Pubdate: Thu, 13 Mar 2014
Source: Orange County Weekly (CA)
Copyright: 2014 Village Voice Media
Contact: http://www.ocweekly.com/feedback/EmailAnEmployee?department=letters
Website: http://www.ocweekly.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/322
Author: Nick Schou

LEAP OF FAITH: DIANE GOLDSTEIN

One of the leading figures in Orange County's movement to legalize 
marijuana used to arrest people for smoking it. As a cop in Redondo 
Beach during the 1980s and 1990s, Diane Goldstein worked in the 
police department's special investigative unit, which essentially 
functioned as a narcotics squad. She loved being a cop, enough that 
she became the city's first female officer to reach the rank of 
lieutenant. After nearly three decades on the force, she retired in 
2004. It was then that she started to question whether going after 
drugs was the right career choice.

A Tustin resident since 1994, Goldstein never imagined she'd become 
an anti-drug-war activist. But in 2007, her brother died of a drug 
overdose. His death reminded her of something that had always bugged 
her about police work: Every time you arrested a drug dealer, another 
one would pop up. Meanwhile, criminalizing the behavior of drug 
addicts did absolutely nothing to help them and arguably drew 
important resources away from treating their illnesses.

"What the drug war has caused me to really ask is what is ultimately 
the role of policing," she says. "The drug war really turned us from 
serving our constituents. We're peace officers. There is a 
significant difference between being a peace officer and engaging in 
this war mentality and policing people and stigmatizing large 
segments of our society." Looking back, Goldstein says, she'd known 
that the War On Drugs was doomed to failure ever since Judge Jim Gray 
officially declared it so on the steps of the Orange County 
Courthouse some two decades ago. But it wasn't until 2009 that 
Goldstein took steps to actually end it by joining the campaign for 
Proposition 19, which would have legalized recreational marijuana in 
California; the measure failed at the polls under a withering assault 
by law-enforcement lobbying groups.

That year, she also joined Law Enforcement Against Prohibition 
(LEAP), the sole cop group that openly opposes the drug war. 
Goldstein says she understands why many law-enforcement officials 
oppose legalization. "Prohibition makes law enforcement's job 
easier," she says. "One of the biggest reasons I hear from cops for 
why they oppose legal marijuana is that it will diminish probable 
cause to arrest people."

Goldstein is currently working on behalf of LEAP with the Drug Policy 
Alliance to get another legalization proposal before the voters by 
2016, seeing how the state's elected leadership remains beholden to 
the reefer-madness lobby.

"The police chiefs and officer unions are doing anything they can to 
impede reform on marijuana and drug policy," says Goldstein. "Of 
course they are opposing it because if marijuana is legal, they will 
not make as much money. . . . It's all about the money. We need to 
evolve as a society. Everyone is demanding it."
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom