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Marijuana Not Linked to Obesity

Study: Smoking Marijuana Not Linked to Obesity

Published September 12, 2011

Anybody who's smoked marijuana knows about "the munchies," that desire to eat everything within reach. But a study from France has found that, surprisingly, pot smokers are actually less likely than non-smokers to pack on weight.

Using data covering more than 50,000 U.S. adults, researchers headed by Yann Le Strat, a psychiatrist at the Louis-Mourier Hospital in Colombes, France, found that roughly 14 percent to 17 percent of the people reporting that they smoked pot at least three days per week were obese.

That compared with a 22 to 25 percent obesity rate among people who said they had not used pot in the past 12 months.

"Initially, we thought we made a mistake," said Le Strat, adding that he and co-author Bernard Le Foll checked the results several times to make sure they were correct.

"This is only a preliminary result. It doesn't mean that marijuana does actually help you lose weight, but perhaps there is a component that does."

The study, published in the American Journal of Epidemiology, included two surveys of U.S. adults -- one covering 43,000 people, the other about 9,300 respondents. Both had been conducted by branches of the U.S. National Institutes of Health between 2001 and 2009.

The larger of the surveys found that 14 percent of pot smokers were obese compared to 22 percent who didn't smoke pot. Similarly, the smaller survey found 17 percent of pot smokers to be obese compared to 25 percent of non-smokers.

Of all respondents to both surveys, between four percent and seven percent said they smoked pot at least three times a week.

Whether or not they smoked cigarettes as well had no influence on the obesity findings, though the researchers did not look at whether diet and exercise habits were different in pot smokers and non-smokers.

According to another recent survey, from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, pot use is on the rise in the United States. Almost 16 million U.S. residents used marijuana in 2010, an increase from about 15 million in 2007.

Scientists have researched the role of various molecules within marijuana smoke that produce the high feeling, block pain, and may underlie the hunger for food typically provoked by pot use.

Cannabinoids, molecules similar to natural signaling chemicals in the body, are believed to be key to stimulating appetite -- so much so that in 2006, a drug called Rimonabant, designed to work against cannabinoids, was developed.

Rimonabant was approved in more than 30 countries, but not in the United States, for the treatment of obesity. But the drug was pulled off shelves two years later because of an increased risk of suicide among its users.

Whether cannabinoids are the only appetite stimulants in pot smoke, or whether other chemicals might account for the effect, remains to be seen, the researchers say.

Other experts said the results didn't surprise them.

"There's no evidence that repeated marijuana use can increase body weight," said Vincenzo Di Marzo, professor at the Institute of Biomolecular Chemistry in Pozzuoli, Italy, who was not part of the study.

He warned that the study does not show that smoking pot helps you lose weight, but that it could be a starting point for future research.

Le Strat echoed this view and warned against experimenting with pot as a diet aid.

"I see people living with marijuana dependence. I hope people don't interpret the results to mean that if they use marijuana, they'll lose weight," he added.

13,000 Arizonans approved for medical marijuana

More than 13,000 Arizonans approved for medical marijuana

Posted: Thursday, September 15, 2011 3:42 pm

By Howard Fischer, Capitol Media Services

Exactly five months into the voter-approved program, more than 13,000 Arizonans now have the state's legal permission to get high.

And at this rate, 32,000 of your friends and neighbors will be card-carrying medical marijuana users when the system hits the first anniversary.

But state Health Director Will Humble said he cannot predict ultimately what percentage of Arizonans will become medical marijuana users. He said, though, there is no immediate indication that the figure will hit 200,000 any time soon, the number of people in Colorado - a state of similar size - who possess that state's medical marijuana card.

The latest figures also show that the use of marijuana, at least legally, is not spread equally around the state.

Among the 126 community health districts, the largest numbers are concentrated in a few areas in Scottsdale, north and east Phoenix, as well as the east side of Mesa and southeast Chandler. There also is a pocket in the Peoria area.

But residents of Tucson's Catalina foothills area, and those living on the eastern edge of the city also have lined up for their medical marijuana cards.

And a fair number of Prescott-area residents also are participants.

Humble said there was an initial rush of applications in the days following the April 14 start of the program, with applications coming in at the rate of about 100 a day.

"It's tapered off a little bit," he said. But Humble said the online application system still is getting close to 70 requests each day, leading to his extrapolation of 32,000 users by the middle of next April.

Humble, however, said it's more difficult to make predictions on a longer-term basis.

He pointed out that the cards are good for only one year. And with that annual $150 fee, Humble said some people may decide not to renew.

In some cases, Humble said, their medical situation may have changed. But he said others may have believed that, once they had a card, "they could walk into a dispensary" to pick up their legally permitted 2 1/2 ounces of marijuana every two weeks.

"That's probably not going to be the case any time soon," Humble said. His agency has so far refused to license any dispensaries, with attorneys for the state asking a federal court to first rule whether health department workers who process these applications might be subject to federal prosecution for facilitating the possession and sale of marijuana, which remains illegal under federal law.

Humble also said the restrictions the health department put on the program may account for the fact that there are not more medical marijuana users in Arizona.

"I think we've done as good a job as we possibly can to keep it as medical as possible," he said, versus a program that was really designed to provide recreational users a legal method to obtain their drugs.

That includes various requirements for doctors to examine patients and review medical records. And Humble has asked medical boards to investigate a handful of doctors who appear to be processing applications at a rapid rate, suggesting it appears they were more interested in making money by issuing marijuana certifications than meeting their patients' legitimate medical needs.

Still, Humble said, his rules can go only so far. The voter-approved law which spells out the conditions under which a doctor can recommend marijuana has a broad catch-all category of "chronic pain," a category cited in more than eight out of every 10 applications.

"There are certainly recreational users in the system," he said. "There's no doubt about that. But I'm pleased with the fact that we've done everything that we can to try to keep it as medical as possible."

Doing It For The Patients

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A future for drones: Automated killing

My question is how long before these drones are used on American soil to blow up suspected "drug houses" in American's drug war, by the local cops.

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A future for drones: Automated killing

By Peter Finn, Published: September 19

One afternoon last fall at Fort Benning, Ga., two model-size planes took off, climbed to 800 and 1,000 feet, and began criss-crossing the military base in search of an orange, green and blue tarp.

The automated, unpiloted planes worked on their own, with no human guidance, no hand on any control.

After 20 minutes, one of the aircraft, carrying a computer that processed images from an onboard camera, zeroed in on the tarp and contacted the second plane, which flew nearby and used its own sensors to examine the colorful object. Then one of the aircraft signaled to an unmanned car on the ground so it could take a final, close-up look.

Target confirmed.

This successful exercise in autonomous robotics could presage the future of the American way of war: a day when drones hunt, identify and kill the enemy based on calculations made by software, not decisions made by humans. Imagine aerial “Terminators,” minus beefcake and time travel.

The Fort Benning tarp “is a rather simple target, but think of it as a surrogate,” said Charles E. Pippin, a scientist at the Georgia Tech Research Institute, which developed the software to run the demonstration. “You can imagine real-time scenarios where you have 10 of these things up in the air and something is happening on the ground and you don’t have time for a human to say, ‘I need you to do these tasks.’ It needs to happen faster than that.”

The demonstration laid the groundwork for scientific advances that would allow drones to search for a human target and then make an identification based on facial-recognition or other software. Once a match was made, a drone could launch a missile to kill the target.

Military systems with some degree of autonomy — such as robotic, weaponized sentries — have been deployed in the demilitarized zone between South and North Korea and other potential battle areas. Researchers are uncertain how soon machines capable of collaborating and adapting intelligently in battlefield conditions will come online. It could take one or two decades, or longer. The U.S. military is funding numerous research projects on autonomy to develop machines that will perform some dull or dangerous tasks and to maintain its advantage over potential adversaries who are also working on such systems.

The killing of terrorism suspects and insurgents by armed drones, controlled by pilots sitting in bases thousands of miles away in the western United States, has prompted criticism that the technology makes war too antiseptic. Questions also have been raised about the legality of drone strikes when employed in places such as Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia, which are not at war with the United States. This debate will only intensify as technological advances enable what experts call lethal autonomy.

The prospect of machines able to perceive, reason and act in unscripted environments presents a challenge to the current understanding of international humanitarian law. The Geneva Conventions require belligerents to use discrimination and proportionality, standards that would demand that machines distinguish among enemy combatants, surrendering troops and civilians.

“The deployment of such systems would reflect a paradigm shift and a major qualitative change in the conduct of hostilities,” Jakob Kellenberger, president of the International Committee of the Red Cross, said at a conference in Italy this month. “It would also raise a range of fundamental legal, ethical and societal issues, which need to be considered before such systems are developed or deployed.”

Drones flying over Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen can already move automatically from point to point, and it is unclear what surveillance or other tasks, if any, they perform while in autonomous mode. Even when directly linked to human operators, these machines are producing so much data that processors are sifting the material to suggest targets, or at least objects of interest. That trend toward greater autonomy will only increase as the U.S. military shifts from one pilot remotely flying a drone to one pilot remotely managing several drones at once.

But humans still make the decision to fire, and in the case of CIA strikes in Pakistan, that call rests with the director of the agency. In future operations, if drones are deployed against a sophisticated enemy, there may be much less time for deliberation and a greater need for machines that can function on their own.

The U.S. military has begun to grapple with the implications of emerging technologies.

“Authorizing a machine to make lethal combat decisions is contingent upon political and military leaders resolving legal and ethical questions,” according to an Air Force treatise called Unmanned Aircraft Systems Flight Plan 2009-2047. “These include the appropriateness of machines having this ability, under what circumstances it should be employed, where responsibility for mistakes lies and what limitations should be placed upon the autonomy of such systems.”

In the future, micro-drones will reconnoiter tunnels and buildings, robotic mules will haul equipment and mobile systems will retrieve the wounded while under fire. Technology will save lives. But the trajectory of military research has led to calls for an arms-control regime to forestall any possibility that autonomous systems could target humans.

In Berlin last year, a group of robotic engineers, philosophers and human rights activists formed the International Committee for Robot Arms Control (ICRAC) and said such technologies might tempt policymakers to think war can be less bloody.

Some experts also worry that hostile states or terrorist organizations could hack robotic systems and redirect them. Malfunctions also are a problem: In South Africa in 2007, a semiautonomous cannon fatally shot nine friendly soldiers.

The ICRAC would like to see an international treaty, such as the one banning antipersonnel mines, that would outlaw some autonomous lethal machines. Such an agreement could still allow automated antimissile systems.

“The question is whether systems are capable of discrimination,” said Peter Asaro, a founder of the ICRAC and a professor at the New School in New York who teaches a course on digital war. “The good technology is far off, but technology that doesn’t work well is already out there. The worry is that these systems are going to be pushed out too soon, and they make a lot of mistakes, and those mistakes are going to be atrocities.”

Research into autonomy, some of it classified, is racing ahead at universities and research centers in the United States, and that effort is beginning to be replicated in other countries, particularly China.

“Lethal autonomy is inevitable,” said Ronald C. Arkin, the author of “Governing Lethal Behavior in Autonomous Robots,” a study that was funded by the Army Research Office.

Arkin believes it is possible to build ethical military drones and robots, capable of using deadly force while programmed to adhere to international humanitarian law and the rules of engagement. He said software can be created that would lead machines to return fire with proportionality, minimize collateral damage, recognize surrender, and, in the case of uncertainty, maneuver to reassess or wait for a human assessment.

In other words, rules as understood by humans can be converted into algorithms followed by machines for all kinds of actions on the battlefield.

“How a war-fighting unit may think — we are trying to make our systems behave like that,” said Lora G. Weiss, chief scientist at the Georgia Tech Research Institute.

Others, however, remain skeptical that humans can be taken out of the loop.

“Autonomy is really the Achilles’ heel of robotics,” said Johann Borenstein, head of the Mobile Robotics Lab at the University of Michigan. “There is a lot of work being done, and still we haven’t gotten to a point where the smallest amount of autonomy is being used in the military field. All robots in the military are remote-controlled. How does that sit with the fact that autonomy has been worked on at universities and companies for well over 20 years?”

Borenstein said human skills will remain critical in battle far into the future.

“The foremost of all skills is common sense,” he said. “Robots don’t have common sense and won’t have common sense in the next 50 years, or however long one might want to guess.”

Gunmen dump 35 bodies on avenue

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Mexico horror: Gunmen dump 35 bodies on avenue

Posted 9/21/2011 7:22 AM ET

By Olga R. Rodriguez, Associated Press

MEXICO CITY — Suspected drug traffickers drove two trucks to a main avenue in a Mexican Gulf coast city and dumped 35 slaying victims during rush hour while gunmen stood guard and pointed their weapons at frightened motorists.

The gruesome scene Tuesday in the downtown of Boca del Rio was the latest escalation in drug violence in Veracruz state, which sits on an important route for drugs and Central American migrants heading north.

The Zetas drug cartel has been locked in a bloody war with drug gangs for control of the state.

Veracruz state Attorney General Reynaldo Escobar Perez said the bodies were left piled in two trucks and on the ground at an underpass near the city's biggest shopping mall and its statue of the Voladores de Papantla -- ritual dancers from Veracruz state.

Police had identified seven of the victims so far and all had criminal records for murder, drug dealing, kidnapping and extortion and were linked to organized crime, Escobar said. He didn't say to what group the victims belonged.

Motorists caught in the horrifying scene Tuesday afternoon posted warnings on Twitter that masked gunmen in military uniforms were blocking Manuel Avila Camacho Boulevard and pointing their guns at civilians.

"They don't seem to be soldiers or police," one tweet read. Another said, "Don't go through that area, there is danger."

Escobar said police were reviewing surveillance video recorded in the area.

Local media said that 12 of the victims were women and that some of the dead men had been among prisoners who escaped from three Veracruz prisons on Monday, but Escobar said he couldn't confirm that.

At least 32 inmates got away from the three Veracruz prisons. Police recaptured 14 of them.

Earlier Tuesday, the Mexican army announced it had captured a key figure in the cult-like Knights Templar drug cartel that is sowing violence in western Mexico.

Saul Solis Solis, 49, a former police chief and one-time congressional candidate, was captured without incident Monday in the cartel's home state of Michoacan, Brig. Gen. Edgar Luis Villegas said during a presentation of Solis to the media.

Solis is considered one of the principal lieutenants in the Knights Templar, which split late last year from La Familia, a pseudo-religious drug gang known as a major trafficker of methamphetamine.

Drug violence has claimed more than 35,000 lives across Mexico since 2006, according to government figures. Others put the number at more than 40,000.

In northern Mexico, the army announced the detention of two more suspects in a casino fire that killed 52 people last month in the northern city of Monterrey.

The two men captured at a bar in Monterrey late Monday confessed to being members of the Zetas drug cartel and participating in the attack, federal prosecutors said.

Separately in Nuevo Leon, Mexican marines captured 19 alleged members of the Zetas drug cartel at a ranch that was being used as a training camp in the town of Colombia, the military announced.

A navy statement said that seven minors were among those detained and that marines seized four rifles, a pistol, and several military uniforms and boots.

Mixing government and religion in Utah.

Stiff penalites for stiff drinks: Utah tightens liquor laws

By Rick Hampson, USA TODAY

SALT LAKE CITY – Carefully, four men carry two 15-foot-long, 200-pound pieces of frosted glass out to the parking lot, where they carefully heave them to the pavement. As the glass shatters, everyone cheers.

It happened last month outside Vuz Restaurant, where the glass had formed a "Zion Curtain" — a state-required partition between bar and patrons that owner Mohsen Asgari says drove away both customers and bartenders.

Asgari was free to smash his $2,800 partition because he'd obtained a coveted license that allowed him to serve drinks without one. But other new restaurants in the state aren't so lucky.

The endurance of the Zion Curtain shows that despite a liberalization two years ago under then-Gov. Jon Huntsman, Utah still has the nation's most restrictive, exotic and confusing liquor laws.

