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This report from the FOX News affiliate in Washington, DC, also played on my local FOX affiliate’s news here in Portland last night:

(MyFOXDC) WASHINGTON – An 86-year-old D.C. man got a surprise visit earlier this month. Robert Smith heard someone banging on his apartment door on Randolph Street on the evening of March 4. But before he could unlock it, a group of D.C. Police officers battered the door down and knocked Smith onto the floor.

Smith said officers quickly realized they had the wrong apartment and called for an ambulance. Doctors treated Smith for contusions to his head and back.

FOX 5 viewed the search warrant which stated police were looking for marijuana, drug paraphernalia and anything related to drug trafficking.

Cops break down door of your apartment looking for weed? It's not "one in a million", Mr. Smith.

I get so sick of reporting these stories.  At least this time it wasn’t reported as a “botched drug raid” or a “drug raid gone awry”.  It wasn’t even a drug raid; it was a marijuana raid.

I also get tired of the framing that terrorizing a citizen in their own home was just a mistake because they had the wrong address.  What is it about smoking pot that makes your home the right address for state-sponsored terrorism?

Let’s dispense with the stock answer: duh, it’s illegal!  OK, you got me, pot smoking in your own home is illegal.  Can you explain then what about pot smoking in your own home justifies the breaking down of doors, the shooting of pets, the terrorizing of children, the killing of innocents, and here, the abuse of an elderly veteran?  It’s not like you have to rush in to prevent the flushing of large amounts of illegal vegetable matter; it doesn’t exactly flush well.

Beating your wife in your own home is illegal, but unless police have a report that the assault is happening right now, or unless the wife decides to press charges (she doesn’t, usually), the cops will knock on the door and politely ask the husband to step outside (in some states, he will be arrested on the domestic abuse call alone, since she won’t press charges).

The retired federal government worker has lived alone in the same apartment for more than 30 years and said police never offered an apology for the mistaken raid.

Again, not a “mistaken raid”.  There was no mistake about what the police intended to do: burst into a citizen’s home on nothing more than the suspicion that somebody may have been smoking and selling pot, find that somebody and physically abuse them into subservience and compliance, trash the home by tearing apart any conceivable place where pot may be found, and confiscate any cash and valuables for the profit of the police force.  The only “mistake” was knocking down the wrong door.  This wasn’t a “mistaken raid”, it was a “raid at the wrong address”.

So sadly, the piece they showed here in Portland featured the WWII veteran saying his experience was “one in a million”.  No, sorry, your experience was just one out of the 100-150 citizens who were terrorized by police just that day and every day in America.

Just as the Montana Judiciary committee deadlocked 6-6 on passing HB 161, the bill to fully repeal the Montana Medical Marijuana Act, we get word this morning of federal and local law enforcement raiding caregivers in multiple locations in the Big Sky State.

First, the good news:

(The Missoulian) HELENA – A Senate committee failed on a tie vote to endorse a bill that would repeal Montana’s medical marijuana law.

The Senate Judiciary Committee locked up 6-6 on a motion to pass House Bill 161, by House Speaker Mike Milburn, R-Cascade, to repeal the law passed by voters in 2004. The repeal bill passed the House earlier this session.

Five Republicans senators, joined by Democratic Sen. Larry Jent of Bozeman, voted in favor of HB161.

Four Democratic senators, jointed by Republican Sens. Chas Vincent of Libby and Terry Murphy of Cardwell, opposed the bill.

Montana Caregivers, with two raid cops taking a break (courtesy Montana NORML)

Now the bad news:

(The Missoulian) Federal raids hit medical marijuana shops around Montana Monday morning, causing an uproar in a community already roiled by high-profile attempts to regulate it.

“The timing is impeccable,” said Chris Lindsey, a Missoula attorney who specializes in medical marijuana cases, about the fact that the raids unfolded as a state Senate committee deadlocked on a bill to repeal the 2004 voter initiative that legalized marijuana.

“They’re seizing everything – plants, marijuana, grow equipment, files and computers. It’s very, very broad in its scope,” Lindsey said, who retains a lingering business interest in Montana Cannabis, one of the businesses where federal search warrants were executed.

The huge Montana Cannabis greenhouse in Helena was included in the raids, with authorities from the Drug Enforcement Administration, the FBI, Lewis and Clark County and Helena police taking part, according to the Associated Press. At least eight people were led away from the greenhouse in handcuffs, according to the AP report.

