EX-COP CALLS FOR NEW DRUG WAR TACTICS

Peter Christ, a former police captain, favors legalization of drugs.

When a doctor continues prescribing too many pills and they don't work, patients often ask for a second opinion.

That's how society should approach the so-called war on drugs, said Peter Christ, a former police captain in Tonawanda who favors legalization of drugs. He is a spokesman for ReconsiDer, a 4-year-old citizens group advocating alternatives to the drug war.

That drug war is accomplishing nothing but locking up numbers of nonviolent offenders, Christ told a gathering of about 170 business and community leaders at Universityi College's Thursday Morning Roundtable.

He favors legalilzing all drugs and selling them in stores that only people older than a certain age can enter.

"Once you reach that age, what you put in your body is your business, not the government's," said Christ.

More peole are coming to the conclusion that the drug war does nothing but make the country's drug and crime problem worse.

"Maybe we ought to be educating people about what we're tellilng them to say 'no' to," Christ said.

"We have taken a certain class of drugs and a certain class of opeole in our society and decided to scapegoat them," he said. Drugs themselves are not the cause of crime, he said. The profit of the drug business and the mindset of the people involved in it are the true sources of that crime, Christ said.

A police officer for 20 years, Christ said police can protect people from others, but cannot protect people from themselves.

"It's not our function," he said.

Legalizing drugs would probably result in an initial increase in drug use as people experimented, but would eventually result in less crime, Christ said.

"Maybe a thing called harm reduction should be our goal," he said, telling the gathering the elmination of drugs and drug problems was unatttainable.

Christ said the drug war started in 1914 and that he did not believe much had been accomplished during the last 80 years.

"Look at the statistics. Look at your streets. Look at your neighborhoods. Look at your city," he said.

Prohibition failed to control alcohol problems and resulted in a sharp increase in crime, Christ said. The people battling the drug war ought to learn a lesson from that mistake, he said.

Christ said his invitation to speak at the Thursday Morning Roundtable was evidence of a change in attitudes. When he called about talking to the group several years ago, he was told to send a resume, he said.

Christ produced laughter from the crowd when he asked how many in the audience used crack cocaine. No hands went up.

But when he asked how many could find crack cocaine if given 24 hours and promised a $1,000 reward, hands went up throughout the audience.

"How can people who don't even use it know where to find it?" Christ asked, noting that was clear evidence the drug war is a failure.

"We've been wallowing around in this morass and it's not working," He said.

Christ said he believes all drugs -- including alcohol and nicotine -- should be treated the same and be removed from young people's access. He said he advocates restricting sales of ciagarettes to taverns or liquor stores to keep them away from youngsters who now can find them being sold "right next to Clark Bars at the 7-Eleven."

Christ said he disagrees with those who see his suggetion as a surrender in the war on drugs.

"I look at it as a change of tactics, not a surrender," he said.

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