As a former police officer, I have seen that prosecuting those who might benefit medically from using marijuana in accordance with a doctor’s recommendation is a cruel and ineffective policy.

Like most people who go into the profession, I did so because I wanted to serve the public. I wanted to protect the vulnerable and punish those who threaten society. But while medical marijuana remains illegal, police must instead prosecute the people we should be protecting.

As long as medical marijuana remains illegal, police are duty-bound to treat patients like criminals deserving of punishment rather than as people in need of medical care. We enter their homes and arrest them for doing something that makes them feel better. We have to arrest the elderly. We have to arrest the sick. And every time we do it, I know many of my brethren of the badge have to wonder the same thing I did: “Why are politicians deciding how to care for the sick? Shouldn’t their medical care be decided by doctors and by the patients themselves?”

The regulations included in this carefully drafted measure will allow criminal justice professionals to do our jobs more effectively and safely. While law enforcers understand that every drug has the potential for abuse, making medical cannabis illegal has made it much more dangerous for those seeking to use it therapeutically than it would be if it were regulated.

Because marijuana is currently illegal and unregulated, its producers aren’t required to do any quality control or safety evaluation, and it is sometimes adulterated with other drugs or harmful chemicals. In the states where medical marijuana is now legal, on the other hand, dispensaries test and label the medicine for potency and purity so consumers know exactly what they’re getting.

In addition, legalizing medical marijuana would allow the state to collect badly needed funds through tax revenue on the product. Wouldn’t you rather that money went into state coffers, where it can fund public safety and education, than into the pockets of the gangs who both control the current trade and are responsible for so much violence on our streets?

Opponents argue that allowing medical marijuana would make it more accessible to teens, but studies have shown this is not the case. Teen use of marijuana does not increase in areas where medical marijuana has been legalized. In fact, Columbia University showed that the reverse may be true. Teens currently have a harder time buying legal and age-regulated alcohol than buying illegal-for-everyone marijuana. If medical marijuana were to become regulated and controlled like alcohol, there’s a good chance it would be more difficult for kids to acquire. After all, who do you think is more likely to sell to someone underage? An anonymous criminal on the street, or someone who has been qualified and registered by the state?

Twenty other states and Washington, DC have already implemented laws allowing medical marijuana to be distributed in a safe, regulated way, ensuring that scarce law enforcement resources that would otherwise be used senselessly prosecuting patients go instead to fighting the violent crime we got into this business to prevent.

For anyone who has had to look into the eyes of a suffering or dying cancer patient, realizing an unrealistic law will force police officers to take away the one thing that makes them feel better, and for all those cancer patients, I urge you to support medical marijuana.

Lieutenant Tony Ryan (Ret.) was a police officer in Denver Colo., where medical marijuana has been legal since 2000. Ryan served on the force for 36 years and is a current board member of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, a group of law enforcement officials opposed to the war on drugs.