Our Montana Affiliate, Montana NORML, has been liveblogging the latest news.  They report the “smash and grab” tactics Californians are already familiar with, destroying ballasts, lights, seizing cash, computers, and lots of cannabis, but not charging anyone with crimes or arresting people.  Caregivers raided include Good Medicine Providers (Columbia Falls), 4 Seasons, CEG, Outlaw Hill (Livingston), Big Sky Patient Care (Bozeman), MCM (Bozeman), A Kinder Caregiver (Bozeman, Butte, Billings), Montana Cannabis (Helena), MT Cannabis (Missoula), Northern Light Medical (Kalispell), and Yellowstone Patient Care (Billings).

Montana NORML reports the raids are being overseen by the US Attorney’s office, specifically Victoria L. Francis, the Financial Litigation Unit Chief.  Because, you know, there isn’t any larger financial criminals to go after these days…

"Damn. We woulda had him for felony distribution and cultivation, but he flushed the grow tent, lights, ballasts, ducting, soil, pots, plants, grinders, scales, and sixteen pounds of processed pot when we served the warrant." So, it wasn't a "low-flow", then?

We told you about the Supreme Court hearing arguments in a case that could determine whether cops can break down your door for merely smelling marijuana.  We’ve told you of the deaths of cannabis consumers during surprise midnight no-knock warrants.  The reason drug cops have to break down your door in the middle of the night with no warning is so that you won’t use the time between “*knock knock* Police!  Open up, we have a warrant!” and you opening the door to destroy any evidence.  There’s some logic there for some drugs, since it would be fairly easy to flush a kilo of powder cocaine, a bottle of pills, or the liquid chemicals used to manufacture other drugs down the toilet.

Cannabis?  Not so much…

(Delaware Online) Two people were arrested Thursday after they tried to flush 1,038 grams of marijuana down a toilet in the Fox Run apartment complex in Bear, police said.

The marijuana clogged the toilet, allowing officers to confiscate it and an additional 59 grams, Weglarz said. They also found a loaded .32 caliber handgun, a digital scale, drug paraphermalia and the stolen computer, he said.

Yeah, if you try to flush over two pounds of organic matter, you’re going to flood a toilet.  That’s why they don’t use those “low-flow” johns at the Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest.  Any amount of marijuana large enough to consider someone a major trafficker is also too large to flush and any amount small enough to flush is a consumer amount not worth the violence and risk of a no-knock raid.  If you suspect the person of growing marijuana, there’s even less justification for the no-knock raid.  Lights, ballasts, pots, and soil don’t flush well at all.

So what’s the reason for the no-knock pot raids?  Shock and awe.  Psych warfare against cannabis consumers.  An excuse to use the shiny new military toys the local cops just bought with federal grant money they get for busting more pot smokers.  The sheer thrill of playing commando some trigger-happy cops enjoy.  The justifiable reaction to the demonized “druggies” cops are inculcated to see as an “enemy”.  But protecting evidence in a pot case?  Hardly.

We have 100-150 paramilitary raids of American homes every DAY, mostly in the name of the War on Drugs, when most drug users are neither armed nor violent. (Missoula Independent)

The following rant was transcribed from Toker Talk Radio, M-F at 2:00 pm Pacific Time at http://live.norml.org.  I posted a story a yesterday about a man in New York who was needlessly killed during a marijuana bust.  Russ Belville does his usual excellent work of tearing this apart and supporting the story with facts and figures.  Gee, I love this kinda talk.

Can we stop the killing, can we stop the SWAT raids?  Can we stop using excessive police force to enforce these drug laws?  If we have to accept that they’re going to be around for awhile and it’s politically difficult to change them, if that’s the case, fine, but please change the tactics we use to enforce those laws.

There’s no reason that we have to have a fully armed SWAT raid to bring down someone who’s violating a marijuana law.  According to the latest FBI statistics of officers who were killed by suspects while enforcing the law, there were 48 deaths of officers last year and of those 48 law enforcement deaths, none of them had to do with enforcing drug laws*.   And certainly none of them killed enforcing marijuana laws!

When we look at the statistics over the years of police officers involved  in shootings, we find that that the risk of a police officer being shot, not killed, just shot, while enforcing a drug law is 1 in 350,000.  That is the statistic that qualifies them to come in with the body armor and flash bang grenades, the tear gas and automatic weapons pointed at 13 year old girls, shooting dogs and hand cuffing people and having them sit in their dog’s blood while they interrogate them and tear up their house.  All because there is a 1 in 350,000 chance that they are going to be shot at**.

There’s no reason why these laws can’t be enforced by knocking on these doors during daylight hours or waiting for people to leave their house so they can be apprehended outside the home.  Serving warrants in a SWAT-style fashion should only be reserved for those who pose a threat to themselves and to others.  It must be a case where you need to go in with guns blazing or it will mean a greater harm to our society and you cannot justify that greater harm to society by pointing to some guy growing pot plants under a light in his closet.