"Zion" refers to the Mormons, who are abstemious and who call Utah their Zion, or New Jerusalem. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints counts among its members most of the state's residents and about 80% of state legislators.

"There's a negative vibe among a certain part of the culture here about alcohol," says Melva Sine of the Utah Restaurant Association. "People come here and ask, 'What's the problem with your state?'"

Kelly Shiotani, owner of Dojo sushi restaurant, stands at the bar he cannot use, in Salt Lake City in June. Because of Utah liquor laws at restaurants, drinks have to be prepared away from the view of customers.

If there's a problem, it's getting worse. The Salt Lake Tribune editorializes that since Huntsman, now a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, left in 2009 to become U.S. ambassador to China, "the backsliding has been rapid."

Recent examples:

•As of Oct. 1, stores no longer can sell the popular mini beer keg known as the "Chubby." Regular kegs already are banned.

•As of next year, even new restaurants licensed to serve nothing stronger than beer — weak 3.2% alcohol beer at that — must keep taps and bartenders out of customers' sight and have beer sales account for no more than 30% of revenue.

•There's a freeze, probably for at least a year, on issuance of the type of alcohol license that allows restaurants to serve liquor, wine and full-strength beer in full view of customers, and that doesn't require customers to order food with a drink.

So all new restaurants that want to serve alcohol will need to install a barrier like Vuz's, which was 4 feet high and ran down the middle of the length of the bar, or to store and dispense alcohol in a back room.

In that case, a bartender might never even see the customers or have to scurry back and forth to the bar after pouring drinks out of sight.

Utah's alcohol laws already were unique. You can't order a double, or a stiff drink; happy hours and any other drink discounts, even for 3.2 beer, are illegal; licensed restaurants must use electronic ID scanners on patrons who look as if they're under 35 to make sure they're 21. .

The recent restrictions are a retrenchment from several years ago, when Huntsman got the Legislature to abolish the "private club" restaurant system that long confounded out-of-staters.

Anyone who wanted a drink had to first buy a club membership; then, they were handed one or two mini-bottles and told to pour and/or mix their own drink.

This struggle — between those who want to make Utah's alcohol laws more like the rest of the nation's and those who fear that would mean more alcohol use and abuse — reflects a deeper division.

Utah, traditionally conservative and Mormon, is an increasingly diverse place that trades on skiing, sun and the Sundance Film Festival. In this Utah, a drink is a natural expectation of tourists and business travelers and essential to economic development. And Utah becomes less Mormon every year; church members now account for less than 60% of the population. It was 70% in 1989.

But the church's views carry weight. Senate President Michael Waddoups, a Republican and LDS member, has said that bar-like restaurants encourage underage drinking because "listening to the shaking of the drinks and the sights can make drinking attractive." Despite the need for tourism, he says, "We are not going to become Las Vegas or New Orleans."

Restaurateurs say that attitude hurts. Hersh Ipaktchian, owner of a chain of sports bars, is one of several operators who say they won't open new places in the state because they'd have to build barriers around bars central to their look and layout. National chains also have slowed their expansion into Utah.

Although the Legislature in 2009 abolished the need for existing restaurants to separate their patrons and their alcohol, it required most that opened after Jan. 1, 2010 to do so. The result, critics say, is a playing field that's not level.

"You want to be able to see the guy who's making your drink make your drink. You want to talk to him … hear a joke, say what's bothering you," says Tyler Corning, 34, a transplanted Californian who'll stop for a drink or a meal after work. "Who ever heard of a backroom bartender?"

Source

Utah lawmakers pass sweeping liquor law changes

Posted 3/12/2009 8:30 PM

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — Utah lawmakers on Thursday approved the most sweeping changes to the state's liquor laws in 40 years in an effort to boost tourism and make the state appear a little less odd.

The Legislature eliminated the state's private club system, which requires customers to fill out an application and pay a fee for the right to enter a bar. Bartenders in restaurants also will be allowed to serve cocktails directly over bar counters instead of walking around them.

Utah is the only state in the country with either law. Gov. Jon Huntsman has said he'll sign the bill into law, and once that happens, bars can open their doors to the public on July 1.

Currently, a partition known as a "Zion Curtain" separates bartenders from customers. The term is a nod to the state's religious history as the Land of Zion in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which tells followers to shun alcohol.

Senate President Michael Waddoups, R-Taylorsville, called the bill "a magnificent, monumental, history-making piece of legislation." Lawmakers in the Senate passed the measure unanimously and applauded after the vote, with some saying: "I'll drink to that."

In exchange for loosening the liquor laws, the state's DUI laws will become more strict. People who appear younger than 35 will have their driver's licenses scanned before entering a bar to make sure they're 21 or older and their ID is real.

Information obtained through the scan will be kept at bars for seven days and law enforcement can inspect it in the event of a DUI or accident.

The bill also would require new restaurants to mix cocktails out of the view of customers, something the Utah Restaurant Association said would keep many chain restaurants out of the state.

The Utah Hospitality Association, which represents the state's bar industry, reluctantly agreed to the use of the ID scanners, which will cost bars about $800. The association had been prepared to take the measure to a vote through an initiative if lawmakers didn't come to an agreement.

Bars have long complained that memberships are a hassle that annoy customers and distract bouncers. Morality groups, conservative lawmakers and Mothers Against Drunk Driving's Utah chapter had argued that memberships reduced underage drinking and drunken driving because it made getting into multiple bars in a single day expensive and time-consuming.

Dave Morris, the owner of Piper Down bar, said the current law makes business difficult because he "couldn't even get people in my door to explain how to get a drink."

"Now we don't have the quirkiest liquor laws in the country anymore," he said.

Rand study - Marijuana reduces crime?

On the other hand if you compare a bunch of Cheech and Chong stoners high on pot to a bunch of drunks on liquor, marijuana certainly doesn't turn people into assholes like booze does. I would think the stoners don't cause anywhere near the problems the drunks do.

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Rand study finds less crime near pot dispensaries

By John Hoeffel, Los Angeles Times

September 21, 2011

Medical marijuana dispensaries — with storerooms of high-priced weed, registers brimming with cash and some clientele more interested in getting high than getting well — are often seen as magnets for crime, a perception deepened by a few high-profile murders.

But a report from the Rand Corp. reaches a startling conclusion: The opposite appears to be true.

In a study of crime near Los Angeles dispensaries — which the investigators call the most rigorous independent examination of its kind — the Santa Monica-based think tank found that crime actually increased near hundreds of pot shops after they were required to close last summer.

"What I would take away from it is maybe there should just be a little bit less fear about having dispensaries," said Mireille Jacobson, a health economist who was the lead researcher. "Hopefully, this injects a little bit of science into the discussion."

The researchers compared the 10 days before the city's medical marijuana ordinance took effect June 7, 2010, with the 10 days after, when many of the more than 400 illegal dispensaries shut down — if only briefly.

They found a 59% increase in crime within three-tenths of a mile of a closed dispensary compared to an open one and a 24% increase within six-tenths of a mile.

The city attorney's office, which has argued in court proceedings that the number of dispensaries needs to be reduced to deal with "well-documented crime," called the report's conclusions "highly suspect and unreliable," saying that they were based on "faulty assumptions, conjecture, irrelevant data, untested measurements and incomplete results."

In particular, the office challenged the idea that most dispensaries closed June 7, 2010, and were not open for at least 10 days. And it offered its own conjecture for the rise in crime: infighting among collective members, increased traffic for pot fire sales and customers disgruntled to find their dispensary closed.

Jacobson said Rand did not assume dispensaries shut down exactly on that date and said that, if more of them closed earlier or later, it would mean only that crime increased more than the report found.

The researchers acknowledge that the results are subject to a large margin of error, so the increase in crime within less than a third of a mile could range from as low as 5.4% to as high as 114%.

"These are noisy data over a short period of time," Jacobson said. But she noted that the numbers, which were subjected to complex statistical analyses, clearly show crime increased.

The researchers did not try to draw conclusions on why crime increased, but offered the hypothesis that dispensaries may heighten security in the areas around them because they employ cameras and guards, increase late-night foot traffic, replace illicit street sales and draw heavier police patrols.

In a review of crime statistics from 2009 ordered by Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck, the LAPD found that banks were much more likely to be robbed than dispensaries.

Cmdr. Andrew Smith, a department spokesman, said the LAPD had not yet reviewed the report, but would do so.

The Rand report notes that police departments in Denver and Colorado Springs, Colo., also studied crime around dispensaries and found no evidence that they attracted crime.

None of this surprises dispensary owners or their lawyers, who note that their surveillance records are sometimes requested by police to investigate crimes unrelated to selling marijuana.

"It's some empirical evidence that demonstrates that the security measures that make it safe for patients to obtain their medical marijuana also serve the community," said David Welch, a lawyer who has represented many Los Angeles dispensaries.

Yamileth Bolanos, who runs PureLife Alternative Wellness Center on South La Cienega Boulevard and also is president of the Greater Los Angeles Collectives Alliance, said, "I know that there's no crime around here. We watch everything."

But Steve Whitmore, a spokesman for the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, strenuously disagreed with the report's conclusions.

"Every time we shut down a dispensary, the crime and the disorder decrease," he said.

The report looks at such crimes as thefts and assaults, but not "disorder," nuisances such as loitering, double parking, loud noises and graffiti that sparked anger among neighborhood activists. Whitmore said those complaints are often what causes the department to act.

Eagle Rock, which has about a dozen dispensaries, has long been one of the city's pot hot spots.

Michael Larsen, president of the neighborhood council, said he only knows of one dispensary-related crime — an armed robbery — but has heard countless complaints from irritated neighbors.

He said most of the dispensaries that initially closed last summer have reopened, defying the city.

"Our main concern is the crime of illegal dispensaries illegally selling marijuana," Larsen said. "That's the crime that we're concerned about."

john.hoeffel@latimes.com

Mexico's 'Twitter Terrorists' to be freed?

Freedom likely for Mexico's 'Twitter Terrorists'

September 21, 2011 | 11:00 am

Freedom appears likely for the two people jailed in Mexico's Veracruz state and accused of terrorism for Twitter messages they sent that allegedly sowed panic. The case has thrown a spotlight on Mexicans' increasing reliance on social media networks for information about violence in their hometowns _ and its potential for abuse.

Gilberto Martinez Vera (@gilius_22) and Maria de Jesus Bravo Pagola (@MARUCHIBRAVO) were arrested last month after using the micro-blogging site to spread rumors of an attack by drug gangs on a local primary school. They were charged with terrorism and sabotage, crimes that carry penalties of up to 30 years in jail. Human rights and social media advocates were outraged, saying the punishment hardly fit the offense.

The case snowballed into something of an embarrassment for Veracruz Gov. Javier Duarte. On Tuesday, he pushed through a new law that would allow prosecution of rumor-mongers on the lesser charge of disturbing the peace. Many analysts saw this as a face-saving attempt by state authorities to make the case go away.

On Wednesday, Duarte (speaking by, what else? Twitter) said the charges against Martinez, a math teacher, and Bravo, a radio commentator, would be dropped (link in Spanish). Their lawyer, Fidel Ordonez, said he expected the pair to be free by the end of the day.

Duarte may have found it especially urgent to dispose of the case given the mounting violence in Veracruz. The irony of jailing people for Twitter use while gunmen brazenly dump bodies in the middle of the city was captured in this cartoon, which shows the governor holding a tweeting bird in a cage while the streets fill with skulls and blood.

-- Tracy Wilkinson and Cecilia Sanchez in Mexico City.

46 percent favor legalizing marijuana in California

Source

51% in California still oppose legalizing marijuana, poll finds

September 22, 2011 | 7:43 am

Legalizing marijuana remains a tough sell in California, according to a new poll.

The Public Policy Institute of California, in a new statewide survey released Thursday, showed that 51% of voters oppose legalizing marijuana while 46% favor it.

Voters rejected marijuana legalization last year, but there has been talk of another ballot measure.

According to the PPIC, the finding was similar to a poll conducted last September.

In the most recent survey, the San Francisco area was the only part of California that favored legalization. Most respondents in Southern California opposed it.

Liberals and Democrats were more likely to be in favor of legalization than Republicans and conservatives, the poll found.

The PPIC surveyed 2,002 California adult residents on landlines and cell phones from Sept. 6–13.

New York cops illegally arrest marijuana users

If the cops had not illegally ordered these people to display their pot, they would not be breaking the law.

Lets face it the "drug war" is nothing more then a jobs program for cops and ALL DRUGS should be legalized

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Police Memo on Marijuana Warns Against Some Arrests

By ELIZABETH A. HARRIS

Published: September 23, 2011

Amid criticism about the way New York City police officers enforce marijuana laws, Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly issued a memo to commanders this week reiterating that officers are not to arrest people who have small amounts of marijuana in their possession unless it is in public view.

The New York Legislature decriminalized possession of small amounts of marijuana in the 1970s, making possession of 25 grams or less a violation of the law that in most cases would not bring a jail sentence. But possessing even small amounts of marijuana in public view remains a misdemeanor.

Just over 50,000 people were arrested on marijuana possession charges last year, a vast majority of them members of minorities and male. Critics say that as part of the Police Department’s stop-and-frisk policy, officers routinely tell suspects to empty their pockets and then, if marijuana is displayed, arrest them for having the drugs in public view, thereby pushing thousands of people toward criminality and into criminal justice system.

Critics said the commissioner’s memo, reported on Friday by WNYC, represented a major change of policy. “This will make a tremendous difference because tens of thousands of young people — predominately young people of color — will not be run through the system as criminals,” said Steven Banks, the attorney in chief at the Legal Aid Society, which has handled thousands of the cases.

Ethan Nadelmann, executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance, an advocacy group that has been challenging the Police Department’s marijuana-arrest policies, said the order was directing a significant change in the way the police deal with people they arrest for small amounts of marijuana.

Mr. Nadelmann said that there was evidence of “gross racial disparity” in the enforcement of the marijuana laws and that “this appears to represent a major step forward.”

Although the memo begins, “Questions have been raised about the processing of certain marihuana arrests,” a spokesman for the Police Department said that the order was not in response to any particular incident and that it did not represent any change in policy. It was intended merely to remind officers of existing procedures, he said.

The memo says, “A crime will not be charged to an individual who is requested or compelled to engage in the behavior that results in the public display of marihuana.” The act of displaying it, the order continues, must be “actively undertaken of the subject’s own volition.”

Under Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, the number of low-level marijuana arrests has increased significantly. Mr. Bloomberg’s office declined to comment on Mr. Kelly’s order, but in the past, mayoral aides have said such arrests helped fight more serious crime, like the violence that tends to trail drugs.

Harry G. Levine, a sociologist at Queens College who has researched the issue, said public defenders and legal aid lawyers who have defended thousands of these cases estimate that between two-thirds and three-fourths of people arrested on charges of possession of small amounts of marijuana displayed it at an officer’s request.

“The police stop them, search them and tell them to empty their pockets,” Professor Levine said. “They don’t know the law doesn’t allow that.”

According to Professor Levine, on average over the past 15 years, 54 percent of people arrested for marijuana possession in New York City were black, 33 percent were Latino and 12 percent were white. National studies tend to show that young whites use marijuana at higher rates than blacks and Latinos.

In a March appearance before the City Council, Mr. Kelly reiterated the Bloomberg administration’s position that arrests for having marijuana in public view have helped keep crime low.

In response to council members who were skeptical of the policy, he said, “If you think the law is not written correctly, then you should petition the State Legislature to change it.”

Hakeem Jeffries, a Democratic assemblyman from Brooklyn, and Mark Grisanti, a Republican senator from Buffalo, have since sponsored a bill that would downgrade open possession of small amounts of marijuana from a misdemeanor to a violation.

City Hall is opposed to changing the law.

In June, Frank Barry, a mayoral aide, said downgrading the offense would “encourage smoking in the streets and in our parks, reversing successful efforts to clean up neighborhoods and eliminate the open-air drug markets like we used to find in Washington Square Park.”

