 Sunday's crowd
at the Westcott Street Cultural Fair included old-timers in headbands
with shoulder-length gray hair and a guy with bells and shreds
of cloth covering his body.
Howard Wooldridge, a former detective, managed to attract
attention of his own. He wore a cowboy hat and spurs. He allowed
visitors to pet Misty, his one-eyed horse. He also made a point
of showing off his T-shirt slogan: "Cops say legalize drugs.
Ask me why."
For the past six months, Wooldridge - who retired 11 years
ago from the Bath Township Police Department in Michigan - has
journeyed across the country on horseback to win attention for
LEAP, or Law Enforcement Against Prohibition.
Wooldridge is a founding member of the group, which consists
primarily of retired police officers and administrators. He said
the original members turned for a model to ReconsiDer, a Syracuse-based
forum on drug policy reform, which is why he decided to stop
here for a few days.
"They gave us our blueprint," said Wooldridge, who
now lives in Texas. "You take your message right to the
unconverted, right to groups like the Rotary or the Kiwanis."
His long ride is expected to climax next month, when he reaches
Times Square in New York City. Wooldridge said his message is
"about liberty, property rights and personal responsibility.
You can't get any farther to the right than me on this one."
He laid out that reasoning Sunday when Joe DeGennaro, a guy
in the crowd, looked at the slogan and asked the question:
"Why?"
Wooldridge responded that he began questioning American drug
laws because most of his felony arrests, as a detective, involved
narcotics. He said he either spent his time busting drug dealers
or locking up crack cocaine addicts who were so desperate for
money they committed burglaries.
It led him to what he maintains is a logical conclusion: There
ought to be government-regulated clinics or stores that provide
low-cost drugs to users, always combined with a powerful community
emphasis on education, prevention and treatment.
"You sell this stuff from a state-regulated store, and
it would be harder (for kids) to get than it is for them right
now," said Wooldridge, who said it can be as easy for a
teenager today to obtain marijuana as it is to get a beer.
"Once you start doing that, the people from (police agencies)
can focus on child molesters and drunk drivers and people who
are flying airplanes into buildings," Wooldridge said.
To Wooldridge, existing enforcement policies often don't make
sense. If you want to really focus on the biggest danger to everyday,
law-abiding Americans, he said, you wouldn't start with dealers
of crack cocaine.
"The greatest threat to you, right now, is from a drunk
driver running into you on your way home," he said. "The
drunk driver will hurt someone like you long before a drug dealer
will."
Yet you'll see far more television advertisements about the
dangers of marijuana, Wooldridge said, than ads about the criminality
of people who get loaded and drive. While he expressed admiration
for the courage of many officers involved in the drug war, he
said that courage could be used in better ways - a position he
said many cops tell him they share.
Other officers are eager for debate, contending that legalization
of marijuana or cocaine would quickly create a culture of addicts.
Wooldridge responds by pointing to cigarettes, a legal yet lethally
addictive product whose use declined because of strict controls
and education.
Sunday, more people stopped to pay attention to Misty than
to discuss drug policy with Misty's owner. But a quiet shift
in attitudes was symbolized by visits from Howie Hawkins, a Green
Party candidate for mayor, and Van Robinson, a member of the
Syracuse Common Council.
Hawkins said drug law reform would profoundly diminish the
level of violence in Syracuse and other cities. As for Robinson,
he recalled his childhood in the Bronx. He hated drug dealers
and "junkies," he said, blaming them for the disintegration
of his neighborhood.
Over the years, Robinson said, he began to realize that tough
enforcement didn't seem to make the streets any safer. Instead,
he watched as hundreds of thousands of young men from the core
of American cities ended up in prison for drug-related crimes.
"If you have children without adequate education or skills
who are desperate on the corner, and a profit is there to be
made by selling drugs, what are they going to do?" Robinson
said. "The only way to solve the problem is to come up with
new answers, to think outside the box."
Even on Westcott Street, Howard Wooldridge - a retired cop
in spurs, standing with his one-eyed horse - was definitely not
inside anyone's box.
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