Another Defection

The American prosecutor who prosecuted a Canadian for exporting pot seeds to America has defected from the Drug War camp and has joined the legalization camp.

In a Seattle Times op-ed Saturday, former US Attorney for the Western District of Washington John McKay defected to the other side. As the federal prosecutor in Seattle, McKay oversaw the indictment and prosecution of Canadian marijuana seed seller and pot advocate Marc Emery, who now sits in an American federal detention facility awaiting the formal handing down of a five-year prison sentence later this month.

But while he thinks Emery and most pot-smokers are "idiots," McKay has come to see the futility of continuing to enforce marijuana prohibition. "As Emery's prosecutor and a former federal law-enforcement official, however, I'm not afraid to say out loud what most of my former colleagues know is true: Our marijuana policy is dangerous and wrong and should be changed through the legislative process to better protect the public safety," he wrote.

Marijuana prohibition "has utterly failed," McKay concluded. "The demand for marijuana in this country has for decades outpaced the ability of law enforcement to eliminate it," he declared, ready to throw in the towel.

Well what do you know. At least in so far as pot prosecutions go the War On Drugs is not improving public safety. In fact it has (according to McKay) worsened it.

Well it is a typical government program. It costs lots. Ruins lives. And produces results that are the opposite of its stated intentions.

The Drug War is just another bubble waiting to burst. I can't say when. The if is not in question.

This post was in part inspired by my friend Eric's look at the Demonization of Pot Users.

Cross Posted at Classical Values