William Glaberson, Rob Harris and Kate Taylor contributed reporting.

A Habanero Flavored Doobie

Thank god this silly law was repealed.

While we are talking about this I wonder if habanero flavored medical marijuana is illegal in San Francisco. On the on other hand I don't even think I should ask if a habanero flavored doobie would be legal. Smoking chilli flavored marijuana sounds really yukkie!!!!!

Source

S.F. bars rejoice: Infused alcohol ban lifted

by Jason Dearen - Sept. 24, 2011 01:01 PM

Associated Press

SAN FRANCISCO - In this city famous for food and drink experimentation, so-called "craft" bartenders have fought for three years to overturn a Prohibition-era state law that banned bars from infusing flavors into alcohol.

Bartenders, worry no longer.

On Wednesday, California Gov. Jerry Brown signed a law repealing the ban on imbuing alcohol in bars and restaurants with fresh flavors.

The antiquated law was forgotten until 2008, when the state Department of Alcohol Beverage Control - after noticing an increasing number of Bay Area bars infusing booze with their own flavors - issued an advisory telling its licensees that "rectification" of distilled spirits was illegal.

While no bars or restaurants were cited under the law, owners in San Francisco said the fear of fines or revoked liquor licenses stifled creativity.

Study: Smoking Pot May Ease Chronic Pain

Study: Smoking Pot May Ease Chronic Pain

By Amanda Gardner

MONDAY, August 30 (Health.com) — People with chronic pain who aren’t getting enough relief from medications may be able to ease their pain by smoking small amounts of marijuana, a new study suggests.

Marijuana also helps pain patients fall asleep more easily and sleep more soundly, according to the report, one of the first real-world studies to look at the medicinal use of smoked marijuana. Most previous research has used extracts of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the active ingredient in the cannabis plant.

“This is the first time anyone has done a trial of smoked cannabis on an outpatient basis,” says the lead researcher, Mark Ware, MBBS, the director of clinical research at McGill University’s Alan Edwards Centre for Research on Pain, in Montreal.

The study included 21 adults with nervous-system (neuropathic) pain stemming from surgery, accidents, or other trauma. Fourteen of the participants were on short-term disability or permanently disabled. All of them had tried marijuana before, but none were current or habitual smokers.

“They were not experienced marijuana users,” Ware says. “They came because they had severe pain that was not responding to any conventional treatment.”

Each patient in the study smoked four different strengths of marijuana over a period of 56 days. The THC potency ranged from 9.4%—the strongest dose the researchers could obtain legally—to 0%, a “placebo” pot that looked and tasted like the real thing but was stripped of THC. (By comparison, the strongest marijuana available on the street has a THC potency of about 15%, Ware estimates.)

The participants—who weren’t told which strength they were getting—were instructed to smoke a thimbleful (25 milligrams) from a small pipe three times a day for five days. After a nine-day break, they switched to a different potency.

The highest dose of THC yielded the best results. It lessened pain and improved sleep more effectively than the placebo and the two medium-strength doses (which produced no measurable relief), and it also reduced anxiety and depression. The effects lasted for about 90 minutes to two hours, according to the study.

Though small, the study adds to a growing body of evidence suggesting that cannabis has painkilling properties that may be useful in medicine, perhaps in addition to other treatments. THC extracts have been shown to help ease cancer pain and the nausea associated with chemotherapy, while a few small studies in hospital populations have found that smoked marijuana can help relieve neuropathic pain.

But medical marijuana isn’t ready to become a mainstream chronic pain treatment, says Andrew McDavid, MD, director of the division of pain management at Scott & White Healthcare, in Temple, Texas.

“The studies out there show some decrease in pain, but it’s not alarmingly or shockingly great,” says Dr. McDavid, who was not involved in the new research. “Although it may have some use, it’s probably going to need to be used with something else, if it’s approved.”

As the study notes, the pain relief the patients experienced from marijuana was modest compared to that seen in studies of analgesic medications such as gabapentin (Neurontin) and pregabalin (Lyrica).

Christopher Gharibo, MD, an anesthesiologist at the New York University Hospital for Joint Diseases, in New York City, points out that the study didn’t address whether marijuana enabled the patients to perform everyday activities without pain—the best test of a chronic pain treatment.

“I’m not convinced [marijuana] helps from a functional standpoint,” he says. “I’m not even impressed by the pain reduction. We have analgesics that do much better.” [So are we going to make aspirin illegal because it doesn't cure pain as well as morphine? On the other hand heroin is already illegal and it cures pain much better then marijuana or aspirin]

The potential long-term side effects of habitual marijuana use could prove problematic as well, Dr. Gharibo adds. Over time some patients may experience weight gain, a generalized feeling of sedation, and even changes in mood and cognitive function, he says.

The study participants did report some minor side effects, including coughing, dizziness, headache, and dry eyes. Few reported feeling “high” or euphoric, however, which suggests that abuse or addiction is not a major concern with amounts as small as those used in the study.

“We had a total of three single episodes where patients felt a little bit high,” Ware says. “So it was extremely rare. The possibility that one would become addicted is low.”

Still, if marijuana were to become a more common pain treatment, it’s possible that some patients might overdo it, Dr. McDavid says. “We saw the problem with narcotics. You can’t ever predict which people, when prescribed, will abuse it or not. Obviously there needs to be more research.” [So are the drug war nannies going to ban any wonder drug that MIGHT be abused?]

The results were published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal.

The "drug war" is a jobs program for overpaid, under worked cops

I have said it many times before but the "drug war" is a war on the American people and on the Bill of Rights. The "drug war" has turned America into a police state that rivals Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union.

Source

Massive Phoenix drug sweep targets gangs, crack cocaine

by William Hermann - Sept. 27, 2011 12:40 PM

The Arizona Republic

More than 300 officers from more than 10 agencies have seized drugs, made at least 20 arrests and taken property in a massive police operation mostly in south Phoenix early Tuesday.

The extensive drug sweep, led by the Phoenix Police Department, includes state agencies as well as the Drug Enforcement Administration. The extensive drug sweep, led by the Phoenix Police Department, included state agencies as well as the Drug Enforcement Administration. Officers worked with the Arizona Attorney General's office, which will prosecute the case.

The operation focuses on Phoenix but includes other areas as well.

A Phoenix police spokesman said that during the last two years and as the investigation moved forward, authorities identified several criminal street gangs that appeared to be working together on the illegal drug trade.

The spokesman said that over the past several months investigators have monitored suspects, identified gang leaders and the primary subjects who are purchasing, manufacturing and distributing crack cocaine throughout the South Mountain Precinct.

On Tuesday morning, with 20 warrants in hand, officers hit the streets.

"There have been no shots fire, and this has been going very well," said Sgt. Jeff Rice from near 109th Avenue and McDowell Road in Avondale where authorities were investigating one of the locations targeted by the task force. Rice, who is from the Phoenix Police Department's South Mountain precinct, said he expected more arrests Tuesday.

Phoenix police will provide more details later in the day.

4 Americans get pot from US government

Source

4 Americans get pot from US government

Posted 9/28/2011 7:12 AM ET

By Nigel Duara, Associated Press

EUGENE, Ore. — Sometime after midnight on a moonlit rural Oregon highway, a state trooper checking a car he had just pulled over found less than an ounce of pot on one passenger: A chatty 72-year-old woman blind in one eye.

She insisted the weed was legal and was approved by the U.S. government.

The trooper and his supervisor were doubtful. But after a series of calls to the U.S. Attorney's Office, the Drug Enforcement Agency and her physician, the troopers handed her back the card -- and her pot.

For the past three decades, Uncle Sam has been providing a handful of patients with some of the highest grade marijuana around. The program grew out of a 1976 court settlement that created the country's first legal pot smoker.

Advocates for legalizing marijuana or treating it as a medicine say the program is a glaring contradiction in the nation's 40-year war on drugs -- maintaining the federal ban on pot while at the same time supplying it.

Government officials say there is no contradiction. The program is no longer accepting new patients, and public health authorities have concluded that there was no scientific value to it, Steven Gust of the U.S. National Institute on Drug Abuse told The Associated Press.

At one point, 14 people were getting government pot. Now, there are four left.

The government has only continued to supply the marijuana "for compassionate reasons," Gust said.

One of the recipients is Elvy Musikka, the chatty Oregon woman. A vocal marijuana advocate, Musikka relies on the pot to keep her glaucoma under control. She entered the program in 1988, and said that her experience with marijuana is proof that it works as a medicine.

They "won't acknowledge the fact that I do not have even one aspirin in this house," she said, leaning back on her couch, glass bong cradled in her hand. "I have no pain."

Marijuana is getting a look from states around the country considering calls to repeal decades-old marijuana prohibition laws. There are 16 states that have medical marijuana programs. In the three West Coast states, advocates are readying tax-and-sell or other legalization programs.

Marijuana was legal for much of U.S. history and was recognized as a medicine in 1850. Opposition to it began to gather and, by 1936, 48 states had passed laws regulating pot, fearing it could lead to addiction.

Anti-marijuana literature and films, like the infamous "Reefer Madness," helped fan those fears. Eventually, pot was classified among the most harmful of drugs, meaning it had no usefulness and a high potential for addiction.

In 1976, a federal judge ruled that the Food and Drug Administration must provide Robert Randall of Washington, D.C. with marijuana because of his glaucoma -- no other drug could effectively combat his condition. Randall became the nation's first legal pot smoker since the drug's prohibition.

Eventually, the government created its program as part of a compromise over Randall's care in 1978, long before a single state passed a medical marijuana law. What followed were a series of petitions from people like Musikka to join the program.

President George H.W. Bush's administration, getting tough on crime and drugs, stopped accepting new patients in 1992. Many of the patients who had qualified had AIDS, and they were dying.

The AP asked the agency that administers the program, the National Institute on Drug Abuse, for documents showing how much marijuana has been sent to patients since the first patient in 1976.

The agency supplied full data for 2005-2011, which showed that during that period the federal government distributed more than 100 pounds of high-grade marijuana to patients.

Agency officials said records related to the program before 2005 had been destroyed, but were able to provide scattered records for a couple of years in the early 2000s.

The four patients remaining in the program estimate they have received a total of 584 pounds from the federal government over the years. On the street, that would be worth more than $500,000.

All of the marijuana comes from the University of Mississippi, where it is grown, harvested and stored.

Dr. Mahmoud ElSohly, who directs the operation, said the marijuana was a small part of the crop the university has been growing since 1968 for all cannabis research in the U.S. Among the studies are the pharmaceutical uses for synthetic mimics of pot's psychoactive ingredient, THC.

ElSohly said the four patients are getting pot with about 3 percent THC. He said 3 percent is about the range patients have preferred in blind tests.

The marijuana is then sent from Mississippi to a tightly controlled North Carolina lab, where they are rolled into cigarettes. And every month, steel tins with white labels are sent to Florida and Iowa. Packed inside each is a half-pound of marijuana rolled into 300 perfectly-wrapped joints.

With Musikka living in Oregon, she is entitled to more legal pot than anyone in the nation because she's also enrolled in the state's medical marijuana program. Neither Iowa nor Florida has approved marijuana as a medicine, so the federal pot is the only legal access to the drug for the other three patients.

The three other people in the program range in ages and doses of marijuana provided to them, but all consider themselves an endangered species that, once extinct, can be brushed aside by a federal government that pretends they don't exist.

All four have become crusaders for the marijuana-legalization movement. They're rock stars at pro-marijuana conferences, sought-after speakers and recognizable celebrities in the movement.

Irv Rosenfeld, a financial adviser in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., has been in the program since November 1982. His condition produces painful bone tumors, but he said marijuana has replaced prescription painkillers.

Rosenfeld likes to tell this story: In the mid-1980s, the federal government asked his doctor for an update on how Rosenfeld was doing. It was an update the doctor didn't believe the government was truly interested in. He had earlier tried to get a copy of the previous update, and was told the government couldn't find it, Rosenfeld said.

So instead of filling out the form, the doctor responded with a simple sentence written in large, red letters: "It's working."

John W. Huffman invented fake marijuana

"You can't overdose on marijuana, but you might on these compounds, these things are dangerous, and marijuana isn't"

Source

Scientist's research produces a dangerous high

By David Zucchino, Los Angeles Times

September 28, 2011, 3:46 p.m.

Reporting from Sylva, N.C.— John W. Huffman is a bearded, elfin man, a professor of organic chemistry who runs model trains in his basement and tinkers with antique cars. At 79, he walks a bit unsteadily after a couple of nasty falls.

Relaxing on his back porch in the Nantahala National Forest, watching hummingbirds flit across his rose beds, Huffman looks every bit the wise, venerable academic in repose.

But this courtly scientist unwittingly contributed to the spread of "designer marijuana" so potent that the Drug Enforcement Administration has declared some of what he created illegal.

Huffman's years of scientific research at Clemson University on the interaction between drugs and brain receptors led to so-called fake marijuana with effects far more powerful — and dangerous — than garden-variety marijuana. "Spice," "K-2," "Skunk" and similar products made using the chemical compounds he formulated have surged in popularity in recent years.

That prompted the Drug Enforcement Administration in March to temporarily list "stealth marijuana" products containing three cannabinoid compounds invented by Huffman as Schedule 1 drugs illegal to sell or possess.

Some interviewers and critics have blamed Huffman for turning an entire generation onto "monster weed."

"It's become a royal pain in the rear end," Huffman said the other day, reflecting on the unwelcome attention his research has received. "I had a TV station in Moscow accuse me of trying to poison America's youth."

In that interview, live on Russian radio, he said, his responses seemed slow because of a satellite delay — so slow that the questioner accused him of smoking his own creations.

In a separate conversation, a BBC interviewer "basically asked me when I stopped beating my wife," he said. "They accused me of creating all these horrible drugs."

But Huffman laughs as he describes emails assuming he has created a super form of medical marijuana or has profited by designing lucrative marijuana substitutes. "We were not. It was all just basic science," he said. To counter misinformation, he and Clemson have devised a boilerplate statement describing his research and warning against consuming synthetic marijuana.

That hasn't stopped alert entrepreneurs from using Huffman's formulas, published in scientific journals. Their products, often sold as "herbal incense" and smoked like traditional marijuana, can produce seizures, hallucinations, tremors, paranoia, convulsions, high blood pressure and rapid heart rate, say emergency room doctors.

Poison control centers have received 4,500 calls over the last two years from people using fake marijuana, according to the American Assn. of Poison Control Centers.

There also has been "a significant jump" in the last couple of years in emergency room admissions, said DEA spokesman Lawrence Payne. "Unfortunately, there are many retailers out there who care nothing about the products they are selling and what they do to kids," he said.

No studies have been completed on fake marijuana's effects on human health or behavior, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse. But Huffman warns that the compounds can cause high blood pressure, elevated heart rate and "serious and unpredictable psychological effects."

Of the five cannabinoid compounds declared temporarily illegal by the DEA, the most widely used are three invented by Huffman and bearing his initials: JWH-018, JWH-073 and JWH-200.

"We didn't think anything of these compounds. We wrote papers about them and that was it — or so we thought," he said.

His research colleagues tease him, asking him what mad compounds he's cooked up lately, or suggesting he open a chain of head shops. A little old lady at his church told him, "Oh, it's so awful what they've done with your stuff!"

On a recent trip to Myrtle Beach, S.C., Huffman got a kick out of a sign in front of a head shop that read: "K-2 — Two For The Price of One."

And when he gave a talk recently to a group called the Carolina Cannabinoid Cooperative, Huffman titled it, "JWH-018 — A Good Compound Gone Bad."

From 1984 until early this year, Huffman and his team at Clemson created 460 synthetic cannabinoid compounds for tests on lab animals. Under a $2-million federal drug grant, they studied the interaction between drugs and brain receptors.