*Editor’s Note:  One death did occur from a Dallas police officer serving an arrest warrant when the suspect opened fire as the door was breached.  However, the FBI did not classify that as a warrant served over a drug-related matter.  Aside from 8 officers killed in drug-related arrests in 2001, no year in the 21st Century has seen more than 3 officers killed and in ’04, ’05, and ’09, there were no deaths serving drug arrest warrants.

I suppose drug prohibitionists would say that’s because we serve warrants SWAT-style.  But that doesn’t hold water.  From 2000-2009, there have been 19 officer deaths attributed to drug arrests (out of 536 total deaths, or 3.5%), while there have been 29 deaths attributed to “Tactical situation (barricaded offender, hostage taking, high-risk entry, etc.)”, exactly the situation SWAT was meant for, and 52 deaths responding to “robberies / burglaries in progress”.  Cops who are killed are most likely to die in a traffic stop (18.8%).

**Not exactly accurate.  There is a 1 officer killed for every 350,000 drug arrests.  More than that may be shot at.  Sorry about the error – I was reciting from memory. –”R”R

Just another one of the 100-150 paramilitary acts of terrorism perpetrated every day on American citizens over marijuana.  This one makes the papers because it took place at the wrong address.

http://www.lohud.com/article/20110113/NEWS03/101130420/-1/newsfront/Spring-Valley-man–Cops-targeted-wrong-address–rousted-my-family

SPRING VALLEY [NY] — A village resident said that police conducting drug raids early this morning targeted the wrong house where they roused his family out bed, pointed a machine gun at his 13-year-old daughter and threatened to shoot their poodle.

The raids were conducted by the Spring Valley police and the federal Drug Enforcement Administration.

David McKay said he, his wife, 13-year-old daughter and his brother-in-law were sleeping at 5:30 a.m. when they heard banging on the door of their townhouse at 36 Sharon Drive. When they went to open the door, at least 10 police officers forced their way into the home, he said.

“They pulled me outside in the freezing cold in my underwear, manhandle my wife, point a gun at my daughter and they won’t even tell me what they are doing in my house,” said McKay. “It was terrifying and humiliating beyond belief.”

McKay, who has worked for the Rockland sewer department for more than 13 years, is also a foster parent and involved in community activities.

McKay said the officers forced his wife, Jamie, and daughter out of their beds. The family’s dogs were barking and police threatened to shoot them, McKay said.

When it was reported in Huffington Post, it was entitled Police Terrorize 13-Year-Old Girl In Botched Pot Bust, Family Says. There was nothing “botched” about this raid whatsoever; it is completely standard procedure to break down doors, shoot pets, and terrorize children in the name of ferreting out marijuana users, sellers, and growers.

Later in the story, McKay overhears the officers talking about a different address, a place just down the street.  He then sees the officers at that location executing the raid at its correct address.  This was part of an indictment of 26 people who had been alleged to smuggle around 1,000 kg of cannabis around the local area since mid-2006.  Wow.  After five years, 10lbs of marijuana per week just got removed from underground economy in the greater New York area and only one innocent family had to be terrorized.  Do you all feel safer now?

We have 100-150 paramilitary raids of American homes every DAY, mostly in the name of the War on Drugs, when most drug users are neither armed nor violent. (Missoula Independent)

(Drug War Chronicle) Doing drug law enforcement is just not that dangerous. According to statistics on police line of duty deaths compiled by the Officer Down Memorial Page, only three law enforcement officers were killed enforcing drug laws last year, and those three were not undercover narcs doing drug buys or SWAT team raiders busting down doors, but DEA agents who died in a helicopter crash in Afghanistan. (One officer, Michael Crawshaw of the Penn Hills Police Department in Pennsylvania, was killed responding to a drug-trade murder in which one drug trafficker killed another over a drug debt. This officer death was certainly related to the drug war; we rightly or wrongly did not include him in the count because he was responding to a murder, not a drug crime.)

According to historical data provided to the Chronicle by the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund, which also compiles statistics on police line of duty deaths, last year’s low death toll among officers enforcing the drug laws is not a fluke. In the decade between 1978 and 1988, an average of 6.5 officers were killed each year; in the following decade, the number was 6.2; and in the last 10 years, an average of 4.3 officers were killed each year enforcing the drug laws. The single bloodiest year for drug law enforcement was 1988, when 12 officers died.

