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1. Mimi Beach residents, including Robert Platshorn and Irv Rosenfeld, lobby city council for marijuana decrim referendum
2. Operation Green Jam leads to indictments of 14 suspects, hiding crops with wine vineyards
3. Former mayor of Granite Falls, Washington, busted on marijuana charges
4. Schwagstock organizers threatened by asset forfeiture for allowing folks to take drugs at Ozarks concert venue

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• Rockin’ Friday: Kingdom of Sorrow – “God’s Law is the Devil’s Land”

CelebStoner.com Entertainment Report with Steve Bloom, co-author of Reefer Movie Madness: The Ultimate Stoner Film Guide

Radical Rant

• What Reformers Can Learn From “5 Pro-Marijuana Arguments That Aren’t Helping”

That's a mighty nice looking watch you're wearing, son. Now, you don't want us to have to go into the station, do you?

Once again, Reason contributor Radley Balko looks at how the drug war is corrupting police officers and creating injustice:

Morally, it is not much of a leap from legal asset forfeiture—in which cops take property from people who have never been charged with a crime, sell it, and use the proceeds for their department’s budget—to simply pocketing money from suspected drug dealers. Consider what was happening in Tenaha, Texas, until recently. Cops would pull over motorists, accuse them of drug activity with little or no evidence, and give them a choice: They could sign the cash, jewelry, and other property in their possession over to the police department and be on their way. Or they could fight the charges, risk a felony conviction, spend one or more nights in a jail cell, and possibly pay more in legal fees than their property was worth.

Legal niceties are often the only distinction between civil asset forfeiture and a shakedown. It is not hard to see how cops who routinely engage in the former might grow morally complacent enough to contemplate the latter. Audio from a 2008 raid on the home of Monroe County, Michigan, resident Rudy Simpson, which hit the Internet last month, catches two state police officers deciding whether to take his recording equipment, flat-screen TV, and computers. Simpson says they also took DVDs, a camera, a gold ring, and $400 in cash. The raid, justified by an “anonymous tip” that Simpson was selling pot, netted a small bag of marijuana and half a pain pill.

 

(WXYZ) Lt. Luke Davis, Lt.. Emmanuel Riopelle and Monroe County resident Lawrence Dusseau face dozens of charges. Davis headed the undercover narcotics unit that operated out of a non-descript house in Monroe County. The indictment alleges he and the others sold off drugs and confiscated goods for their own profit.

The Action News Investigators have exclusive audio reportedly of the rogue cops caught on tape during a drug raid. The audio comes from a local man, Rudy Simpson, alleging heavy handed and unprofessional police tactics.  Simpson says he was a victim of these tactics in a drug raid on his home.

It all centers around State Police Lt. Davis, now facing corruption charges. In June of 2008, the OMNI Drug Task Force, headed by Davis, executed a search warrant on Simpson’s Monroe County home. They based the search on an anonymous tip and a marijuana stem they said they found in his garbage. When the cops came in, Rudy’s band was practicing in his basement recording studio.

What the police didn’t know is that the microphones were hot and everything was being recorded.

The recording captures one of the cops poorly singing “I Love Rock’n'Roll”.  Then they are discussing all the recording equipment and musical instruments in the studio and that they have found a “quarter ounce of weed in a baggie” for which they believe Lt. Luke Davis will tell them to “take everything”.  As it turned out, the cops took three pages worth of stuff, including a 52” flat screen TV, a DVD player, two computers, a camera and a bunch of DVDs, but not including $400 in cash and a gold ring that Rudy claims were also taken.

To add insult to injury, when Rudy was charged with possession of the quarter ounce of cannabis and half of a prescription pain pill, he produced the prescription he had for the pill.  Rudy had a pot charge from ten years prior, and the judge said if he didn’t accept the charge for the pain pill he was in legal possession of, he’d get charged as a habitual pot offender and be forced to take some prison time.

The taking by police of cannabis consumers’ property is hardly new.  Asset Forfeiture is a concept that allows the cops to seize the ill-gotten proceeds of drug transactions.  The idea was that if a “Tony Montana” bought a yacht with his cocaine smuggling money, the cops could seize and sell the yacht to both punish Tony and to garner funding for equipment and raids against future “Tony Montanas”.

But as happens all too often, the forfeiture laws are simply an excuse for cops to police for profit.  There was no evidence Rudy was ever selling weed.  In fact, if he’s like a lot of musicians I know, he bought the weed or it was given to him and the boys to toke while laying down new tracks.  But based on a stem and a convenient “anonymous tip”, a quarter ounce is enough justification for these cops to believe that thousands of dollars of electronics equipment must have been purchased from the proceeds of Rudy’s weed dealing.  In Michigan, the cops don’t even need to meet a beyond a reasonable doubt justification, only a probable cause one, a much lower hurdle to clear.  Furthermore, in forfeiture, Rudy doesn’t even have to be charged with a crime to lose his stuff.