"These receptors don't exist so that people can smoke marijuana and get high," Huffman said. "They play a role in regulating appetite, nausea, mood, pain and inflammation."

Synthetic cannabinoids are structurally different from THC, the active ingredient in marijuana. But they have the same biological effects on the human body, which is why they are useful in research.

In tests on lab animals, some have shown promise in developing treatments for pain and inflammation and some skin cancers, Huffman said. But because of their powerful effects on brain receptors, it's extremely risky to ingest them.

"These things are dangerous — anybody who uses them is playing Russian roulette," Huffman said. "They have profound psychological effects. We never intended them for human consumption."

But after Huffman's team published its work, opportunists who saw a ready market in stoners seeking stronger highs grabbed the formulas. They mixed the pale, amber, gummy compounds with benign herbs to resemble marijuana.

Huffman said he first got calls in early 2009 about head shops selling products based on his formulas.

Although he was irritated that people were smoking his creations to get high, he was not entirely surprised.

The effects of JWH-018 can be 10 times stronger than those of THC, the active compound in marijuana. Some of his more complex compounds are even more potent, he said, and carry an even higher risk of hallucinations and psychosis.

"I always had a hunch that someday somebody would say: 'Hey, let's try smoking them.' And lo and behold, that's what happened," he said.

Huffman said other cannabinoids among the 460 are very difficult to make, even for scientists. But the three of his compounds outlawed by the DEA — especially JWH-018 — are easily produced.

"You can make them in two steps from commonly available starting materials, which is why people jumped on these ones," Huffman said.

Most of the chemicals are imported from overseas manufacturers — especially in China — but underground labs in the U.S. increasingly are producing and synthesizing them, said Payne, the DEA spokesman.

The agency is investigating several large-scale importers and distributors, said agency spokeswoman Barbara Carreno. In August, authorities in Louisiana seized 7,200 grams of synthetic marijuana intended for sale at $25 to $30 per packet, for an estimated street value of $80,000 to $130,000. The products had names like White Widow, Cajun Spice and Voodoo Remix.

But the DEA doesn't have the resources to study all 460 of Huffman's compounds, plus those created by others, Carreno said. That means any products containing cannabinoids other than the five listed by the DEA technically remain legal.

If the Department of Health and Human Services recommends outlawing the five listed cannabinoids, they would remain illegal for six months. The DEA would then begin public notices and other bureaucratic procedures to permanently outlaw them. Steps to make other cannabinoids illegal could follow.

Huffman supports banning them. But he also favors legalizing and taxing marijuana.

"You can't overdose on marijuana, but you might on these compounds," he said. "These things are dangerous, and marijuana isn't, really."

Huffman recently retired from Clemson, but keeps an office at the university. He mainly spends his days in the idyllic hamlet of Sylva, where his back porch offers spectacular mountain views. He still gets phone calls "from little papers in East Podunk, Ark.," he said, asking about the potent fake pot he supposedly invented.

Huffman's real scientific legacy is his research on brain and central nervous system receptors. If you want to talk about "really good stuff," he said, consider JWH-133, another compound his team created.

"It's the best stuff we've done in terms of scientific value," he said.

The compound has been shown, in mice, to shrink brain tumors and lead to regression of non-melanoma skin cancers, suggesting a potential use in chemotherapy.

Huffman has never considered smoking his compounds, but he did smoke marijuana — once. It was in the mid-1990s, at a research conference in Arizona.

Two researchers flew in from Amsterdam with "very high-quality Dutch hash" tucked into a matchbox, he said. They offered. He smoked — scientific curiosity prevailed.

The effects were similar to two-and-a-half martinis, he recalled. And the smoke burned his throat.

"I decided to stick to martinis," the professor said. "They're legal."

david.zucchino@latimes.com

Feds say no guns for medical marijuana users

Source

Medical-marijuana patients angered by firearms limits

By John S. Adams, USA TODAY

HELENA, Mont. – Robbie Regennitter, a registered medical-marijuana patient, was stunned to learn of a memo sent out by the ATF stating that it is illegal for him to possess firearms or ammunition.

Regennitter says he ingests approximately 10-20 milligrams of THC — the active compound in marijuana — each night before bed to ease the painful symptoms of gastroesophageal reflux disease and an esophagus condition.

Regennitter is also a hunter and gun owner. According to a new memo from the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, it is illegal for him or any registered medical-marijuana patient to own or possess firearms or ammunition.

The letter written last week by ATF Assistant Director Arthur Herbert to all federal firearms licensees gave them guidance on what to do if a firearms customer reveals that he or she is a medical-marijuana patient.

According to the letter, "any person who uses or is addicted to marijuana, regardless of whether his or her state has passed legislation authorizing marijuana use for medicinal purposes, is an unlawful user of or addicted to a controlled substance, and is prohibited by federal law from possessing firearms or ammunition."

Regennitter said he was stunned when he learned about the memo.

"At the moment it concerns me, but I'm not going to stop taking medical marijuana, and I'm not going to give up my firearms," Regennitter said. "I don't use (THC) recreationally. I use it because it helps me."

Jon Svaren, a 15-year Navy veteran who was honorably discharged in 2009, is a medical-marijuana patient who is recovering from a surgery last November to repair a severe injury to his back.

Svaren is also a gun owner who hunts and uses guns on the farm to control vermin.

"To take away my Second Amendment rights is contrary to everything I've ever fought for and contrary to every oath of enlistment I've taken," Svaren said.

Gun rights and medical-marijuana advocates both expressed outrage over the letter, which they say singles out a specific group of citizens and attempts to strip them of their Second Amendment rights.

"The cannabis issue has become representative of nationwide concerns," said Kate Cholewa, a board member of the Montana Cannabis Industry Association. "Citizens are increasingly concerned that the government, rather than expressing the will of the citizens, now sees itself as separate from the citizens and is imposing their will upon the people."

Sixteen states and the District of Columbia have passed laws legalizing marijuana for certain medical conditions, but the federal government classifies the drug as a schedule 1 controlled substance and thus illegal for any use.

According to ATF spokesman Drew Wade, the Herbert letter was intended to provide guidance to federally licensed firearms dealers in complying with federal firearms laws and was not intended to speak to consumers of medical marijuana.

"We received a number of questions from federal firearms licensees and gun dealers on (medical-marijuana patients), and we felt we needed to provide some clarity so they can be in compliance with the laws," Wade said.

Officials for the National Rifle Association did not return calls seeking comment, and Larry Pratt, executive director for Gun Owners of America, declined to comment.

"I can tell you why a lot of organizations won't talk about it: Marijuana is a lightning-rod subject," said Dave Workman, senior editor at Gun Week, a twice-monthly newspaper that covers legislative and regulatory issues related to guns.

"The media — and the gun prohibitionist lobby in particular — would say the gun lobby wants to arm drug addicts," he said.

Gary Marbut, president of the Montana Shooting Sports Association, did weigh in, saying his organization believes "it is more than unfortunate when a constitutional right, the right to bear arms, that people have reserved to themselves from government interference, is arbitrarily taken away by what many see as an overbearing and overintrusive federal government."

Contributing: Adams also reports for the Great Falls (Mont.) Tribune

xxx

Remember Obama promised us his DEA thugs would raid medical marijuana clinics? That was a lie!

http://www.azcentral.com/community/tempe/articles/2011/09/30/20110930Tempe-medical-marijuana-clinic-dea-raid-abrk.html

Tempe medical-marijuana clinic raided by DEA

by Jordee Kalk - Sept. 30, 2011 10:56 AM

The Arizona Republic- 12 News Breaking News Team

A medical-marijuana clinic owner and his girlfriend were arrested after the Drug Enforcement Administration raided the Tempe facility Thursday morning.

James Chaney and Rachael Beeder were booked into Maricopa County jail, according to DEA spokeswoman Ramona Sanchez.

Charges were pending. The two will most likely face charges of illegal distribution of marijuana, said Sanchez.

Chaney is the owner of Arizona Go Green Compassion Club, near Rural and Southern avenues.

The DEA was serving a search warrant for the location.

"Essentially what we discovered is that they were illegally distributing marijuana for a fee," Sanchez said. "Which of course is a federal violation."

The investigation is continuing, and further arrests were possible, Sanchez said.

xxx

Gilbert, Arizona cops are now robbing drug dealers to raise revenue!!!!

http://www.azcentral.com/community/gilbert/articles/2011/09/30/20110930gilbert-informants-beaten-robbed-pot-reverse-drug-sting.html

Gilbert informants beaten, robbed of pot in 'reverse sting'

by Jim Walsh - Sept. 30, 2011 09:47 AM

The Arizona Republic

Confidential informants working with Gilbert police officers were beaten and robbed of 350 pounds of marijuana during a "reverse drug sting" in south Phoenix earlier this month.

A car also was stolen in the Sept. 7 undercover operation, supervised by Gilbert police detectives, at Central Avenue and Baseline Road, said Sgt. Bill Balafas, a police spokesman.

The car was recovered within 24 hours, but the moldy, 6-year-old marijuana was not, he said. The marijuana was of poor quality after sitting in a police evidence room.

"In this case, the outcome was different than expected," Balafas said. "We don't like the fact that the marijuana got on the street." [But there real reason the cops are mad is because they failed to steal a few hundred thousand dollars from the drug dealers.]

Eight suspects eventually were arrested on drug and assault charges and will be prosecuted using gang and organized crime statutes, Balafas said.

A reverse drug sting is a controversial police tactic in which officers or confidential informants sell drugs to targeted suspects, rather than buying them.

Chandler police Detective Carlos Ledesma, 34, a Gilbert resident, was killed during a reverse drug sting operation on July 28, 2010, in south Phoenix, leading to changes in Chandler police investigative procedures.

Ledesma was shot with an assault rifle during an incident that left two other officers wounded. Two suspects also were wounded, and two others were shot to death.

Chandler police were trying to sell 23 bales of marijuana during the deadly operation.

Although Chandler police were reluctant to detail changes in investigative techniques, a review of numerous police reports revealed officers no longer go undercover to sell drugs during the stings. Instead, confidential informants are used for that function.

Balafas said no Gilbert police officers were injured in the armed robbery during the recent incident. He said policies are being changed to reduce potential safety risks in future operations, but he declined to elaborate.

"There was a physical altercation," Balafas said.

"There was a robbery. Our operators were robbed."

Gilbert police conduct reverse drug stings but "it's not the majority of their business," he said.

He said criminals don't pay attention to the boundary lines of cities and towns when committing drug and property crimes.

"We're often in cities other than Gilbert. These types of crimes often lead us out of town," Balafas said. "In this case, we're dealing with some ruthless characters. These are not teenaged drug dealers."

The names of the suspects were not released by police, who also would not say how many informants were injured.

Magic mushrooms may improve personality

'Magic mushroom' drug may improve personality long-term

Updated 09/29/2011 11:18 AM

In new research that will almost certainly create controversy, scientists working with the hallucinogen psilocybin -- the active ingredient found in "magic mushrooms" -- have found that a single dose of the drug prompted an enduring but positive personality change in almost 60 percent of patients.

Specifically, tests involving a small group of patients in a strictly controlled and monitored clinical setting revealed that, more often than not, one round of psilocybin exposure successfully boosted an individual's sense of "openness." What's more, the apparent shift in what is deemed to be a key aspect of personality did not dissipate after exposure, lasting at least a year and sometimes longer.

"Now this finding is really quite fascinating," said study author Roland R. Griffiths, a professor in the departments of psychiatry and neuroscience at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore. "And that is because personality is considered a stable characteristic of the psychology of people. It's been thought to be relatively immutable, and stable across the lifespan.

"But, remarkably, this study shows that psilocybin actually changes one domain of personality that is strongly related to traits such as imagination, feeling, abstract ideas and aesthetics, and is considered a core construct underlying creativity in general," he added. "And the changes we see appear to be long-term."

Griffiths said it's possible psilocybin could have therapeutic uses. For example, he is currently studying whether the hallucinogen might be useful in helping cancer patients cope with the depression and anxiety that often accompany the disease, and whether it might help smokers quit the habit.

Griffiths and his colleagues discuss their findings, funded in part by the U.S. National Institute on Drug Abuse, in the new issue of the Journal of Psychopharmacology.

Working with 51 psychologically healthy volunteers, the study authors conducted baseline personality tests before engaging the participants in a total of two to five experiment sessions, each lasting about eight hours.

The researchers said that almost all of the study participants deemed themselves to be "spiritually active." Roughly half had completed a post-graduate education.

Not all the sessions involved psilocybin. In fact, the hallucinogen was administered only once, at a dose described as "moderate to high," and the volunteers were never told which session actually entailed drug exposure.

A minimum break of three weeks was allotted between sessions.

During each session, participants were asked to lay down while wearing both eye masks and headphones (with music piped in) to screen out their external environment and focus on their interior experience. Neither the participants nor the session monitors knew which session involved psilocybin use.

The results: repeated personality and so-called "states of consciousness" testing revealed that some critical aspects of the participants' personalities remained unchanged. In the key domains of neuroticism, extroversion, agreeableness and conscientiousness, psilocybin appeared to register little to no impact.

The exception: "openness." Not only did openness increase significantly in response to high doses of the hallucinogen, it also remained at an elevated level throughout a 14-month follow-up period.

"Certainly we want to underscore do not try this at home," Griffiths cautioned. "Because clearly there are several kinds of potential downsides. One is that personality changes are personality changes. Now, we don't have any reason to think that the changes we see are toxic in any way. It appears to be a change that people value in a positive way. But certainly more research needs to be done.

"And the other note," he added, "is that we've conducted our research under conditions where we've screened out people who are potentially vulnerable to adverse effects. And we've given the drug in a hospital setting with two people at their side throughout, so there's virtually no opportunity for the patient to do something dangerous. But we know that, shockingly, all the time people who use mushrooms recreationally sometimes end up getting into accidents or engage in homicidal behavior or suicide.

"So we certainly don't want to imply that there's not risk associated with these compounds," stressed Griffiths. "And we wouldn't want to be a reason for an uptick for non-medical, uncontrolled use of this sort of thing."

Dr. Stephen Ross, clinical director of the NYU Langone Center of Excellence on Addiction in New York City, said he viewed Griffiths' work as a "landmark" in the field of hallucinogen research.

"I say this because we think of personality as being cemented in your 20s, certainly by your 30s," he said. "So the fact that openness was increased, seemingly permanently, after a single experience of psilocybin is quite remarkable.

"But, of course, as interesting as the implications for future therapies from this might be, the message should be that people should not try this at home or in any kind of uncontrolled environment," Ross added. "This is preliminary research that needs to be replicated. And replicated in a carefully controlled treatment environment."

Papa John's turns there pot smoking customers into the police

Source

Pizza delivery man turns in pot user

Oct. 4, 2011 06:36 PM

Associated Press

AURORA, Colo. -- A man who ordered a pizza after using medical marijuana got more than he bargained for when the delivery man called police.

The pizza delivery man says he called police because he was worried about the welfare of a 9-year-old child in the house.

Frederick Smith tells KUSA-TV he has a medical marijuana permit because of pain he suffered in a bicycle accident. Police investigated and left without filing any charges.

The delivery company, Papa John's of Colorado, says the delivery man was acting as a concerned citizen and it stands behind him. The delivery man was not identified.

L.A. County jail guards aid drug trading

Of course when two thirds of the people in prisons are sent there for victimless drug war crimes this is something you would expect!

Legalize drugs and this problem will go away overnight!

Source

L.A. County jail guards aid drug trading, sources say

By Robert Faturechi and Jack Leonard, Times Staff Writers

October 2, 2011

Los Angeles County jail inmates have used corrupt guards to penetrate tight security at lockups, helping fuel a lucrative drug trade behind bars, according to interviews and documents reviewed by The Times.

Three sheriff's guards have been convicted and a fourth fired in recent years for smuggling or attempting to smuggle narcotics into jail for inmates. Sheriff's investigators are probing allegations that at least three more deputies took drugs or other contraband into the jails.

