"The law can be quite open-ended; it is not an exact science. And in common law countries, like Canada and the US, there is a tradition and acceptance of judicial creativity. When judges must resolve cases in the absence of black and white rules they generally rely on their sense of what society embraces in terms of values and principles - what is the social consensus. Needless to say, their own ideological orientations will lead them to different interpretations of what that consensus is, but the more cultural support there is for an idea – say drug legalization - the more likely judges, and legislators, police, prosecutors, for that matter, will exercise the substantial discretion they have on the basis of that idea."
Joel Bakan
Law Professor, UBC
Author: The Corporation

High Concept

There are some good cops out there. They are the men and women who can think for themselves and take what it means to do their job, seriously.

While they are law enforcement officers, the inherent vagueness of their oath allows room for intelligent interpretation as to what "enforcement" means. For members of L.E.A.P (Law Enforcement Against Prohibition) it means not busting you for smoking weed, hell maybe not even busting you if you have a twenty up your nose. Because for them it is no big secret that the War on Drugs is a total bust; an ideological battle getting us nowhere and in fact perpetuating a devastating cycle of misspent energy that truly, only keeps the whole mess going round. Filled with honest and totally surprising interviews from Police Officers from across North America, director Connie Littlefield’s documentary The Damage Done: The Drug War Odyssey about the failure of our prohibition style war on drugs is playing as part of The No More Drug War Double Bill this weekend. With testimonials from cops and judges from Texas and Florida to Vancouver and California this is one of those rare documentaries that is so eloquent and concise that you couldn't think of a better way to express or even explore the subject. Of course Larry Campbell's in it but so is fucking Serpico.

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This article was originally published in Only Magazine.
© 2007 Only Magazine