There is no drug war in America, only a prohibition that will never succeed, retired police Capt. Peter Christ said Friday.

Christ, a veteran of the Town of Tonawanda Police Department in Western New York, spoke to more than 30 members of the Syracuse University community Friday in Bowne Hall about the state of drug policy in the United States.

The event was presented by Students for Sensible Drug Policy at SU. Member Garrett Wilkin, a sophomore computer science major, said it was important that people came out to hear Christ speak.

‘He showed that drug laws cause more harm then good,” Wilkin said.

For 20 years, Christ enforced drug laws that he did not agree with. Now retired, he speaks to groups throughout New York State about legalizing drugs and controlling the problem instead of prohibiting them. Christ lectures as a part of a national group called ReconsiDer, a forum on drug policy. He is also helping to organize a new organization known as LEAP: Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, which would be composed completely of former law enforcement workers.

‘We can’t make drugs go away,” Christ said. “We have to learn to live with drugs so that they do the least amount of harm possible.’

He proposes legalizing drugs that the Food and Drug Administration classifies as Schedule I drugs, including marijuana and heroin, Christ said.

Regulation, education and control is the policy Christ wants to see implemented, rather than simply banning the drugs.

‘When you ban substances you lose all control over them,’ Christ said. He compared an alcoholic to a heroin addict, explaining how regulation reduces harm. He said that an alcoholic knows exactly what he is ingesting because of government-mandated labels on the sides of alcoholic beverages. A heroin addict has no guarantee of the purity or dosage of the drug. “This is how people die,” Christ added.

Christ cited recent progress in combating teen pregnancy as an example of effective education.

‘The teen pregnancy rate in this country didn’t go down when only abstinence was taught,” Christ said. “With safer sex education in schools, real progress occurred.’

The way drug users are treated in the United States also causes a problem for Christ.

He said that current drug laws are racist, and cause unintended consequences for the poor. Crack cocaine, used more in minority populations, carries a sentence five to 10 times longer then the powdered variety, he added.

He pointed out that zero tolerance laws, intended to keep drugs out of public housing, have had unintended effects. An elderly couple lost its home because of its grandchildren’s drug use in an adjacent parking lot, he said.

‘Drugs are bad, they destroy lives, but what we are doing is worse. We have the ability to change, ‘ said Christ.

Students attending the lecture found Christ’s views provocative.

‘The lecture was very informative,’ said Doug Carll, a freshman broadcast journalism major. ‘He presented a good argument, and opened my eyes to things I didn’t know before.’

Published on April 7, 2002 at 12:00 pm