, the war on drugs has accomplished nothing. In 
fact, he believes we're worse off today than, say, five years ago.

At the Anaheim Convention Center last August, he spoke publicly in 
favor of Proposition 19, the state initiative to legalize marijuana 
that was defeated in November. But, typically, Gray also was blunt 
about the proposal's inadequacies.

Working with others, particularly Law Enforcement Against 
Prohibition, he is crafting an improved proposal for the 2012 
November election.

Politics is nothing new for Gray. In 1998, he ran as a Republican for 
Congress. In 2004, he ran for the U.S. Senate as a Libertarian, 
mostly to have his point of view heard.

In his battle to end the drug war, Gray has cataloged more than 400 
television and radio shows and public forums. And he's written a 
book, "Why Our Drug Laws Have Failed and What We Can Do About It."

But he also has other passions. First is family. He and his wife have 
four children, including a son, Ky, who Gray adopted as a 13-month 
old in Vietnam. Gray also continues his work with Peer Court, a teen 
diversion program he helped establish.

He's also a serious musician. In September, Vanguard University 
students will perform Gray's compositions, a show called "Americans 
All." And he just finished organizing the May 22 Heritage Music 
Festival to bring bluegrass and folk music to Orange County.

But his fight with drug laws is never far. If California legalizes 
marijuana, he believes other states will follow. He predicts that the 
multi-billion dollar bureaucracy that fights the drug war will implode.

If so, he says illicit drugs will be treated like alcohol. Dealers 
will disappear, the prison population will plummet and there will be 
tax dollars available for substance abuse treatment.

It may not be the future his father foresaw. But Gray moves forward 
with love. When Gray first became a judge, his father was the man who 
swore him in.

To his dying day, the aging federal judge said it was his proudest moment.
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