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Medical Patient Harassment on the Rise in Oregon
The presence of the DEA has caused Oregon law enforcement to turn a deaf ear to the voice of the people.
10/26/07|Salem-News| by Tim King

I guess it could be difficult; spending your life as a law enforcement officer, and having to turn away from what you have always perceived to be a crime, that is the use of marijuana. "Suck it up" is what they used to tell us in the Marine Corps when we had to deal with a rule we didn't like, the same applies here.

What happened to one driver in the coastal town of Lincoln City two weeks ago typifies the current trends in Oregon police behavior. I would describe this long time friend of mine as a medical marijuana patient with his act together. He's one of those people who knows his rights, something that most cops find frustrating and scary.

The man's name is not being used for obvious reasons. Medical Marijuana patients are becoming increasingly distrustful of police. The traffic stop serves as a classic example of a squandering of taxpayer money.

Oregon voters have spoken repeatedly, but police in our state from the top down are still trying to undermine the wishes of the people. It is government driven sabotage, it has to stop. Their priorities are unsettling and the motivations behind them are highly questionable.

Think about it: over half of the people in this state who vote want medical patients to have access to legal marijuana. Doesn't that say enough by itself? The Presidential Administration doesn't like it, nor does the DEA. They are allied with the industries that would have to compete with legal marijuana. Your local police aren't standing up for you in many cases, they want to be friends with the federal agents, and the agents are in essence, working for all kinds of businesses as they influence our cops into doing whatever they can to make medical pot look bad.

Now, as they lap up their resources from the public trough, these federal DEA agents have set up shop in Oregon, and they're harassing your neighbors, your friends and your loved ones on your dime.

Even if you have never used pot and don't support it, do you want these guys in here telling your city's police officers how to behave? Do you want local cops to nod because federal cops are "all the rage"?

Get the Feds Out of Local Oregon Police Departments

These federal agents are in our local Oregon police departments showing them power point presentations about how Oregon's Medical Marijuana Program is being abused, and they are nothing but political operatives for the pharmaceutical companies at that point. They know marijuana is a natural herb, they know hemp is the strongest natural fiber known to man, and they lie through their teeth as a matter or policy, always knowing that marijuana is a pussycat among illegal substances.

The saddest part is that these local cops are impressed by federal agents, the top of the law enforcement food chain, the people movies are about. In my line of work, I know plenty of police officers. Most are good people though they easily lose sight of many things when they strap their badge on. Oregon officers should tell these DEA goons to hit the street, they should stick up for our interests, the people who live in Oregon, and not be bamboozled and starstruck by DEA operatives who have stepped out of the law enforcement role and straight into politics.

In the case of my unnamed friend, his encounter with Lincoln City Police began with a speeding violation, which he readily admits. But he had been working with his plants prior to being pulled over, and the officer detected the odor.

My friend explained that he is a legal cardholding patient, but that wasn't enough. The Lincoln City cop wanted to search his car. My friend says he reacted by asking the officer if he had a warrant, and the battle was on.

Know Your Rights

Police generally try every trick in the book to get a person to submit to a search of their car. Sadly, most people in this day and age don't know that under our system of law, this thing called a Democracy, we have no obligation to allow a cop to crawl around in our automobile, that is YOUR automobile. If a police officer has reasonable suspicion that you are committing a crime, then they can search your car legally and there is nothing you can do about it.

If you are not doing anything wrong, a search warrant is required for a search and most of the time, that officer better have a darned good reason for wanting to search your property. It doesn't make them look good when you come up with nothing.

Of course in areas where police are crooked, and examples of this exist at every agency at some point in time, then the officer can just plant it in a person's car and they are busted. This is one reason many attorneys cite when they advise their clients to NEVER submit to a police search.

My friend was doing nothing wrong. As a medical marijuana patient and grower, he can legally transport a large amount of marijuana in his car so the cop didn't have a leg to stand on.

But he tried and tried, my friend said. As time wore on about the only thing the officer could find that would allow him to legally search the car had nothing to do with marijuana at all. My friend could not find his proof of insurance, and that led to the only time he saw a police officer smile that day.

So the tow truck was called and my friend's trip to have coffee with his friends was delayed longer. The Lincoln City Police were feeling better about the encounter, my friend believes, because they finally found a reason to make his life as a medical marijuana patient just a little harder. But just then, lo and behold, he found his insurance card...

The traffic encounter was less than glorious for the small town officers. After the insurance card was shown, my friend reasoned that the experience was over. He started to walk toward the coffee shop, and that is when the officer put his hand on his gun, telling my friend to come back. It ended in the officer writing a speeding ticket.

Police Should be Faithful to Oregon

So as Oregon police officers, troopers and deputies continue to bring political pressure on the medical marijuana program, and newscasters and headlines keep blasting that a person arrested "was a medical marijuana patient", remember that in at least some of the cases, the "busts" are the result of a lot of police time and effort being spent on patient harassment.

This campaign to discredit Oregon's Medical Marijuana Program is a product of direct political influence, and it is tied to industries that would suffer under legalization, which is inevitable.

Many police officers are not personally driven to arrest people for marijuana offenses, they know it is not important enough to bother chasing an herb that has no fatal qualities. Our kids need to be taught about much worse things, it is a flower, it should not be classified with meth and heroin as it is in the wisdom of Oregon.

They aren't busting meth labs, they aren't catching murderers and thieves, they're devoting their resources, paid for by you and I, to inflicting political harm on Oregon's Medical Marijuana Program and glorifying the desires of the federal government.