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Buzzby

Weed Watch 03/31/2006
Jordan Smith | Austin Chronicle | 03/31/2006

Drug Enforcement Administration narcos picked up where they left off just before Christmas, descending upon the small medi-pot growers collective run by Palm Desert, Calif., medi-mari patient Gary Silva in a March 14, early morning raid, seizing 80 pot plants and a cache of patient records, and sending Silva to the hospital with a dislocated shoulder. The feds reportedly burst through the door before Silva could get it open, knocking the medi-pot patient, who suffers from a degenerative disc disorder, tumbling to the ground. According to the Drug Reform Coordination Network, Silva's wife and daughter were held at gunpoint as the narcos raided the facility; no one was arrested, but narcos reportedly told Silva he would face arrest if he dared to grow any more pot. This was just the latest in a chain of federal raids, mainly in California, that the DEA has undertaken with new zeal since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled last summer (in a case originally brought by medi-pot patient Angel Raich) that state-sanctioned medi-pot laws do not exempt patients (and their caregivers and/or growers) from federal enforcement of pot prohibition.

Nonetheless, 11 states (including California, where voters passed a "compassionate use" law in 1996) have passed laws allowing registered patients to grow, possess, and use marijuana for medicinal purposes. And Silva said that his operation was conducted within the boundaries of state law. "I grew for myself and a few other patients, and donated the excess to a nearby dispensing collective," he said. "There was no need for our California sheriffs to call in federal agents to injure me and harass my family."

The Silva raid sparked a new round of protests outside federal buildings across the country by medi-pot advocates – including a downtown Austin protest organized by Texans for Medical Marijuana, and one in Oakland where medi-pot patient and activist Angel Raich was arrested, reportedly for talking back to a security guard who told her she was using a megaphone too close to the building.

In other pot news, NORML reports that a new poll conducted by Zogby International reveals that nearly 50% of likely voters support amending federal law to allow states to "legally regulate and tax marijuana" in the same way that liquor and gambling are regulated. The measure polled favorably among young voters – nearly 66% of voters 18-29 – and middle-aged voters – 50% of those ages 50-64. Interestingly, 58% of 30- to 49-year-olds and 52% of seniors said they'd oppose the change. "Public support for replacing the illicit marijuana market with a legally regulated, controlled market … continues to grow," said NORML Executive Director Allen St. Pierre in a press release. "NORML's challenge is to convert this growing public support into a tangible public policy that no longer criminalizes those adults who use marijuana responsibly."

Of course, if federal drug czar John Walters has his prohibition-loving way, no drugs – aside from tobacco, alcohol, and the cornucopia of pharmaceuticals, of course – would be decriminalized, let alone legalized. Indeed, responding to an editorial critical of the ongoing drug war that appeared on the notoriously conservative editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal last month, Walters penned an op/ed piece for the March 16 WSJ, insisting that there is "no realistic alternative to the fight" against drugs. Illegal drugs are "inherently dangerous," he wrote, and thinking there would be some way to regulate drug use is nothing but a "cruel delusion." There's nothing new in Walters' thinking so it's no surprise that the czar skates around the irony of his position by trying to argue a negative – specifically, that the War on Drugs has "staved off a worse circumstance, with many more drug users, and more damage to the social fabric." (To read Walter's latest missive, check out the archives of the Media Awareness Project at www.mapinc.org.)

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SnowMinion

This seems boarderline unconstitutional to me. The Feds weren't upholding a law. They were simply employing scare tactics. Fear is no way to govern the people.

-S

Buzzby

The DEA was seizing contraband, which is completely legal. That they didn't arrest the people on the scene in no way changes the fact that contraband was found, just as if it had been found out in a field somewhere.

Dennis

They're afraid to go to court.

The DEA in taking marijuana without making arrest or pressing charges amounts to harassment and is a constitutional violation of due process rights.

walstmonky

Perhaps those raided should file a suit and have a judge issuing an order allowing them to be indicted and tried on the felony charges they've been deprived of facing. "Yes your honor, it is my right to be convicted and sent to Federal prison for 10 years without parole."

The story of that event would get posted in this forum with the title "knuckleheads in the news".

 

Dennis

Paranoid imagination can be a terrible thing in the wrong hands. You wouldn't move to be tried, you would file for an injunction against being raided based on harassment. The DEA is afraid to go to court and have Jury after Jury acquit or have the cases overturned on appeal.

Buzzby

Is the cop who pulls you over, finds your weed, confiscates it, and lets you go also guilty of harassment? Damn! These people should count their blessings, not bitch about it.

SnowMinion

Hey, I wasn't bitching about it. I'm simply pointing out that fact that the DEA/government is controlling via fear and that this is no way a government should work. The DEA knows there would be public out lash and future consequences for such a bust. I'm saying what they've done and what they continue to do undermines the actual law. They do it because they know these busts are morally[edit] wrong.

Buzzby

Wrong in what way? It's not illegal. They are enforcing federal law by seizing contraband. They're avoiding arresting medical marijuana people because it would create bad press.

Isn't fear, ultimately, the way governments always coerce citizens into obeying the law? The threat of incarceration is the most effective deterrent to crime. It would be very tempting to bop some rich bastard over the head and take his wallet if it didn't carry a risk of spending several years behind bars. Why did people report for the draft during the Vietnam war? Why are there so few deserters?

SnowMinion

I really don't think our founding fathers would agree with that statement, nor do I believe that the United States' constitution has to follow such a paradigm.

Laws and legislation are one thing. Enforcing them is entirely different.