In 2008, the number of police who died maintaining drug prohibition was seven; in 2007, it was four; it 2006, it was five; in 2005, it was four. When placed in the context of the more than 1.5 million drug arrests made in each of those years, it is clear that only one in every several hundred thousand drug arrests leads to an officer’s death. During the past 10 years, the odds were less than 1 in 350,000.

The whole post is worth a read.  The Chronicle does a great job of recounting some of the horrific abuses of SWAT, including the dog shooting stories of Mayor Cheye Calvo and the Missouri SWAT Dog Shooting incident this month.

(LAist Blog) From lawsuits to raids, around 20 local marijuana dispensaries today were subject of various law enforcement activities. As the DEA served a search warrant to Organica Collective in Culver City this morning, the Los Angeles City Attorney’s office announced the filing of lawsuits against three medical marijuana dispensaries, including Organica, which has been subject of raids in the past.

Somebody's pants are on fire, Mr. Attorney General...

“It’s a separate thing,” explained Sarah Pullen with the DEA. “We were aware of each other’s operation today.” Pullen could not elaborate further than that search warrants being served. Witnesses tell the LA Times that three men were seen detained in handcuffs.

Los Angeles City Attorneys said nuisance and narcotics abatement lawsuits were filed against Organica and two Holistic Caregivers locations for violating the Narcotics Abatement Law, Public Nuisance Law and the Sherman Food, Drug and Cosmetics Law. Organica’s owner, Jeffrey Joseph, is the subject of an arrest warrant for sales of marijuana.

The recent medical marijuana ordinance passed by the Los Angeles City Council has nothing to do with today’s activities as that law has not been finalized. However, the City Attorney’s office contends the sale of marijuana is illegal under state law. Collectives, where the costs of cultivation are shared, are legal, they say.

City Attorneys also “sent eviction letters to owners of 18 different dispensaries and owners of the properties engaged in the sale of marijuana by dispensary employees,” according to a press release.

What was that Attorney General Eric Holder said?

Click here to view the embedded video.

What was that President Obama said?

Click here to view the embedded video.

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.  We don’t want to hear word parsing excuses – oh, but they aren’t legal under state law; oh, they’re not a collective, etc.  The results are the same: medical marijuana patients being terrorized by federal authorities as they try to get their medicine.

Will you send the armed agents when California votes for outright legalization this November?  Will you cling so desperately to another failed prohibition that you’re willing to pit the federal government against its largest state?

ECHO PARK, Calif. (KABC) — For the third time in a week, the Los Angeles Police Department has raided a medical marijuana facility.

Police arrested three people during the raid Thursday night at the Royal Temple of Zion in Echo Park.

Authorities say the facility has not applied for a hardship permit like all the other medical marijuana dispensaries, so selling the marijuana is illegal. About two pounds of marijuana were seized.

Oh my gosh!  A whole two pounds of marijuana!  Here in Oregon, that’s 2/3rds the amount of medical marijuana two registered patients may possess.  Even at ridiculously-inflated black-market-dictated California dispensary prices that’s less than $10,000 worth of marijuana.  I wonder how much it costs the city of Los Angeles to execute and prosecute such a raid?  Wanna bet it’s more than $10,000?

Those associated with the temple say it is a Rastafarian ministry, and it has the legal right to sell marijuana to the sick.

“This is a church run medical marijuana club providing medical marijuana for sick people, but we do it as a church,” said Pastor Craig Rubin.

Pastor Rubin believes police are targeting those that have been vocal about legalizing the drug.

Pastor Rubin, as you may remember, is the man who was offering patients a free eighth ounce of marijuana if they would come testify at the LA PLUM hearings two weeks ago.

“They seem to be particularly picking out people who have applied for these hardships who speak out,” said Pastor Rubin.

Members say because this is a place of worship they have not done anything illegal.

“It’s because we believe a cannabis from Revelations 22 is a plant for the healing of all nations and that people should have access to this plant. It’s not only benign, it’s benevolent,” said Pastor Rubin.

Yes, and I believe the Flying Spaghetti Monster brought forth cannabis from his noodly appendages to give to humanity so they may savor His Succulent Meatballs, so I shouldn’t be arrested for my pot smoking, either.

Sorry, I know many reading this have sincere religious beliefs and some have sincere beliefs that treat ganja as sacrament, but as an atheist I continue to be offended by the notion that because I treat all books as written works of men, not gods, I deserve to be arrested and jailed for my use of cannabis.  I completely support the right of religious folks to use ganja because I completely support the inalienable right of ALL folks to use cannabis, but when religious folks think they have a special and unique right to not be arrested for cannabis because they picked the right god, they are discriminating against me for my lack of a god.

