John A. Gayder is a currently serving Constable with the Niagara Parks Police in Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada. During his fourteen-year career he has done mostly uniform patrol work, with occasional assignments and attachments to CIB (Criminal Investigation Branch) and plain clothes anti robbery and pick pocket teams. He is a qualified Scenes of Crime Officer and is the coordinator and instructor for his service's High Angle Access Team - a group of specially trained volunteer officers who respond to a variety of calls for service in the rugged Niagara Gorge. He is also a certified member of his employers Joint Health and Safety Committee.

John's concerns with current drug laws are not the only area of public policy with which he is involved. In 1995, he was a founding Executive member of The Sporting Clubs of Niagara, a group concerned about the effects of Canadian gun laws. Taxes, prostitution, seat belt, speeding and impaired driving laws are also areas of policy that hold similar concerns for John, and for the same reasons. "Policing has, and continues to become a venue for nanny state do-gooder-ism," says Gayder, "whatever happened to our once simple mission of catching REAL criminals?"

When asked if being outspoken about controversial issues ever causes him difficulties at work, John points out that he is very lucky to have wise superiors who, although they may not agree with his positions, acknowledge free speech and the value of rational and legitimate discourse in complex matters of public policy.