The porous nature of the jails was highlighted last week when The Times revealed that FBI agents conducted an undercover sting in which a deputy was accused of taking $1,500 to smuggle a cellphone to an inmate working as a federal informant. Federal authorities are investigating reports of brutality and other misconduct by deputies in the nation's largest jail system.

The full scope of the smuggling problem is hard to quantify. The Sheriff's Department has seen a significant increase in drug seizures across county lockups over the last few years, but it's impossible to know how much of that involves guards.

In a sign of how serious officials consider the smuggling problem to be, the Sheriff's Department recently recorded a former deputy, now in state prison, as he explained what led him to help inmates sneak in heroin, meth and marijuana.

In the video, Peter Felix tearfully recounts from behind bars how his fall from grace started with taking a burrito to an inmate. The video is meant to serve as a cautionary tale, and sheriff's officials plan to show it to all of the department's more than 9,000 deputies.

Sheriff Lee Baca said employees caught up in smuggling schemes are usually facing financial hardship. The deputy at the center of the FBI sting had six children from two prior marriages, commitments that consumed about 70% of his salary, Baca said.

"There are people who will falter," he said.

James E. Blatt, an attorney who represented a sheriff's custody assistant caught trying to smuggle five grams of heroin and two syringes into jail, said his client was a 19-year-old who lacked the training necessary to deal with wily criminals.

Keon Khatibi, he said, started doing harmless favors for an inmate leader in his assigned jail dorm at the Pitchess Detention Center in Castaic. The inmate eventually persuaded Khatibi to deliver drugs in exchange for about $1,000, Blatt said.

"They suck them in, and they're very smart about who is young and vulnerable," Blatt said. "This is their world and their system, and they know how to manipulate."

Khatibi was sentenced last year to 180 days in jail.

Sheriff's Lt. Greg Thompson said training in how to deal with inmates must strike a balance: Deputies can't be so constantly paranoid that inmates are trying to manipulate them that they shut off the communication needed to get crucial jailhouse intelligence.

"There's a fine line there," said Thompson who works in the custody investigative services unit.

The problem is not confined to guards.

Two nursing assistants smuggled food and clothes to an inmate, according to county disciplinary reports. A federal judge on Tuesday sentenced Angelica Mora, a former employee for a private food vendor in the jails, to 21/2 years in prison for attempting to smuggle heroin into the North County Correctional Facility.

Among the cases still under investigation is that of Deputy Jose Giron, who is accused by inmates of smuggling heroin to a childhood friend behind bars.

According to a district attorney's memo, Giron's friend provided sheriff's investigators with the following account of what happened: He and Giron had met in middle school but had parted ways. More than a decade later, Giron recognized the inmate inside the Pitchess Detention Center.

The inmate eventually asked if Giron would be willing to smuggle a particular pair of Air Jordans into the lockup for him and offered the deputy $1,200.

Giron was initially reluctant but eventually agreed. The inmate gave the deputy his sister's telephone number, and Giron told him a buddy would call to arrange the transfer.

Phone records obtained by investigators showed that the deputy's brother-in-law called the inmate's sister, according to the district attorney's memo. The sister told sheriff's officials she gave heroin, cash and the shoes to a man who described himself as the brother of the deputy.

Days later, according to the June memo from the district attorney's office, Giron delivered three balloons of heroin — worth $30,000 in jail — concealed in a new set of jail clothing.

Giron's brother-in-law denied receiving drugs from the inmate's sister but also "stated he was not a 'snitch,' " the district attorney's memo says. The deputy adamantly denied providing the inmate with narcotics and told investigators he did not know why a childhood friend would accuse him of a crime.

Two more inmates reported seeing Giron provide the drugs. But the district attorney's memo, written by Deputy Dist. Atty. Paul Nunez, expressed concern about their credibility.

One of the inmates, Nunez wrote, was a convicted murderer who had provided "a large amount of useful information to detectives on a number of deputies" but had "failed to inform investigators of other deputies who were actively bringing in narcotics for him."

In declining to file charge against Giron, Nunez wrote that investigators never recovered physical evidence — drugs, shoes or cash — and described the deputy's accusers as criminals whom jurors would conclude were not credible.

Giron's attorney, Richard A. Shinee, described the deputy as well-respected and accused the inmates of making false accusations. "It's all smoke and mirrors created by a couple of con artists who were in jail and trying to buy off more time," he said.

Authorities have successfully used Giron's childhood friend to identify a corrupt deputy in the past and said he is involved in ongoing investigations. Law enforcement officials asked The Times not to name him because of concerns for his safety.

Giron has been placed on leave by the Sheriff's Department. A department source said Giron's case would be referred to the U.S. attorney's office next week for possible federal prosecution.

robert.faturechi@latimes.com

jack.leonard@latimes.com

Marijuana study of traumatized veterans stuck in regulatory limbo

Marijuana study of traumatized veterans stuck in regulatory limbo

By Brian Vastag, Published: October 1

Getting pot on the street is easy. Just ask the 17 million Americans who smoked the federally illegal drug in 2010.

Obtaining weed from the government? That’s a lot harder.

In April, the Food and Drug Administration approved a first-of-its kind study to test whether marijuana can ease the nightmares, insomnia, anxiety and flashbacks common in combat veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder.

But now another branch of the federal government has stymied the study. The Health and Human Services Department is refusing to sell government-grown marijuana to the nonprofit group proposing the research, the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies.

The agency did leave the door open to eventually providing 13 pounds of the weed, which is grown at the University of Mississippi. But the HHS committee that rejected the request provided such conflicting criticisms that the person directing the study, MAPS Director Rick Doblin, is unsure how to address their concerns.

“Their goal at higher levels, I think, is to block the study,” said Doblin, who for 25 years has been jumping through regulatory hoops to launch human studies of marijuana, LSD and MDMA, known as ecstasy, which are all illegal.

The HHS official in charge of the review, Sarah A. Wattenberg, declined to answer questions when reached by phone. Tara Broido, a spokeswoman for the agency, wrote in an e-mail that “the production and distribution of marijuana for clinical research is carefully restricted under a number of federal laws and international commitments.”

The study proposes testing five doses of marijuana in 50 combat veterans with PTSD whose symptoms have not improved despite conventional treatments — typically talk therapy, antidepressants and anti-anxiety medicines.

Many veterans already use marijuana to calm their PTSD, said Mary Tendall, a licensed therapist in Nevada City, Calif., who has treated “hundreds” of traumatized Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq veterans.

“It does mellow out the triggered response in a certain population,” said Tendall, referring to hair-trigger anxiety reactions. “But with some, it made them very, very paranoid — it had the opposite effect.”

For Paul Culkin, a 32-year-old Army veteran living in Albuquerque, small daily doses of pot offer a release from sleepless nights and high anxiety.

In November 2004, Culkin suffered neck injuries when a car bomb exploded 30 feet from him in southern Kosovo.

When Culkin returned home, he had “really bad nightmares and insomnia, lots of cold sweats,” he said. He rarely left the house.

Culkin began taking anti-depressants, and he eventually received a medical separation from the Army. He now receives Veterans Affairs disability payments.

New Mexico is one of two states, along with Delaware, that explicitly allows the use of marijuana to treat PTSD. Culkin got state approval in 2008 to use it. “It really gets rid of your nightmares if you smoke before you go to bed,” he said. “You feel like you got some rest finally.”

Doblin thinks marijuana can help many more veterans. A 2004 study in the New England Journal of Medicine estimated that 18 percent of returning Iraq combat veterans had PTSD. And a 2008 report from the Rand Corp., a government contractor, estimated that up to 225,000 veterans will return from the Middle East clinically traumatized.

Medical marijuana is legal in 16 states and the District of Columbia. But obtaining it from the federal government for research requires surmounting an extra regulatory hurdle that is not required for any other drug.

That’s because one government agency, the National Institute on Drug Abuse, controls the nation’s supply of research marijuana. Any non-government researcher wanting access to it needs to satisfy the special HHS committee.

On Sept. 14, Wattenberg, the official in charge of the committee, wrote to Doblin detailing “a number of concerns related to the proposal’s approach, feasibility, and documentation of human subjects’ protection.”

But written comments from the five committee members paint a jumbled picture of sometimes contradictory concerns.

One member wrote that the study should exclude veterans who have previously smoked marijuana. And another committee member asked for the opposite, that the study should only include people who have smoked the drug, as those naive to it might suffer anxiety or panic attacks.

A third reviewer wrote that study participants should be monitored closely — presumably in a hospital — rather than letting them smoke the marijuana at home.

“Turning this into an in-patient study ends the study,” Doblin said. “Nobody will live in-patient for three months, and that increases the study costs astronomically.”

Other comments expressed skepticism that the marijuana in the study — given in weekly batches — could be kept from getting “diverted,” meaning given or sold to non-participants.

In a phone interview, Doblin pointed out that the study’s design satisfied FDA drug-diversion officials.

Participants will be required to videotape their every interaction with the weed, and will have to return any they do not smoke. In addition, a second person will have to witness the smoking and check in with the researchers weekly.

Doblin plans to modify the study and resubmit it to the committee, which will have to unanimously agree before the marijuana sale can move forward, Broido said. But even if HHS approves, another bureaucracy looms — that of the Drug Enforcement Administration. The nation’s drug cops also have to approve the research.

“It’s a long road,” Doblin said. “But it’s worth it. We’re the mythical American trying to play by the rules.”

What to do with those 9,400 marijuana plants

Source

More productive uses of your tax dollars Tools

Posted: Oct. 2, 2011 | 2:03 a.m.

I see where "authorities" (no one even tries anymore to list all the outfits currently operating under the rubric of either the "multi-agency narcotics team" or the "High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas Program") began removing another 9,400 marijuana plants from the mountains west of Las Vegas on Tuesday morning.

News accounts called it "a big haul for local law enforcement." The metaphor is meant to remind us of commercial fishermen, who are pleased with their "big haul" if they winch in their nets and find them loaded with edible fish.

The fishermen then sail for home and sell their catch to willing buyers, using their profits to buy stuff, with the net effect (sorry) of adding through their labors to the wealth of the nation.

Will all these police agencies now auction off their "haul" to the highest bidder, using the proceeds to reduce the amount they need to seize next year from local taxpayers?

Of course not. Barring corrupt diversion, which would be preferable, they'll destroy this cash crop. Possessing pot is illegal, they will answer sarcastically.

Actually, not. Nevada citizens voted overwhelmingly, five years back, to legalize possession and use of marijuana for anyone with a "doctor's recommendation." This "haul" could be auctioned or sold to anyone with such a doctor's slip. Should police wish to limit the opportunities for re-sale (a goal which is itself anti-entrepreneurial and therefore un-American), they could limit sales to one kilo per person. Such sales would be less likely to get the sellers arrested, since they're, you know, the police.

But if even the police are afraid of being arrested by the fednarcs (there really should be special lunatic asylums for these Fearless Drug Warriors, don't you think?) for selling this stuff to people with proper prescriptions, given that the federals keep meddling in this intra-state commerce with absolutely zero constitutional authority, they would still have the option of announcing where medical marijuana patients can come pick some up for free, for as long as supplies last.

That wouldn't be "commerce," even under the consummately wacky 1942 Willard v. Filburn ruling (Farmer Filburn couldn't grow wheat to feed to his own stock because, by freeing himself from having to buy the stuff on the open market, he might "impact" interstate commerce.) You can't "impact" interstate commerce, see, if there's no licit interstate marijuana commerce in the first place.

Oh, wait. Spokescritters for the Multi-Agency High Intensity Narcotic Drug Trafficking Areas Regional Command and Synchronized Humvee Insertion Demonstration Team say this marijuana grow was illegal because it was conducted on federal land -- the Spring Mountains National Recreational Area.

First off, could we see the bill of sale giving evidence that the federal government ever "purchased" said lands "by the Consent of the Legislature of the State in which the Same shall be," as required by the Constitution?

And second, if it's the use of the "common lands" that made this crop illegal, that would clearly imply the growers would have been perfectly OK if they'd simply planted their garden on their own, private property, because it can't reasonably be held it was the intent of the voters to legalize medical marijuana possession and use but then create no way for patients to actually get the stuff -- right?

If someone from the MAHINDTARC &SHIDT will send me a letter to that effect -- merely saying it would have been OK for the growers to plant their own, private land -- signed by Clark County Sheriff Doug Gillespie and District Attorney David Roger, I'd be glad to post it here, just to get this whole mess straightened out. Because I'd hate to leave anyone confused.

-- -- --

A number of readers have suggested that the new Nevada state flower should be the orange highway cones. Why are there so many construction zones marked off with visible work taking place in so few of them? Yes, I see your hands waving in the air. It's all that "stimulus" money from Washington.

State and local authorities can't resist spending Someone Else's Money, so they rush to apply for federal funds for anything from repaving stretches of pavement just laid down a few years back, to that huge HOV Flyover Lane to Nowhere currently going up at the Rainbow Curve.

That's a "green project," you see. In this case, drivers on westbound U.S. Highway 95 approaching Summerlin Parkway will suddenly realize if they had a second person in the car, they'd be able to travel several hundred yards on this new HOV flyover, at which point they'd have to gear down and churn out extra smog as traffic sits, swaying back and forth on this scary new bridge, waiting to merge into precisely the same number of non-HOV lanes that have always existed on the westbound Summerlin. Net "energy savings"? Negligible. But it's Someone Else's Money, see? It's not like everyone subject to the federal income tax will eventually have to pay China back!

Meantime, who cares how many more local businesses, hanging on by their fingernails, call it quits because their access street has been blocked off for months with orange cones? Let's get our priorities straight, here.

All this federal orange cone money is about creating new jobs, right? The same small number of construction firms that have always won these contracts, instead of finding themselves with two or three such jobs to do, now find themselves with eight or 10. So they race right out and hire about a hundred new workers, putting those laid-off cocktail waitresses and computer programmers and Cirque de Soleil acrobats back to work grading asphalt and putting up concrete flyover towers. Right?

Wrong. That would be beyond dumb. It would be life-threatening. Of course you use the same core crew of 30 or 40 reliable, experienced workers you've always used, sending one guy around to move the cones every couple of days on the other sites till you get around to them. After all, once the state Labor Commissioner figured out you'd just laid off 100 new quasi-temporary workers because this latest batch of federal "stimulus" money ran out, your unemployment premiums would skyrocket, wouldn't they?

Total new jobs created?

What do you think?

California criminalizes fake pot

Brown signs bills on male circumcision and synthetic pot

By Anthony York

October 2, 2011, 11:17 p.m.

Reporting from Sacramento -- Local governments will be unable to ban male circumcision under a new state law signed by Gov. Jerry Brown.

The bill, by Assemblyman Mike Gatto (D-Silver Lake), was drafted in response to a proposed San Francisco ballot measure that would have prohibited any foreskin cutting that was not deemed medically necessary in that city. That proposed ordinance was struck from the ballot by a Superior Court judge in June, amid protests from doctors and religious groups. A similar measure was proposed in Santa Monica but was later pulled back by proponents.

Gatto said his measure, signed Sunday, would "protect parental rights and liberties."

The bill was one of 44 measures approved by Brown, who has hundreds more on his desk that must be approved or vetoed by Oct. 9. Brown also vetoed four bills Sunday.

Among the laws Brown signed was one that creates new penalties for the sale of synthetic cannabis products, which have been sold in convenience stores, tobacco shops and other outlets around the state. By some accounts, the products have effects similar to marijuana.

The penalties for selling synthetic cannabis now outweigh those for selling small quantities of marijuana. Under the law signed by Brown, anyone selling the synthetic product may be fined $1,000 and face up to six months in jail. Sales of less than 28 ounces of marijuana carry no jail time and a maximum fine of $100.