Religion is not a “Get Out of Jail Free” card.  We don’t let certain religious folks get away with abusively beating their kids because some book says “Foolishness is bound in the heart of a child; but the rod of correction shall drive it far from him.” We don’t let certain religious folks get away with marrying ten virgin brides because some book says “And if he have ten virgins given unto him by this law, he cannot commit adultery, for they belong to him, and they are given unto him; therefore is he justified.” We don’t let certain religious folks get away with murdering people because some book says “And kill them wherever you find them, and drive them out from whence they drove you out, and persecution is severer than slaughter, and do not fight with them at the Sacred Mosque until they fight with you in it, but if they do fight you, then slay them; such is the recompense of the unbelievers.”

Yes, we do have a First Amendment that prohibits Congress from enacting laws suppressing religion, but that is tempered by the compelling interest of the state in maintaining secular law.  To date, that has meant that certain religions get to use Schedule I ayahuasca and peyote, but not cannabis:

(Erowid) First, it is important to understand a little about the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. In 1990, the U.S. Supreme Court changed the legal standard by which First Amendment religious cases were decided with regard to “laws of general applicability”. For laws that apply generally and are not intended to ban a particular religious practice, there are Constitutional questions about what the US Government can and can’t do. Just because someone claims that their religion requires that they drive faster than the speed limits, the generally applicable laws regarding traffic safety still apply to those members of the fanciful “100 Mile-Per-Hour Church”.

(RFRA) Government may substantially burden a person’s exercise of religion only if it determines that application of the burden to the person
1. is in furtherance of a compelling governmental interest; and
2. is the least restrictive means of furthering that compelling governmental interest.

While the RFRA tests have not been applied at the Supreme Court level, they were considered in a Hawai’i case in which the state supreme court rejected the appellant’s claim that his religious use of cannabis was protected under RFRA and the First Amendment:

(Hawaii: State v. Sunderland) The government’s ability to enforce generally applicable prohibitions of socially harmful conduct, like its ability to carry out other aspects of public policy, “cannot depend on measuring the effects of a governmental action on a religious objector’s spiritual development.” Lyng[ v. Nw. Indian Cemetery Protective Ass'n, 485 U.S. 439, 451 (1988)]. To make an individual’s obligation to obey such a law contingent upon the law’s coincidence with his religious beliefs, except where the State’s interest is “compelling”–permitting him, by virtue of his beliefs, “to become a law unto himself,” Reynolds[, 98 U.S. at 167]–contradicts both constitutional tradition and common sense.

The closest the federal courts have come to ruling on this is the Guerrero case in the Ninth Circuit out of Guam, but the court had only to address Guerrero’s importation of marijuana, not his religious use of it:

(Cognitive Liberty) After litigating the case for more than ten years, the Ninth Circuit ruled on Tuesday that while the Religious Freedom Restoration Act might protect some Rastafarians who possess or smoke marijuana as part of their religious practices, it does not protect the importation of marijuana, even if that marijuana was intended for religious use. According to the Ninth Circuit, while the practice of Rastafarianism sanctions the smoking of marijuana, nowhere does the religion sanction the importation of marijuana.

Basically the government’s argument is that ayahuasca and peyote are used by so few both religiously and recreationally that letting a few First Peoples use them religiously doesn’t substantially burden the government from stopping others from using them recreationally.  But cannabis use is so prevalent that the minute you let some people use it religiously, everybody who uses it recreationally will suddenly find religion and that substantially burdens the government from keeping people from using cannabis recreationally.

In other words, Rastafarians are punished for their god picking too popular of a sacrament.

(CNN) — A policeman was killed Friday during a day-long siege with a gunman at a house in the town of Napier, in New Zealand’s north island.

The body of Senior Constable Len Snee was recovered from the driveway of the house, where a 51-year-old gunman had been embroiled in a standoff with police since Thursday morning, New Zealand police said in a statement.

Two other police officers and a civilian were wounded in the confrontation, and are in critical condition in a hospital, police said. Authorities did not say what had prompted the incident.

CNN affiliate TVNZ identified the man as Jan Molenaar and said police had arrived at his house Thursday morning in Napier, about 200 miles southeast of Auckland, for a “standard cannabis raid.”

via Police officer killed in New Zealand standoff – CNN.com.

Fortunately, Constable Snee did not die in vain, because after the arrest of Molenaar, all marijuana farming has now ceased to exist in New Zealand.

Does anybody think any good has come from this “standard cannabis raid”?  What terrible harm had befallen the town of Napier that justified the death of a policeman and the wounding of two more and a civilian?  Is stopping a 51-year-old man from gardening in his home and getting high worth it?  Police should never be forced into this situation and citizens should never be forced to defend their home against police.