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Hemp Headlines

1. Willie Nelson busted for six ounces of weed at Sierra Blanca, Texas Border Patrol checkpoint
2. Idaho Moms 4 Marijuana publicly smoke marijuana on Boise streets in civil disobedience action
3. SOMMER Task Force brags about marijuana eradication efforts that cost $600,000

Daily Toker Tunes

Brought to you by Cannabis Fantastic

• Roots Monday: Trixie Smith – “Hit that Jive, Jack”

NORML Newsmakers

• Montana NORML’s Executive Director John Masterson on the series of bad news stories in medical marijuana leading to a legislator backlash

Radical Rant

• NJ Gov. Chris Christie’s stonewalling of medical marijuana means people suffer

Willie Nelson - America's Most Wanted

(Rolling Stone) Willie Nelson was arrested [Saturday] at a border patrol checkpoint in Sierra Blanca, Texas after agents reportedly found 6 ounces of marijuana on his tour bus. Mickey Raphael, Nelson’s longtime harmonica player, tells Rolling Stone that the singer, who posted a $2,500 bond was freed by 1:30 p.m. yesterday, is in good spirits. “He said he feels great — he lost six ounces.”

Raphael says Nelson, 77, was traveling without his band from California, where he spent the Thanksgiving holiday, to Austin, TX, where he owns a ranch. The El Paso Times reports that agents at a checkpoint searched his bus, called the Honeysuckle Rose III, at 9 a.m. Nelson admitted the pot was his and was taken to the local Hudspeth County jail.

“It’s kind of surprising, but I mean we treat him like anybody else,” Hudspeth County Sherriff Arvin West told the newspaper. “He could get 180 days in county jail,” the sheriff added. “If he does, I’m going to make him cook and clean.”

Is this what we’ve come to in our reefer madness?  You want to give 77-year-old Willie Nelson six months in jailbird stripes?  Wasn’t it just a little while ago we were holding 72-year-old Tommy Chong in a cell for selling bongs on the internet?  How’d that work out?  Oh, yes, you took a Canadian comedian who had never really been very serious about marijuana law reform and forged him into a strongly outspoken activist, leading to the Cheech & Chong reunion and the “Get it Legal” tour.

Now your bust of Willie Nelson has energized his supporters and once again brought into sharp focus the insanity of marijuana’s illegality.  In correspondence with our friend Steve Bloom at Celebstoner.com, Willie calls for a new political movement:

“There’s the Tea Party. How about the Teapot Party? Our motto: We lean a little to the left.  Tax it, regulate it and legalize it,” Nelson continued in his email to CelebStoner. “And stop the border wars over drugs. Why should the drug lords make all the money? Thousands of lives will be saved.”

The “Teapot Party” Facebook page now has over 7,800 supporters and climbing.  Willie Nelson and Tommy Chong, still touring in their seventies, still vibrant and sharp, are the best advertisement for the safety of marijuana.  You don’t meet many septuagenarian crackheads, junkies, and tweekers, do you?

Willie was busted at a Border Patrol checkpoint.  These checkpoints are ostensibly used to fight illegal immigration and terrorist threats.  But since the Supreme Court has ruled that suspicionless roadside drug checkpoints are unconstitutional, these border patrol checkpoints are the prohibitionist’s backdoor loophole for catching travelling cannabis consumers.

Willie’s checkpoint was 30 miles from the border, which might sound confusing… shouldn’t a border patrol checkpoint be, say, at the border?  Nope, in fact, these checkpoints can be up to 100 miles away from the Mexican or Canadian borders.  That means federal police could set up a roadblock in Anaheim, Tucson, Seattle, or Cleveland, just to name a few non-border cities, and search your car without probable cause to believe you’re committing any crime.  The 100-mile zone from the Canadian and Mexican borders means there is almost 750,000 square miles in America where the federal cops can ignore your Constitutional rights simply because you chose to travel.

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Hemp Headlines

1. Kansas still looking to ban fake marijuana, meanwhile police and FDA bust local shop for selling “K2″ incense
2. New York poll shows 71% overall support for medical marijuana, 55% among Republicans
3. Update: Scottish landlords asked to sniff out grower tenants
4. Update: California cannabis cookie man who dropped trou on a plane
5. Update: Mexico border town seizes 12,000 lbs. of marijuana in 48 hours.