This audio is just the latest development in a story that’s been brewing in Michigan since 2006:

(MLive.com) Lt. Luke Davis, 48, of Monroe and Lt. Emmanuel Riopelle, 42, of Grosse Ile are accused of running a scheme to systematically embezzle property and money seized from suspects between March 2006 and December 2008.

An MSP search of Davis’ home on Dec. 4, 2008 revealed stolen property, as well as vicodin, oxycontin, steroids, a wall covered with a large quantity of men’s and women’s jewelry, 30 designer purses, 22 cell phones, computers, televisions, motorcycles, and a golf cart, among other property.

That kicked off an investigation showing Davis developed a system of embezzling seized property from the OMNI unit he commanded, according to [State Police Director Col. Kriste Kibbey Etue].

MSP policy requires seized property to be sold at public auction, put to official use, or destroyed. However, in March 2006, Davis with the help of Riopelle and Dusseau, began diverting some property for his own use or giving it away rather than selling it at auction, Etue said.

She also alleges Davis used Dusseau as a “straw buyer” at the auctions, falsifying receipts to show Dusseau purchased the property at auction. Then Dusseau would later sell the property to a third party and then split the profits with Davis, Etue said.

Remember, these are the biggest crooks and the ones who got sloppy enough to get caught.  Don’t think these kinds of operations aren’t happening everywhere in America.  Sometimes its a one-off thing, swiping some suspect’s cash, losing an ounce of weed between crime scene and booking evidence; why not, they’re just doper criminals anyway?  The War on Drugs and Asset Forfeiture corrupt cops – not all, not even most, but enough to destroy any confidence the cannabis community might have had in police integrity.

Here’s what Lt. Davis is facing – throw this guy in prison… for at least the ten years the system gave a single mother of four who sold $31 worth of weed to an undercover in Oklahoma.

–One count of Conducting Criminal Enterprises (Racketeering), a felony punishable by up to 20 years in prison and/or a $100,000 fine;

–Thirteen counts of Embezzlement by a Public Official, a felony punishable by up to 10 years in prison;

–Five counts of Misconduct in Office, a felony punishable by up to five years in prison;

–Three counts of Possession of a Controlled Substance, a felony punishable by up to two years in prison;

–One count of Use Tax violation, a felony punishable by up to five years in prison; and

- One count of Forgery, a felony punishable by up to 14 years in prison.

 

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Hemp Headlines

1. Canada’s newly adopted civil asset forfeiture laws netting $15 million in British Columbia
2. Texas lawmakers introduce decriminalization bill for marijuana
3. Fresno man convicted of manslaughter for shooting medical marijuana thief
4. Washington lawmakers introduce bills to protect patients and provide dispensaries

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• Irie Wednesday: Pato Banton – “Sensimilla”

Cannabis Science with Dr. Mitch Earleywine

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• Cliff Kincaid’s Reefer Madness about Jared Loughner, marijuana and schizophrenia, and NORML


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• The Top Ten Drugs in 2010 That Were More Harmful Than Cannabis

The Mendocino Sheriff was able to reduce budget cuts to the department thanks to money seized from illegal marijuana farms. Fourteen jobs were slated to be cut, but last Tuesday that number was reduced to seven

Link:
Marijuana Saves Jobs in Mendocino County

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1. Dutch researcher predicts “locals only” coffee shop passes will only promote more street drug dealing
2. Popular female police chief in Mexico slain by drug gangs two months into job
3. British government seeks to remove requirement for scientists to advise drug policy
4. Canada’s bill S-10 would establish mandatory minimum sentencing for marijuana, drugs

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• Electric Tuesday: Home Video – “The Smoke”

Government at Work

• Fmr. New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson’s Keynote Speech at the 2010 NORML National Conference

NORML Newsmakers

• NORML Board Member Dan Viets defending the owner of Camp Zoe in Missouri, site of popular music festivals, as the US Attorney threatens asset forfeiture for alleged “drug activity”

(Riverfront Times) Carrie Goebel went to sleep this Halloween in her own version of paradise. She woke up to a nightmare.

The 46-year-old artist from Warrenton, Missouri, spent the last weekend in October camping out at Camp Zoe’s Spookstock music festival. “It was a good time, the weather was great, there were lots of good costumes,” she recalls. “Little kids were trick-or-treating from campsite to campsite. It was a good time. It was a great weekend.”