Organized labor scored a victory Sunday with Brown's signature on a measure to prohibit local officials from imposing bans on union labor agreements for publicly funded construction projects. The measure by Senate leader Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento), emerged on the final days of the legislative session and passed through both legislative houses without a single Republican in support.

Opponents of the measure said it would mandate that cities and counties agree to labor contracts on all local building projects, but Brown dismissed those concerns in a signing message Sunday.

"Contrary to what the opponents claim, this bill does not require any local government to adopt" a labor agreement, Brown wrote. "In fact, this bill preserves the right of all sides to debate what obviously is a hotly contested issue. Seems fair to me — even democratic."

Many significant pieces of legislation are still awaiting Brown's signature or veto before next Sunday. Among them are a measure that would create up to 100,000 dues-paying union members from the ranks of home child-care workers and another measure that would prohibit ballot initiatives from appearing on primary ballots.

anthony.york@latimes.com

Evanston mayor wants to ticket pot smokers

Source

Evanston mayor wants people ticketed instead of jailed for small amounts of pot

By Jonathan Bullington TribLocal reporter Friday at 4:39 p.m.

Evanston Mayor Elizabeth Tisdahl thinks anyone caught with 10 grams or less of pot does not intend to sell it, and so should only be ticketed and fined — not jailed.

She recently asked the city’s legal department to draft an ordinance that loosens the penalty for anyone possessing small amounts of marijuana. Tisdahl said she wants to keep a young person’s criminal record from hindering employment.

A city committee will study the proposed ordinance once staff drafts it, Tisdahl said.

“I do not want young people in Evanston who do not have access to high-powered attorneys to have arrest records for possessing less than 10 grams,” Tisdahl said in an email. “I want them to have jobs. A ticket and a fine will suffice.”

Evanston’s ordinances now say that anyone found in possession of 10 grams or less of marijuana could be fined between $50 and $500. State law dictates that possession of between 2.5 and 10 grams of marijuana is a class B misdemeanor, punishable by up to six months in jail and or up to a $1,500 fine. It’s up to police which penalty to pursue.

“The state charge is typically always given for that type of offense,” said police spokesman Cmdr. James Elliot. However, when dealing with a juvenile, Elliot said police tend to issue an ordinance violation — particularly if the juvenile is a first-time offender.

Tisdahl’s proposed ordinance could remove that discretion and keep all those busted with small amounts of pot – regardless of age – out of the court system, putting them into the city’s administrative adjudication process.

The law change would place Evanston among a growing number of communities that are re-thinking the way they prosecute marijuana possession.

Skokie officials recently introduced an ordinance change that would give police the ability to issue a village ordinance violation for teens 17 and under who are found with 2.5 grams or less of pot.

“Anything we can do to keep juveniles out of the criminal justice system is good,” said Village Trustee Donald P. Perille at a recent village board meeting. “Hopefully we can catch them before they go too far down that road.”

Fourteen states and countless municipalities across the country have moved to “de-penalize” marijuana possession, said Allen St. Pierre, executive director of The National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws.

And while Oregon became the first state to seek pot decriminalization back in 1973, St. Pierre said current recessionary times are forcing governments to look at the costs associated with marijuana prosecution.

In Ohio, which made possession of less than 100 grams of pot a minor misdemeanor punishable with a fine of $150, St. Pierre speculated that authorities spend about 10 to 15 minutes interacting with a marijuana offender. In Indiana, with its stricter laws, the time a marijuana offender spends in the legal system could cost taxpayers thousands of dollars, St. Pierre said.

“That’s thousands of dollars flying out of the tax coffers, and for what?” St. Pierre questioned.

Keeping minor pot offenses off a person’s record has a particular benefit for college students, St. Pierre said, and has caused many college towns to consider decriminalization. Amendments made in 1998 to the Higher Education Act mean that a college student caught possessing any amount of marijuana faces the loss of federal student loans. And without loans, he said, few people are able to attend a college or university.

Though the ability to have one’s criminal record expunged does exist, St. Pierre said that option is usually reserved for those with money or influence. With the prevalence of electronic records, St. Pierre argued that having a criminal record expunged is something of a misnomer.

“Once someone is arrested for pot, there’s a chance that electronic data will follow them forever,” he said.

The "drug war" is not winnable

Source

MEXICO: Officers allegedly run airport cocaine ring, report says

October 3, 2011 | 8:07 pm

REPORTING FROM MEXICO CITY -- Federal police officers are alleged to run a cocaine-trafficking ring through Mexico City's international airport involving Aeromexico flight attendants and private security personnel, a newspaper report said Monday.

The operation has come to be informally known as the "galley cartel," in reference to passenger jet kitchens.

The allegation suggests there is active smuggling at the airport with the help of corrupt security officials and airline employees. In August, an Aeromexico copilot was arrested in Madrid on suspicion of attempting to smuggle 92 pounds of cocaine in his luggage.

According to the news report, two former screeners working for a private security company at the airport told investigators that federal police officers paid them $1,000 each time they permitted luggage with cocaine or cash to pass through inspection at Terminal 2 of Benito Juarez International Airport. The allegation was reported by the daily Reforma, citing a federal investigation not yet made public (link in Spanish).

The two suspects were questioned in connection with a December incident in which three Aeromexico flight attendants were arrested at Madrid's Barajas airport after arriving with about 300 pounds of cocaine in their luggage. The screeners, Jaime Cesar Valencia and Josafat Jonathan Guzman, said they let drugs flow through Terminal 2 in the service of "high-level officials, diplomats and celebrities," Reforma reported, without elaborating.

Investigators have reportedly been referring to the cocaine smuggling operation at Terminal 2 as the "galley cartel" or the White Angels. Late Monday, no response to the report emerged from the federal police, the federal prosecutor's office, Aeromexico or the airport (links in Spanish).

Reforma reported that no arrests have been made in connection to the allegations. Prosecutors produced a composite sketch of a federal police officer who may have paid for cocaine smuggling at the airport, but have no identification, the newspaper said.

-- Daniel Hernandez

Drug war arrests increase at ASU

One statistic I have is that two thirds of the people in American prisons are there for victimless drug war crimes.

Source

ASU Police report increase in Tempe liquor, drug arrests

By Shawn Raymundo October 3, 2011 at 9:23 pm

RUN THE NUMBERS: The ASU Police released their 2011 Campus Security Policy and Crime Statistics report. According to the report, the Tempe campus saw a rise in drug and liquor arrests.

Drug and liquor arrests rose on the Tempe campus in 2010, according to the ASU Police Department’s Campus Security Policy and Crime Statistics report, released last week.

From 2009 to 2010, the Tempe campus experienced decreases in aggravated assault, burglary, motor vehicle theft and robbery, according to the report, which covers the academic school years 2008, 2009 and 2010.

However, from 2009 to 2010, the Tempe campus saw major increases in sex offenses, larceny theft, arson, liquor law and drug law arrests.

ASU Cmdr. Jim Hardina said the department must focus on alcohol enforcement to reverse this trend.

“The biggest crime on campus that affects safety … is alcohol related offenses, and the reason is all violent crime on campus, both here at ASU and every other school in the country, is alcohol related,” Hardina said. “Fighting, sexual assaults and all those things are alcohol related.”

The Tempe campus saw its biggest crime spike in the number of campus drug law arrests with a 32.1 percent increase of 162 arrests in 2009 to 214 in 2010, according to the report. Liquor law arrests increased by 20.5 percent with 459 arrests in 2009 to 553 arrests in 2010.

However, ASU police on the Downtown, West and Polytechnic campuses saw decreases in their liquor law and drug law arrests.

The Polytechnic campus experienced decrease in liquor law arrests from 40 arrests in 2009 to 19 in 2010 and drug law arrests decreased from 8 arrests in 2009 to 4 in 2010, according to the report.

The West campus saw a gradual decrease in liquor law arrests with 17 in 2008, seven in 2009 and three in 2010.

According to the press release, the violent crime rate at ASU was .38 per thousand students and the property crime rate was 17.78 per thousand students. But because the report’s data for student enrollment is from 2009, the data for 2010 is statistically inaccurate based on student population.

Under the Clery Act by the U.S. Congress, every college institution in the nation is required to submit a Jeanne Clery Disclosure report, which is based on all crimes on campus, including residential halls and off-campus and public property owned by the school.

“The act is intended to provide students and their families, as higher education consumers, with accurate, complete and timely information about safety on campus,” said ASU spokeswoman Julie Newberg in the release.

Hardina said in addition to submitting the Jeanne Clery Disclosure report, ASU voluntarily submits a similar report to the FBI.

“The benefit to the FBI is the forms, statistics and stats for crime trends that can be used to focus on research and crime prevention and trends on enforcement,” Hardina said.

Reach the reporter at sraymund@asu.edu

IRS thugs shake down medical marijuana stores

If you want to end the war on drugs DON'T vote for Obama in 2012, instead vote Libertarian. The Libertarian party is the only party whose platform demands that ALL drugs be legalized.

Obama lied to us when he said he would end Bush's war on medical marijuana in the 2008 election. If Obama lied in 2008, you can certainly expect him to lie in 2012.

Don't waste your vote an a Republican or Democrat tyrant in the 2012 election, vote for someone who really wants to legalize drugs. Vote Libertarian!

Source

IRS hits Oakland pot shop with $2.4M tax bill

By LISA LEFF - Associated Press

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — The federal government has found a new weapon in its war on marijuana — the tax man.

A San Francisco Bay area medical marijuana dispensary that promotes itself as the world's largest has been hit with a $2.4 million tax bill following an audit by the Internal Revenue Service, the dispensary founder said Tuesday.

The back taxes, penalties and interest levied against Harborside Health Center came after the IRS examined its returns for 2007 and 2008 and determined a 1982 tax code prohibiting cost deductions for businesses that traffic in illegal drugs applies to the dispensary.

Harborside is a spa-like fixture on Oakland's waterfront with 94,114 registered customers and 84 full-time employees that offers an average of 30 varieties of medical marijuana every day and has $22 million in annual sales.

"What kind of drug trafficking organization actually files a tax return? None of them do," said Harborside CEO Steve DeAngelo, who gave his auditor a personal tour of his posh apothecary. "The very fact that we filed a tax return and told the IRS all the details of what we are doing proves we are not a drug trafficking organization."

The IRS said the agency does not comment on individual audits.

DeAngelo, the subject of an upcoming Discovery Channel reality show, said the write-offs disallowed by the IRS included standard operating costs such as rent, payroll, employee health insurance and licensing fees.

Government auditors did not dispute, however, that Harborside had properly deducted its biggest expense — the millions of dollars it spent buying pot to sell to people who use it under California's medical marijuana law.

San Francisco tax attorney Henry Wykowski, who represents DeAngelo, said a 2007 case involving another California dispensary established that the cost of goods sold was a legitimate expense for businesses the IRS otherwise considers illegitimate.

"It goes all the way back to Prohibition," Wykowski explained. "They expect even businesses operating illegally to file tax returns, so they still have to give them their business deductions, and a cost of goods sold is the primary deduction that any business would have."

DeAngelo has until Dec. 22 to contest the audit in tax court. The IRS has told him it is now reviewing Harborside's returns for 2009 and 2010.

Meanwhile, a handful of state officials have written House Speaker John Boehner, a Republican, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Democrat, on behalf of DeAngelo, asking the two lawmakers to exempt "legally operating cannabis businesses" from the tax code section for drug traffickers.

DeAngelo said he does not have the $2.4 million the IRS wants. Like all legal medical marijuana dispensaries in California, Harborside operates as a nonprofit corporation while paying state sales taxes and a 5 percent local tax to Oakland — for a total of $3.1 million this year, he said.

"We would be happy to pay taxes like every other business does," he said. "No business, including Harborside, could survive if it's taxed on its gross revenue. All we want is to be treated like every other business in America."

Wykowski said he represents at least two dozen other California and Colorado pot dispensaries dealing with IRS audits. Some have persuaded auditors to accept deductions for auxiliary services such as on-site yoga classes, the time employees spend counseling customers as opposed to preparing marijuana, and quality testing. Others such as Harborside have been less successful.

"What the taxing authorities are losing sight of is if you tax these places out of business and make it so they can't compete, all it is going to do is boost underground sales," he said. "The guys on the street aren't paying their employees and if they are, they certainly aren't withholding taxes."

xxx

No wonder the government schools graduate so many kids that can't read, write or do math. The teachers are spending more time trying arrest the kids, they they are spending time teaching them.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-school-sting-20111006,0,3313721,full.story

Dean's amateur sting at Valley school backfires

By Jason Song, Los Angeles Times

October 6, 2011

Laura Custodio, dean of Porter Middle School in the San Fernando Valley, sprang into action after hearing that an eighth-grader was selling pot to other students.

Without consulting police or parents, she asked a 12-year-old boy with a history of discipline problems to act as a decoy buyer and gave him a marked $5 bill.

"I was pretty scared," the decoy, a seventh-grader, later testified in court. "She told me it was the right thing to do and I had to do it … and I didn't want to disappoint her."

The sting roiled a suburban campus better known for its academic achievement and led to a more than $1-million jury award to the seventh-grader and his family in a lawsuit against the Los Angeles Unified School District.

The school's principal and vice principal were transferred from the campus after the district found out about the incident and both soon retired. Custodio continues to work for the district as a teacher at the Sherman Oaks Center for Enriched Studies.

Details of events on the afternoon of the alleged drug deal two years ago were pieced together from interviews, depositions and testimony in the civil case filed against the district, which ended in the summer.

Neither the students nor their parents were identified in court documents or during testimony. None of the administrators would comment.

The incident began when the seventh-grader told school officials that a student one year ahead of him had tried to sell him drugs. He was scared to go to officials because the boy was bigger and had flashed gang signs. The seventh-grader told the older boy that he would bring money to school the next day.

He decided to tell school officials and wrote a statement about the incident, saying that the eighth-grader had showed him marijuana.

The seventh-grader had arrived at Porter Middle School the year before. He had attended San Fernando Middle School but got into trouble there and was occasionally mistaken for a gang member.

For his safety, he was moved to Porter, a middle school in affluent Granada Hills that had so few problems that it didn't have a full-time school police officer.

The boy had discipline issues and was sent to Custodio's office several times for, among other things, throwing water on another student and mocking an adult on campus.

Gradually, his behavior began to improve, along with his grades. Custodio encouraged him, sometimes flashing him a thumbs-up sign when she passed him on campus.

The boy's parents noticed a change in their son's behavior. "Man, he's doing good right now," his father said in a deposition. "This is working."

When he saw school administrators, he would shake their hands and thank them for working with his son, who said he liked Custodio because she treated him fairly.

When Custodio saw the boy's statement about the drug dealing, she asked the boy to help. He seemed excited about the prospect, Custodio said. She then discussed the scheme with Assistant Principal Armando Mejia and Principal Joyce Edelson.

Custodio and Mejia said Edelson told them to "go for it." The principal later said she couldn't remember exactly what words she used and that she had believed the administrators had exhausted all other ways of stopping the alleged dealing.

Following Custodio's plan, the decoy went to the boys' bathroom with a campus aide, who hid in a stall. Custodio, meanwhile, told the suspected drug dealer to go to the restroom to look for another student.

Inside, the decoy asked the suspected dealer if he could buy some pot, according to testimony. Meet me after school, the eighth-grader told him.

Custodio wasn't satisfied and asked the aide to pull the decoy out of class again and try one more time for a deal. That effort fell apart when the suspect saw the aide.

Custodio gave up, but the seventh-grader decided to meet the suspected dealer after school anyway and succeeded in buying two small buds of marijuana.

He gave the drugs to Custodio, who tried to speak with the suspected dealer. When the suspect saw Custodio coming, he threw something — possibly drugs — into a truck.

Administrators alerted school district police that afternoon. When investigators learned that a student had been used as a decoy, they turned the case over to the Los Angeles Police Department.

On the way home from school that day, the seventh-grader told his mother what had happened. The next day, the parents went to school — this time to confront Custodio.