Daily Toker Tunes

Brought to you by Johnny Reeferseed & the High Rollers

• Rockin’ Friday: Captain Smokes & The Shotguns – “Smoking Gets You Higher”

CelebStoner.com Entertainment Report with Steve Bloom, co-author of Pot Culture: The A-Z Guide to Stoner Language and Life

• Look at past two Super Bowl Superstar Stoners: Santonio Holmes and Plaxico Burress
• The Dirtball joins the Kottonmouth Kings
• Sarah Silverman, our favorite female CelebStoner comedian, drops more 420 references on the third season of her Comedy Central show

Cannabis Conversations

BROWNSVILLE – A lawsuit alleging Federal Express Corp. employees knowingly loaded 800 pounds of marijuana onto a truck may be moved to federal court in Brownsville.

A Nueces County man’s lawsuit against the company could be moved to federal court if plaintiff Reynaldo Garza does not contest the action, according to court documents filed Tuesday.

Garza alleges that while he was working as a driver for a company contracted by Federal Express, employees of Federal Express loaded 800 pounds of marijuana into the cargo area of his truck even though they smelled the odor of the illicit drug coming from the boxes.

The loading of the truck occurred in June 2007 at the Harlingen airport, said Garza’s Corpus Christi attorney, Robert Zamora.

Narcotics detector dogs sniffed out the load of drugs when Garza reached the U.S. Border Patrol’s Sarita checkpoint, Zamora said. Garza was arrested and charged with drug offenses.

Zamora said his client simply thought he was delivering boxes.

via Man challenges Federal Express in marijuana case | federal, express, garza – Local News – Valley Morning Star.

So many questions:

How does Garza know the eight hundred pounds of marijuana were so easy to smell unless he smelled it himself?

How are Federal Express employees expected to know what a box of marijuana smells like?  Is this part of orientation training?

Who in the world is shipping 800 lbs. of marijuana via FedEx?  And was it really 800 lbs., or was that what was left after the FedEx employees loaded it into the truck and kept some for themselves?

How does one get a job loading trucks for Federal Express?

Bainbridge News Road Check U-Turn’s not Good
A u-turn just before a road check makes it pretty obvious the driver does not want to be checked.  And typically that is the reason a road check is set up.

Saturday evening, Georgia State Patrol and Decatur County Deputies had a road check set up on Highway 309 south.  About midnight on Saturday, a car made a u-turn back towards Bainbridge.  Troopers Walt Landrum and JF Jackson and Sheriff’s Deputies went after him.

Trooper Landrum caught up with them on West Street at Love Street.  Just before they stopped, he spotted something thrown out the window of the car and noted where it landed.  Trooper Landrum found several open bottles of liquor and marijuana in the vehicle.  Deputy Simmons found the small package of marijuana thrown from the moving vehicle.

These sobriety checkpoints are used by police in 38 states to capture suspected DUI drivers.  Typically they set up a roadblock on a busy road in the late evening or early morning and briefly stop drivers that pass through, sometimes in a pattern, like “every fourth driver”.

Wait, you think, random police searches based on no probable cause?  Can that be Constitutional?

Unfortunately, yes it is.  While the 4th Amendment protects us from unreasonable police searches and seizures without probable cause or a warrant, the key Supreme Court decision here, called Michigan Department of State Police v. Sitz, ruled that randomly delaying you for a half-minute wasn’t unreasonable if it keeps drunks off the road.  The government claims the sobriety checkpoints work – the CDC offers a figure of a 20% reduction in DUIs – however, many others point out that DUI fatalities have leveled off since these checkpoints became legal, while they were declining before then, and that roving patrols for DUI catch three times more DUIs than roadblocks do.

The states where you are safe from these intrusions of privacy, either because the state lacks the authority or its constitution forbids it, are Alaska, Idaho, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, Oregon, Rhode Island, Texas, Washington, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.

If you approach one of these checkpoints, don’t make an illegal u-turn!  Remember, most are picking drivers by random pattern; there is a good chance you won’t even be stopped.  If you are stopped, roll down your window only partway enough to hand over your license and registration.  Don’t talk or answer questions, just say, “Officer, I’m not comfortable answering a bunch of questions right now.  Am I free to go?”  Remember, things you say will be used against you; you have a right to remain silent – use it!

If you’re then pulled over for further harassment, do not consent to any searches.  If you leave your car, roll up the window and lock it behind you.  Refuse to take any roadside impairment tests, such as saying the alphabet or walking a line – you are not required to do so and why give police more evidence to use in court against you?  Don’t submit to any “D.R.E.” tests (so-called “drug recognition experts”) which are subjective and unscientific.  The only thing you should be submitting to is a breathalyzer or urine screen, as in most states you have given implied consent to take one just by driving and refusing one is usually as bad as getting the DUI.