But on the morning of Monday, November 1, Goebel and several hundred other Spookstock holdovers awoke to find a small army of law enforcement officers storming the campground.

“I was making coffee and I look over and there was a pickup truck full of police officers and in the back was men in camouflage,” Goebel says. “They were going from tent to tent telling people to get out. There was a hazmat team and police cars from Salem and Rolla. I wasn’t there when the dogs came, but they wrote down my driver’s license info in a notebook and then filmed me leaving. I didn’t know what to do. I felt like I was being terrorized.”

Only later did Goebel learn that the raid was the culmination of a four-year-long investigation by the DEA and the Missouri State Highway Patrol into alleged drug use and sales by Camp Zoe concertgoers. No one — including Camp Zoe owner Jimmy Tebeau — has been charged with a crime, but the eastern Missouri U.S. Attorney’s Office is attempting to confiscate the 352-acre property using a controversial process called asset forfeiture.

Representing Tebeau is NORML Board of Directors member Dan Viets, whom we hope to book on our NORML SHOW LIVE shortly to discuss the case.

Camp Zoe hosts other festivals aside from Spookstock, including the popular Schwagstock.  Other regional festivals, like Bonnaroo, could also be targeted by authorities who believe there’s illegal drug activity going on (read: young people smoking pot.)  Nobody in the Camp Zoe ownership has been charged with any crime, but they don’t have to be.  Asset forfeiture allows the government to charge the property with the crime of being acquired with dirty money or supporting the commission of crimes.  The property is considered guilty until the owner can prove it innocent in court.  Of course, sometimes the property seized and charged with a crime is the money the owner would have to use to hire an attorney to prove the money was innocent.

Yes.  Right here in the good ol’ USA.  Guilty until proven innocent.  Inanimate objects that commit crimes.  Innocent (or at least, uncharged) citizens forced to defend their property from the government.  Does your head hurt yet?

The doctrine of asset forfeiture dates back to English common law and was justified by our government as just desserts for the drug kingpins we catch.  Take that, you drug lord, we’ll snatch away the mansions and sports cars and jewelry you purchased with your illegal drug dealing!

In the real world, however, asset forfeiture is used by government to seize property for profit.  Almost every law enforcement agency has a budget line for income they expect to receive from forfeiture.  It is also used to bankrupt and intimidate people the government doesn’t like (see: Bernie Ellis) and shut down those crazy jam band hippie festivals, dagnabbit!

And it is only profitable through the prohibition of marijuana.

See, not many people do other illegal drugs.  Of the 21.8 million Americans who will use illegal drugs (or legal drugs illegally, like OxyContin) this month, 16.7 million are using marijuana.  Some people may be using more than one drug, so you can’t just subtract to come up with a number for the non-marijuana users.  However, when you note that 7 million were using legal drugs illegally, you’re then left with just 1.6 million cocaine users, 1.3 million hallucinogen users, 600,000 inhalant users, and only 200,000 heroin users this month.  Police need marijuana to remain illegal because there just aren’t enough seizure targets among the 3 million or so other illegal drug users.

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1. New Mexico modifications to medical marijuana grow rules criticized
2. Mendocino County Sheriff saves seven jobs through proceeds from asset forfeiture
3. Connecticut court rules that marijuana cultivation is serious enough crime to force mentally ill man to take medication to stand trial
4. Stupid Stoner Stories: Canadian man busted when GPS takes him and his pound of BC Bud through Maine

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• Irie Wednesday: Mr. Perfect – “Ganja Spliff”

Cannabis Science with Dr. Mitch Earleywine

Radical Rant

• Arizona employers unfounded panic about medical marijuana patients in the workplace

Bernie Ellis

A Tennessee farmer is fighting for medical marijuana in his state after federal governments raided his farm, seized 25 acres of it, and sent him to live in a halfway house for 18 months.

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Tennessee Farmer Fights for Medical Cannabis In His State

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1. Tacoma orders eight dispensaries to close by Saturday; 10,000 patients will be returned to the black market
2. Former Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders calls for lifting marijuana prohibition
3. Tennessee’s Bernie Ellis civil asset forfeiture case featured on CNN

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• Electric Tuesday: DJ mLe – “Do the Deal”

Cannabis Conversations

Part Two of Prop 19 panel at Cypress Hill Smokeout

• Gov. Gary Johnson
• Sen. Mike Gravel
• Attorney Allison Margolin
• Jeff Jones
• Todd McCormick
• David Bienenstock