"She said she was sorry and it would never happen again," the boy's mother said in court.

Within a week, Custodio and the school's assistant principal and principal were transferred off campus while police and district officials investigated.

Ramon C. Cortines, who was the district superintendent at the time, said that although he was "shocked" by the incident, he believed that Custodio had made a one-time-only mistake.

"She was held in such esteem by her co-workers.... I thought she was on a trajectory to be a principal or assistant principal," said Cortines, who added that the scheme should have been stopped by Custodio's supervisors.

The Porter administrators had long tenures with the school district and with Porter in particular. Mejia had been at the campus for at least six years; Edelson for four. Custodio, who had worked for the district since 1975, had been at Porter for about six years.

Prosecutors found that Custodio violated several laws, including using a minor under the age of 14 to transport pot, but found that "the evidence is clear that it was not her intent to purchase or transport marijuana for her own … or for anyone else's use," according to a district attorney's office memo. "Criminal prosecution in this matter is not appropriate."

The suspected dealer was not charged with a crime because the evidence against him was obtained illegally. He went to San Fernando High School this summer.

The decoy's parents moved him to other campuses, but he was frightened and began taking a knife to school. His family worried about his safety because other Porter students knew he had reported the suspected dealer.

Today, the decoy and his sister are being home-schooled. The family wants to move out of the area but is waiting to see if the district appeals the $1-million award that would allow them to leave.

District officials are weighing whether to appeal the decision and have offered to transfer the boy to other schools. The family has declined.

Custodio, along with the school's principal and assistant principal, said in court and in depositions that they regretted their actions and blamed them on a lack of thought, miscommunication and a strong desire to get the drugs off campus.

"I was concerned for the safety of the students," Custodio said in testimony.

But Alexander Calfo, an attorney for the student's family, said the sting was a stunning lapse of judgment that put a 12-year-old boy in jeopardy.

The administrators "made horrible, horrible reckless mistakes," he said.

jason.song@latimes.com

Feds target Calif. pot dispensaries for closure

This is one more reason to vote Libertarian in the 2012 election. You can't rely on Republics to end the drug war. And of course Obama lied about supporting medical marijuana when he ran for President in 2008.

If you want to vote for a President who supports medical marijuana the only candidate who can help you is the Libertarian guy.

Source

Feds target Calif. pot dispensaries for closure

Posted 10/6/2011 5:56 PM ET

By Lisa Leff, Associated Press

SAN FRANCISCO — Federal prosecutors have launched a crackdown on pot dispensaries in California, warning the stores that they must shut down in 45 days or face criminal charges and confiscation of their property even if they are operating legally under the state's 15-year-old medical marijuana law.

In an escalation of the ongoing conflict between the U.S. government and the nation's burgeoning medical marijuana industry, at least 16 pot shops or their landlords received letters this week stating they are violating federal drug laws, even though medical marijuana is legal in California. The state's four U.S. attorneys are scheduled to announce a broader coordinated crackdown at a Friday news conference.

Their offices refused to confirm the closure orders. The Associated Press obtained copies of the letters that a prosecutor sent to at least 12 San Diego dispensaries. They state that federal law "takes precedence over state law and applies regardless of the particular uses for which a dispensary is selling and distributing marijuana."

"Under United States law, a dispensary's operations involving sales and distribution of marijuana are illegal and subject to criminal prosecution and civil enforcement actions," letters signed by U.S. Attorney Laura Duffy in San Diego read. "Real and personal property involved in such operations are subject to seizure by and forfeiture to the United States ... regardless of the purported purpose of the dispensary."

The move comes a little more than two months after the Obama administration toughened its stand on medical marijuana following a two-year period during which federal officials had indicated they would not move aggressively against dispensaries in compliance with laws in the 16 states where pot is legal for people with doctors' recommendations.

The Department of Justice issued a policy memo to federal prosecutors in late June stating that marijuana dispensaries and licensed growers in states with medical marijuana laws could face prosecution for violating federal drug and money-laundering laws. The effort to shutter California dispensaries appears to be the most far-reaching effort so far to put that guidance into action.

"This really shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone. The administration is simply making good on multiple threats issued since President Obama took office," Kevin Sabet, a former adviser to the president's drug czar who is a fellow at the University of Pennsylvania's Center for Substance Abuse Solutions. "The challenge is to balance the scarcity of law enforcement resources and the sanctity of this country's medication approval process. It seems like the administration is simply making good on multiple statements made previously to appropriately strike that balance."

Greg Anton, a lawyer who represents a Marin Alliance for Medical Marijuana, said the 14-year-old dispensary's landlord received an "extremely threatening" letter Wednesday invoking a federal law that imposes additional penalties for selling drugs within 1,000 feet of schools, parks and playgrounds.

The landlord was ordered to evict the pot club or risk imprisonment, plus forfeiture of the property and all the rent he has collected while the dispensary has been in business, Anton said.

The Marin Alliance's founder "has been paying state and federal taxes for 14 years, and they have cashed all the checks," he said. "All I hear from Obama is whining about his budget, but he has money to do this which will actually reduce revenues."

Kris Hermes, a spokesman for the medical marijuana advocacy group Americans for Safe Access, said the warnings are part of what appears to be an attempt by the Obama administration to curb medical marijuana on multiple fronts and through multiple agencies. A series of dispensary raids in Montana, for example, involved agents from not only the FBI and U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency, but the Internal Revenue Service and Environmental Protection Agency.

Going after property owners is not a new tactic, though, Hermes said. Five years ago, the Department of Justice under President George Bush made similar threats to about 300 Los Angeles-area landlords who were renting space to medical marijuana outlets, some of whom were eventually evicted or closed their doors voluntarily, he said.

"It did have an impact. However, the federal government never acted on its threats, never prosecuted anybody, never even went to court to begin prosecutions," Hermes said. "By and large they were empty threats, but they relied on them and the cost of postage to shut down as many facilities as they could without having to engage in criminal enforcement activity."

Emperor Obama gives California pot shop 45 days to close

Remember if you want to end the "drug war" or even just legalize pot, you are wasting your vote if you vote for a Democrat or a Republican. The only political party that demands that all drugs be legalized is the Libertarian Party.

Source

Feds crack down on Calif. pot dispensaries

Shops must shut down or face charges

by Lisa Leff - Oct. 7, 2011 12:00 AM

Associated Press

SAN FRANCISCO - Federal prosecutors have launched a crackdown on some pot dispensaries in California, warning the stores to shut down in 45 days or face criminal charges and confiscation of their property even if they are operating legally under the state's 15-year-old medical-marijuana law.

In an escalation of the ongoing conflict between the U.S. government and the nation's burgeoning medical-marijuana industry, at least 16 pot shops or their landlords received letters this week stating they are violating federal drug laws, even though medical marijuana is legal in California. The state's four U.S. attorneys were scheduled to announce a broader coordinated crackdown today.

Their offices refused Thursday to confirm the closure orders. The Associated Press obtained copies of the letters that a prosecutor sent to at least 12 San Diego dispensaries. They state that federal law "takes precedence over state law and applies regardless of the particular uses for which a dispensary is selling and distributing marijuana."

"Under United States law, a dispensary's operations involving sales and distribution of marijuana are illegal and subject to criminal prosecution and civil enforcement actions," according to the letters, signed by U.S. Attorney Laura Duffy in San Diego. "Real and personal property involved in such operations are subject to seizure by and forfeiture to the United States ... regardless of the purported purpose of the dispensary."

The move comes a little more than two months after the Obama administration toughened its stand on medical marijuana.

For two years before that, federal officials had indicated they would not move aggressively against dispensaries in compliance with laws in the 16 states where pot is legal for people with doctors' recommendations.

The Department of Justice issued a policy memo to federal prosecutors in late June stating that marijuana dispensaries and licensed growers in states with medical-marijuana laws could face prosecution for violating federal drug and money-laundering laws.

The effort to shutter California dispensaries appeared to be the most far-reaching effort so far to put that guidance into action.

"This really shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone. The administration is simply making good on multiple threats issued since President Obama took office," said Kevin Sabet, a former adviser to the president's drug czar and a fellow at the University of Pennsylvania's Center for Substance Abuse Solutions.

Greg Anton, a lawyer who represents dispensary Marin Alliance for Medical Marijuana, said its landlord received an "extremely threatening" letter Wednesday invoking a federal law that imposes additional penalties for selling drugs within 1,000 feet of schools, parks and playgrounds.

The landlord was ordered to evict the 14-year-old pot club or risk imprisonment, Anton said.

Emperor Obama wants to shut down California pot shops

Feds escalate efforts to close California pot shops

By John Hoeffel, Los Angeles Times

October 7, 2011

Federal prosecutors are threatening to shut down medical marijuana dispensaries throughout California, sending letters that warn landlords to stop sales of the drug within 45 days or face the possibility that their property will be seized and they will be charged with a crime.

The stepped-up enforcement escalates the Obama administration's efforts to rein in the spread of pot stores, which accelerated after the attorney general announced in 2009 that federal prosecutors would not target people using medical marijuana in states that allow it.

"It's coming out of left field as far as we're concerned," said Joe Elford, the chief counsel for Americans for Safe Access, which advocates for medical marijuana use. "I really don't know what inspired this. It's a complete about-face from what [Obama] said when he was campaigning."

The initiative, spearheaded by the four U.S. attorneys in the state, will focus on dispensaries selected by the prosecutors, said a person familiar with the operation. He declined to say what criteria would be used to target dispensaries and asked not to be identified because the prosecutors are scheduled to make the official announcement at a news conference Friday morning in Sacramento.

Landlords for some dispensaries have already received letters, including the owner of the building that houses the Marin Alliance for Medical Marijuana in Fairfax, Calif., the oldest dispensary in the country. "I assume the story you're calling about is: Obama takes resources away from fighting terrorists and goes after old ladies with glaucoma," said Greg Anton, a lawyer who represents the dispensary.

The letter to the Marin Alliance notes that the dispensary is within a prohibited distance of a park, raising the possibility that enforcement will zero in on stores within 1,000 feet of schools and playgrounds, a distance that can bring enhanced penalties for illegal drug sales. But letters received by dispensaries in San Diego make no mention of such prohibitions. "We're trying to figure this out," said Jessica C. McElfresh, who represents some dispensaries in the city. "I am surprised at the size of this. I am surprised by the vast amount of planning that has clearly gone into it."

U.S. Atty. Andre Birotte Jr. in Los Angeles could not be reached for comment, but the source said the prosecutor would not initially focus on dispensaries in Los Angeles.

Dale Gieringer, the director of California NORML, which backs legalizing marijuana, said the approach appears to reflect the state's regional differences. "They want to do a clean sweep in San Diego, whereas in Northern California they can't possibly do a clean sweep," he said. "There's no political support for it. It would be devastating."

The administration has also ratcheted up pressure on dispensaries by demanding back taxes and penalties after audits disqualified deductions for business expenses. Federal authorities also are leaning on banks to close accounts belonging to owners of dispensaries and telling firearms dealers they cannot sell to medical marijuana patients.

Lynnette Shaw, the owner of the Marin Alliance, said she has paid taxes since she opened her dispensary 14 years ago and was advised by the Internal Revenue Service to deduct expenses. But the IRS has audited her 2009 returns and demanded $1 million, which Shaw said is about equal to her gross revenue.

When Barack Obama was running for president, he joked about smoking marijuana and said the federal government should not interfere with medical marijuana users who follow state laws. After he took office, U.S. Atty. Gen. Eric Holder made that stance policy.

More recently, however, the Department of Justice and some federal prosecutors have limited their tolerance. When Oakland and Berkeley made plans to allow industrial-scale pot cultivation, the U.S. attorney for the area threatened prosecution. The cities shelved plans that officials said were motivated by the desire for increased regulatory control and tax collection.

Although California was the first state to decriminalize marijuana for medical use in 1996, it remains a federal crime to possess or sell it, and the tension between state and federal laws continues to play out.

"The Obama administration, as far as medical marijuana has been concerned, really hasn't been much different than the Bush administration," said William G. Panzer, an Oakland lawyer who helped draft the medical marijuana initiative.

The Bush administration sent similar letters to landlords who rented to dispensaries in 2007. In Los Angeles, many dispensaries were forced from their locations, but most simply found new ones. "They succeeded in closing a handful of collectives, but nothing ever came of it," said Don Duncan, the California director for Americans for Safe Access. "There are more open now than there were then."

Activists said the government does not have the money or staff to force the dispensaries to close. "It's a lot of huffing and puffing," Elford said, "but we'll see if they actually blow the house down."

john.hoeffel@latimes.com

Gasp! A pig with a brain who is against the drug war????

Opinion L.A.

Drug war: What prohibition costs us [Blowback]

October 6, 2011 | 4:02 pm

Stephen Downing, a retired deputy chief of the Los Angeles Police Department and board member of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, responds to The Times' Oct. 5 Op-Ed article, "Prohibition's real lessons for drug policy." If you would like to respond to a recent Times article, editorial or Op-Ed in our Blowback forum, here are our FAQs and submission policy.

Drug prohibitionists like former White House drug czar staffer Kevin A. Sabet seem to be in a panic over Ken Burns' PBS documentary broadcast "Prohibition" because of its clear and convincing parallel to today's equally disastrous war on drugs. The earlier experiment lasted less than 14 years, but today’s failed prohibition was declared by President Nixon 40 years ago and has cost our country more than $1 trillion in cash and much more in immeasurable social harm.

As a student of history and a retired deputy chief of police with the Los Angeles Police Department, I can attest that the damage that came from the prohibition of alcohol pales in comparison to the harm wrought by drug prohibition. In the last 40 years drug money has fueled the growth of violent street gangs in Los Angeles, from two (Bloods and Crips) with a membership of less than 50 people before the drug war to 20,000 gangs with a membership of about 1 million across the U.S., according to the U.S. Department of Justice. These gangs serve as the distributors, collection agents and enforcers for the Mexican cartels that the Justice Department says occupy more than 1,000 U.S. cities.

Sabet, a former advisor to the White House drug policy advisor, ignores these prohibition-created harms, making no mention of the nearly 50,000 people killed in Mexico over the last five years as cartels have battled it out to control drug routes, territories and enforce collections. When one cartel leader is arrested or killed, it makes no impact on the drug trade and only serves to create more violence, as lower-level traffickers fight for the newly open top spot.

U.S. law enforcement officials report that as much as 70% of cartel profits come from marijuana alone. There's no question that ending today's prohibition on drugs -- starting with marijuana -- would do more to hurt the cartels than any level of law enforcement skill or dedication ever can.

Worse than being ineffective, though, the war on drugs creates dangerous distractions for police officers who would rather focus on improving public safety. For example, the LAPD announced this week that it will take 150 police officers off the streets to accommodate the state's shuffling of prisoners to the county level. The state must do this to comply with the U.S. Supreme Court's order to cut our drug-war-induced overcrowded prison population by 30,000 -- and our state has already laid off thousands of teachers thanks in part to funding diverted to building more prisons and hiring more guards.

This follows on the heels of another reallocation of police resources in Los Angeles when the LAPD and the L.A. Sheriff's Department woke up to a three-year backlog of rape kits. Police labs have only a finite amount of resources, and drug testing often takes priority over other cases that demand attention. Detectives (and victims) waiting for lab results related to rape and other serious crimes stood in line for months while tests for custody-related possession of pot and other drugs took precedence.

There's no doubt that the violence, the growth of cartels and gangs, the overpopulation of our prisons and the squandering of our police resources would not occur if we eliminated illegal drug profits and implemented a non-criminal approach to regulating drugs. We did this once with alcohol, and there's no reason we can't do it with other drugs today.

-- Stephen Downing

Sexy Pizza doesn't snitch on their customers like Papa John's

Source

Free pizza for pot user turned in by delivery guy

Oct. 6, 2011 06:17 PM

Associated Press

DENVER -- A man who got a visit from police after a pizza delivery driver smelled marijuana at his home is getting free pizza from a different restaurant.

