Former Seattle Police Chief, Now an Advisory Board Member of NORML

Former Seattle Police Chief, Now an Advisory Board Member of NORML

Norm Stamper, former Seattle Police Chief during the 1999 WTO protests, is a speaker for Law Enforcement Against Prohibition and as well as an advisory board member of NORML.

Norm Stamper, former Seattle Police Chief during the 1999 WTO protests, is a speaker for Law Enforcement Against Prohibition and as well as an advisory board member of NORML (National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws).  He recently sat down with Pacific Radio’s Amy Goodman and Sonali Kolhatkar where he discusses medical marijuana, President Obama’s remarks regarding cannabis, and the dangers of drug prohibition, among other topics.

On March 30, 2009’s Democracy Now, Mr. Stamper, a police officer for thirty-four years, twenty-eight of which were in San Diego, discusses when it was he began speaking out publicly about alternatives to the drug war and the harms of that war. He retired as Seattle’s chief of police in 2000 and is the author of Breaking Rank: A Top Cop’s Expose of the Dark Side of American Policing.

Speaking to Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez, Mr. Stamper explains how not all the ‘millions and millions of people who are marijuana smokers” are “stoners, in the stereotypical sense of that word.  Many of the smoke marijuana because they cannot tolerate opioids… are terminal cancer patients, for example, or people suffering debilitating, intractable pain.  Many don’t smoke the drug at all but care very deeply about our civil liberties.”

On Sonali Kolhatkar’s Uprising Radio, on Pacific Radio’s KPFK in Los Angeles, Mr. Stamper goes on to endorse the “Tax Cannabis 2010” initiative, where over 700,000 signatures were needed (and quickly collected) to have California be the first state in the union to vote on marijuana for recreational use of the cannabis plant.  In the 2010 November elections, the Regulate, Control, and Tax Marijuana Act is already polling at an approval of 56% in California, and 60% in Los Angeles County, respectively.