Chief says his job is to support public’s mandates w/ Joplin police Chief Lane Roberts interview

By Dave Woods

dwoods@joplinglobe.com

Joplin police Chief Lane J. Roberts, a self-described child of the ’60s with more than 30 years of law-enforcement experience, makes no bones about his previous use of marijuana.

As a young man serving in the U.S. military, he says he smoked the drug a couple of times, but unlike former President Bill Clinton, Roberts acknowledges he inhaled.

“Like a lot of people my age, I had an opportunity to experiment with it,” he said during a recent interview with the Globe concerning the launch of a marijuana decriminalization initiative, spearheaded by a petition signature drive in Joplin. “I didn’t like it. It made me feel like a criminal. I don’t know how else I can put it.”

For Roberts, it is not about what he thinks of marijuana use that matters, it’s what the voters in Joplin choose at the polls, he said.

“My opinion about the use or non-use is frankly irrelevant,” he said.

“I will be objective about it. So, if the public says this is what we want ... my job is to support the public’s mandates.”

Personal vs. professional

Roberts said that even though he does have personal feelings about the issue, he will keep them to himself.

“I don’t know that I want to create a predisposition as to whether or not I agree or disagree,” he said. “I don’t want to be taking a position that will lead to some lack of faith in what motivates me to make an enforcement decision.”

Although Roberts declined an invitation extended to him and his officers to attend the Cannabis Revival today in Joplin’s Landreth Park, he said that he is willing to sit down with those proposing the measure to discuss the issues at another time.

“I’m going to sit down with anybody to talk about how we apply the law and the department’s philosophies,” he said. “But,” he added, “I don’t think I’m going to put (my officers) in a situation that I know will lead to a conflict. The only thing that will do is create hard feelings. In order for us to understand one another’s point of view we have to be having a reasonable intellectual discussion, not emotional arguments. I’ll sit down with folks who want to talk about it reasonably.”

Possible benefits

Roberts recalls a time years ago when he and his brother, who has since died of cancer, talked about marijuana issues at length.