Cops for psychedelic reform: 5 Questions for retired police officer Dave Franco

Franco discusses his drug reform advocacy work.

Dave Franco joined the Chicago Police Department in 1989 as an officer working in a community policing unit on Chicago’s north side. This was during what was then being called “the crack epidemic.” Nationally, emergency room visits due to crack cocaine incidents including overdoses increased fourfold between 1984 and 1987. By the late 1980s, President Ronald Reagan’s administration had launched an aggressive effort to pass anti-drug laws and expand prison and police programs. “I saw firsthand the devastation caused by the War on Drugs,” he says. By the mid-2000s, he joined the department’s narcotics division.  After he retired in 2008, he started working with a non-profit group called Law Enforcement Action Partnership (LEAP), composed of retired police officers, public prosecutors, judges, and corrections officials working towards drug reform and other criminal justice reforms. 

Franco, who is also an adjunct professor of criminal justice at Wright College in Chicago, has been an outspoken advocate of Illinois’s Compassionate Use and Research of Entheogens (CURE) Act, a bill introduced in February 2024 by State Senator Rachel Ventura (D) that if passed would create a state-regulated psilocybin program allowing licensed facilitators to provide psilocybin services and licensed businesses to manufacture and test psilocybin mushrooms. (The bill is currently awaiting assignment to a Senate committee for review.) The Microdose spoke with Franco about his drug reform advocacy work.

Do you think your identity as a retired police officer gives you extra leverage or credibility when advocating for drug reform?

When I’m talking to law enforcement they respect me because of our shared background. For instance, when I was brought in to talk about psilocybin, it was to speak directly to the director of the Illinois State Police and the Illinois Sheriffs’ Association. If an advocate like Jean Lacy, who is doing wonderful work as the founder of the Illinois Psychedelic Society, came out and said, “Hey, these are the reasons why we think that you should take into consideration decriminalizing psilocybin,” they'll respect her work. But it's just not the same as a group of law enforcement officers who have a shared perspective. Whether they listen to me or not, they have to at least recognize that this is somebody who has seen this and done that. And for what it’s worth, the Illinois Police are very much against this bill, and I think it's foolish on their part for a couple of reasons. 

Why are they against it, and why do you think it’s foolish?

The argument they presented was that if the CURE Act is passed, there will be an open season on people growing their own mushrooms, which will increase the use and sale of them. If that were the case, do you think people would wait for someone like Franco to say it’s okay to do it? They would just be doing it right now! And in any case, when I was working narcotics, we made zero arrests for mushrooms. It was a very small percentage in terms of drug usage, and in America, there are statistics that show that less than three percent of Americans used hallucinogens of any type in 2021. 

They also brought up marijuana, and how changing its status didn’t solve law enforcement problems. I told them, “Let me tell you about marijuana, because I worked on it.” We screwed up marijuana; it's cheaper to buy it on the street now, they're increasing the taxes on it, and the racial equity component of licensing dispensaries turned out to be a joke. But that's not cannabis’s problem; that's a policy problem. And when we're talking about psilocybin access, that would be in a very controlled environment, not like dispensaries at all. I understand why it’s hard for police to see it in different terms. One of the things they brought up was, how much more paperwork is this going to make for us? What else do we have to do? Do we have to deploy resources towards this? And the answer is no. It's just going to be in standalone facilities that are under supervision. I don't understand how the sheriffs can be against that. 

What are the main arguments you make for psychedelic reform when you’re talking to fellow law enforcement professionals?

Ultimately, because of the federal regulation and their scheduling, these naturally occurring substances are often unavailable to people. I try to remind other law enforcement officers that they have an opportunity to help other officers and people who served our country. There are 17 veterans a day who commit suicide because of PTSD and other trauma-related illnesses, like alcoholism and addiction. On average there have been 173 police suicides a year for the last three years. The percentage of police officers that see stress and trauma is five times more than a civilian. If these drugs do get rescheduled or made more available, police officers can get the help that they need through psilocybin treatment. Currently, they’re going to Peru, they’re going to Mexico, because that’s where they can get this kind of treatment.

How did you get involved with the CURE Act? 

Jean Lacy, the founder of the Illinois Psychedelic Society, and I have both been involved in progressive drug reform for some time – we worked together on cannabis, too, and she asked me if I wanted to get involved. I checked with Diane Goldstein, the executive director at the Law Enforcement Action Partnership, and she said she’d been talking with people in Colorado and Oregon and that she’d just presented to Nevada’s Judiciary Committee on this very subject, so our involvement came together pretty quickly. 

There are many other states, including Arizona, Hawaii, and New Jersey, introducing similar bills to create state-legal psilocybin programs this legislative session. Do you plan to work on any of those efforts?

Generally, we at the Law Enforcement Action Partnership don’t approach people, but if people want our help, they can come to us. We are pretty discerning in who we partner with; we don’t even take donations from organizations that we don’t feel share our values. But we would be happy to hear people out, and we are working to support the effort in Illinois if things move forward.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity and length.