Police visited Frederick Smith of Aurora after a Papa John's International Inc. driver reported he smelled marijuana in the home last week and saw a child there. Smith told KUSA-TV in Denver he's a registered medical marijuana user. He says police searched his house then left.

Papa John's has said it stands by its employee.

On Thursday, Denver-based Sexy Pizza said it's offering Smith one free pizza monthly until Colorado voters decide a proposed 2012 ballot initiative that would legalize marijuana for recreational use. If voters pass it, Sexy Pizza says, it'll extend the offer for life.

More on Emperor Obama's new war on pot smokers!

The "War on Drugs" is also unconstitutional per the 10th Amendment, but don't hold your breath waiting for the Supreme Court to declare that.

The U.S. Constitution doesn't have one word in it which gives the Feds the power to regulate booze, or liquor. And thus the 10th Amendment forbids any Federal government "war on booze".

When our government masters in Washington D.C. wanted to declare "war on booze" they realized that and passed the 18th Amendment which gave the Feds the power to declare a "war on booze", which they called the Prohibition.

There isn't one word in the U.S. Constitution which gives the Feds the power to regulate marijuana or any other drug and thus per the 10th Amendment any Federal law on marijuana would be unconstitutional.

And of course there has never been a Constitutional amendment passed like the 18th Amendment to give Uncle Sam the power to regulate marijuana or any other drug. So again the current "war on drugs" is unconstitutional. But again don't hold your breath waiting for the Supreme Court to declare the current war on drugs unconstitutional.

Source

Feds announce Calif. pot dispensary crackdown

AP By DON THOMPSON - Associated Press

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — Federal prosecutors announced an aggressive crackdown against California pot dispensaries Friday, vowing to shut down dozens of operations and saying that the worst offenders are using the cover of medical marijuana to act as storefront drug dealers.

Many of the drug trafficking ventures are using California's 15-year-old medical marijuana law to operate in plain sight, said U.S. Attorney Melinda Haag, the top federal law enforcement officer for the San Francisco Bay area.

"I understand there are people in California who believe marijuana stores should be allowed to exist, but I think we can all agree we don't need marijuana stores across the street from schools and Little League fields," she said.

Not all of the thousands of storefront pot dispensaries thought to be operating in the state are being targeted in the crackdown, which also involves new indictments and arrests of marijuana growers throughout the state over the past two weeks, said U.S. Attorney Benjamin Wager, who represents the state's Central Valley.

Instead, federal officials are initially going after pot shops located close to schools, parks, sports fields and other places where there are a lot of children and what Wagner termed "significant commercial operations." He said that includes farmland where marijuana is being grown.

"California's marijuana industry supplies the nation," he said. "And huge amounts of money are flowing back in the other direction."

The officials declined to reveal how many dispensaries are subject to closure orders, saying only there were dozens in each their four districts.

The strategies they are using vary somewhat, with warning letters issued by the U.S. attorney in San Diego giving recipients 45 days to comply and 36 property owners in Los Angeles and the Central Coast given just two weeks to evict pot dispensaries or growers.

Haag said the move is not designed to clamp down on patients who grow their own marijuana for medical use. But dispensaries that were not part of the initial wave of warning letters "shouldn't take any comfort," she said. "They are illegal under federal law."

The move comes a little more than two months after the Obama administration toughened its stand on medical marijuana. For two years before that, federal officials had indicated they would not move aggressively against dispensaries in compliance with laws in the 16 states where pot is legal for people with doctors' recommendations.

The Department of Justice issued a policy memo to federal prosecutors in late June stating that marijuana dispensaries and licensed growers in states with medical marijuana laws could face prosecution for violating federal drug and money-laundering laws. The effort to shutter California dispensaries appeared to be the most far-reaching effort so far to put that guidance into action.

Burglars turn their victims into the police

The Fourth Amendment is null and void if the cops get a third party to illegally search a home? I guess so!

So the cops could get burglars to break into a home, search it for illegal drugs and then report any illegal drugs found to the police.

Source

Burglars report victim's pornography to police

October 7, 2011 | 12:12 pm

Burglars who broke into a Merced property and found a stash of child pornography called police, who arrested the owner.

Kraig Stockard, 54, of Delhi, Calif., was charged with possession of child pornography after a 19-year-old and a juvenile broke into his barn and stole about 50 CDs they thought were blank, according to NBC4LA, citing a statement from Deputy Tom MacKenzie of the Merced County Sheriff's Department.

When the thieves downloaded the discs, they discovered the child porn, the statement said.

The burglars went straight to police, even though they knew they would be admitting burglary.

Police said more than 30 computer discs had child pornography on them.

He posted $25,000 bail. The two burglary suspects have not been arrested.

Feds target medical marijuana dispensaries in California

By Donna Leinwand Leger, USA TODAY

Federal prosecutors are cracking down on hundreds of California medical marijuana dispensaries that they say are fronts for drug dealing.

The aggressive and wide-ranging action targets commercial operations that are growing and supplying large quantities of marijuana and dispensaries and stores located near schools and parks, prosecutors said.

"The California marijuana industry is not about providing medicine to the sick," said Laura Duffy, the U.S. Attorney in San Diego. "It's a pervasive for-profit industry that violates federal law."

Marijuana is legal for medical use in California, 15 other states and Washington, D.C., but is subject to strict regulation. The laws conflict with federal law, which does not recognize any legal use for marijuana. It is unclear whether similar crackdowns will follow in other states.

"While we wouldn't speculate on what action we might or might not take with respect to any particular matter, the Department has made clear that large-scale industrial marijuana cultivation centers are subject to potential federal enforcement action," Justice Department spokeswoman Jessica Smith said.

In June, a Justice Department memo to U.S. Attorneys said dispensaries and licensed growers could be prosecuted for violating federal drug and money laundering laws. A previous policy memo had indicated that the Justice Department considered such prosecutions a low priority in states with medical marijuana laws.

"The Obama Administration, in what seems to be a concerted effort across the state, is betraying the promise it originally made to leave patients and their caregivers alone," said Stephen Guttwillig, California Director for the Drug Policy Alliance. "We think this is an outrageous expression of bad faith, bad policy and bad politics."

Thom Mrozek, spokesman for the U.S. Attorney in Los Angeles, said the crackdown is aimed at stores that "are selling marijuana at a profit, which is also in violation of California law."

The California State Attorney's Office did not participate in the federal enforcement effort, spokeswoman Lynda Gledhill said.

U.S. Attorney Andre Birotte in Los Angeles lodged criminal drug trafficking charges against NoHo Caregivers, a North Hollywood marijuana store that allegedly made $15 million in profits in eight months.

In an indictment unsealed this week, prosecutors say six people who operated the store distributed 600 to 700 pounds of marijuana a month and shipped it to affiliates in New York and Pennsylvania. Federal agents who searched the store's former location, now the Green Camel Collective, on Wednesday found 23 pounds of marijuana, a pound of hashish and two 16-year-old boys smoking marijuana, Birotte said.

Federal prosecutors in Los Angeles also filed three civil lawsuits against two buildings and a strip mall. The lawsuit against the Orange County strip mall alleges that eight of the 11 suites on the mall's second floor sold marijuana. Prosecutors also warned owners and landlords of 38 other stores that they had two weeks to stop selling marijuana or face prosecution.

"For-profit, commercial marijuana operations are illegal not only under federal law, but also under California law," Birotte said.

In San Diego, U.S. Attorney Laura Duffy said her office sent hundreds of letters to marijuana stores warning them to stop selling marijuana within 45 days or face prosecution. She said the four U.S. Attorneys in California coordinated a federal enforcement action in response to requests from help from local law enforcement officers.

Prosecutors also charged six people with selling marijuana to minors, money laundering and other charges related to their operation of two stores near colleges that sold high-grade marijuana and marijuana-laden candy, cookies, bubble gum, ice cream and barbecue sauce. Prosecutors say the stores catered to college and high school students.

Some cities have already sought to shut down dispensaries that they say are violating zoning ordinances and breaking state law. The city of San Diego says its zoning laws forbid medical marijuana dispensaries, yet more than 160 operate there. Last month, the city attorney sued to close 12 dispensaries operating within 600 feet of schools.

"We have an untenable situation right now and a lot of policy conflicts," City Attorney Jan Goldsmith said. "This situation cries out for ultimate policy direction from the state and federal levels that local communities can rely upon."

Federal crackdown on medical pot sales

Federal crackdown on medical pot sales reflects a shift in policy

By John Hoeffel, Los Angeles Times

October 7, 2011, 9:02 p.m.

The Obama administration's crackdown on California's highly profitable medical marijuana industry represents a dramatic departure from the low-key approach it has long pursued.

California's four U.S. attorneys said Friday that they are taking aim at large-scale growers and dispensary owners who are raking in millions of dollars while falsely claiming that their medical marijuana operations comply with state law, which does not allow for-profit sales.

In the early days of President Obama's tenure, Atty. Gen. Eric Holder announced that prosecutors would not target medical marijuana users and caregivers, as long as they followed state laws. But as the risk of prosecution diminished, storefront dispensaries and enormous growing operations proliferated in California, often in brazen defiance of zoning laws and local bans.

"That is not what the California voters intended or authorized, and it is illegal under federal law," said Andre Birotte Jr., the Los Angeles-based U.S. attorney for the Central District. "It does not allow this brick-and-mortar, Costco-Wal-Mart-type model that we see across California."

The step comes as the Obama administration has been steadily ratcheting up enforcement efforts. Last month, a federal firearms official sent a letter to gun dealers warning them against selling to medical marijuana users. The last bank in Colorado willing to handle money from dispensaries closed those accounts last week, concerned about federal prosecution. And the Internal Revenue Service has begun to order some dispensaries to pay millions of dollars in back taxes and penalties, ruling that they can't deduct expenses because their business is illegal.

The prosecutors, who held a news conference in Sacramento to underscore their commitment to the campaign, said they are trying to enforce federal laws while respecting the intent of the state's voters, who passed the nation's first initiative to allow marijuana for medical purposes.

Birotte noted that his Southern California region is home to the highest concentration of dispensaries in the nation. "We have yet to find a single instance in which a marijuana store was able to prove that it was a not-for-profit organization," he said.

Medical marijuana advocates, including state Sen. Mark Leno (D-San Francisco), decried the intensified enforcement effort. "The concern here is that the intimidation factor will directly impact safe and affordable access for patients," he said.

The sudden escalation has baffled advocates who note that the use of medical marijuana now has broad popular support, as shown in nationwide polls. "From a political perspective, it's hard to see how this serves Obama's interest," said Ethan Nadelmann, executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance. "It feels like it's being driven by law enforcement and anti-drug folks."

The threat of stepped-up federal prosecutions could accomplish what city and district attorneys have so far struggled to achieve. The prosecutors are targeting landlords who rent to marijuana operations and could lose their property through civil forfeiture. "That hits right in the sweet spot because it deals with money," Birotte said.

The tactic was employed by the Bush administration in 2007. Many dispensaries were forced by landlords to move, but — able to pay top-dollar rents in a lousy economy — they easily found new locations. But Birotte said that this time, prosecutors intend to follow through with forfeitures. To underscore that, he announced that he has filed lawsuits to seize buildings in Wildomar, an unincorporated part of Montclair and Lake Forest. The Lake Forest strip mall has eight dispensaries.

The state's four federal prosecutors have each also sent dozens of warning letters. Birotte has focused on 38 dispensaries in 13 cities where dispensaries are not allowed and where local officials have pleaded for help. He gave them two weeks to start ending pot sales. In Northern California, the prosecutor is focusing on pot stores within 1,000 feet of schools and playgrounds, an approach that could threaten many dispensaries in dense Bay Area cities.

The prosecutors also announced some indictments. Birotte said an indictment unsealed this week seeks the forfeiture of $14.7 million, accusing six people linked with NoHo Caregivers in North Hollywood of dealing in up to 700 pounds of marijuana a month and selling to affiliates in New York and Pennsylvania.

"They're showing their muscle: 'Here we are, we're here, we're coordinated, you guys better watch out,'" said Matt Kumin, a lawyer who specializes in medical marijuana. "The total amount of cannabis that is cultivated in California is not going to go down. It just goes back underground."

Birotte said the new strategy was not triggered by any specific event but was inspired by a stream of complaints from California law enforcement officials. The crackdown announced Friday came after months of consultation between the U.S. attorneys and Justice Department officials in Washington. The prosecutors acknowledged that they are not getting more money or prosecutors.

Steve Cooley, the Los Angeles County district attorney, predicted that intense coordination with federal prosecutors would make a huge difference. "It's advancing in the right direction from our perspective," he said. In Los Angeles, Jane Usher, a special assistant city attorney, said her office intended to work closely with Birotte's. "We're gratified that they see what we see, which is what began as an opportunity to help seriously ill patients has evolved into storefront drug sales and trafficking," she said.

California's attorney general, Kamala Harris, declined to discuss the announcement. Her office is revising the medical marijuana guidelines that Jerry Brown issued in 2008 when he was attorney general. Those guidelines note that state law does not allow "collectives, cooperatives or individuals to profit from the sale or distribution of marijuana" and advises that storefront dispensaries "may be legal."

Medical marijuana advocates were also perplexed that a federal department reporting to Obama is launching a crackdown that promises to be more fearsome than any under former President Bush. They believe that Obama betrayed a commitment he made as a candidate who casually joked about smoking marijuana and has strayed from the issues he was elected to address.

"They're wasting money they don't have," Leno said. "This is not the issue of the day. This doesn't create jobs. This does not keep the security of the nation intact. It doesn't clean the environment."

Leno said he believed the Obama administration has missed an opportunity to end the 15 years of legal chaos that began in 1996 when California voters passed Proposition 215. "If anything, they should be demonstrating leadership in resolving the conflict between federal and state laws," he said. "Until we deal with that, we're going to be going around in circles here."

john.hoeffel@latimes.com

Ron Paul finds GOP ideals shifting in his direction

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In third try at presidency, Ron Paul finds GOP ideals shifting in his direction

By Shyamantha Asokan, Published: October 6

NEVADA, Iowa — At the end of a day of back-to-back campaign events in eastern Iowa last week, as an audience of 180 people in a community center ate chili and crackers, Ron Paul suddenly seemed to remember why he was there. After a series of speeches that had veered between obscure Austrian economists and the 1913 U.S. law that established the federal income tax, he finally concluded: “That’s why I’m running for president.” The crowd erupted into applause.

After 35 years in politics and two unsuccessful runs for the top job, Paul is enjoying a surge in support and the most high-profile campaign of his life. Last month, the Texas congressman registered as high as third place in opinion polls, behind former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney and Texas Gov. Rick Perry. Although he was overtaken by businessman Herman Cain in a Washington Post-ABC News poll released Tuesday, he remained in the double digits — compared with 3 percent at this point in his 2008 campaign. And he came in a close second in August’s Iowa Straw Poll.

Paul’s unwavering ideals of small government and free markets, which rendered him a quirky sideshow for decades, have gained traction amid concerns about rising government debt. His longtime opposition to the existence of the Federal Reserve, income tax and foreign aid is now shared by many in his party.

But he must convert the increased support to a broad base if he is to reach the top tier of potential nominees — a goal he set for himself at a recent candidate debate. That won’t be an easy task for the 76-year-old congressman, whose trademark speeches on economic theory and constitutional provisions often befuddle audiences.

“When he goes to the general public and starts speaking about the Austrian school of economics, I’m afraid that some people just stop listening,” said state Rep. Jason Schultz, who heads the local chapter of Farmers for Ron Paul. “It’s difficult to get involved in [these issues] at a campaign event without it turning into a scholarly lecture, and I think that’s the setting in which he’s most comfortable.”

The Paul campaign is doing a few things to try to lure supporters. First, it’s trying to increase Paul’s exposure by getting him on the trail and on television screens more often. Paul has made 22 trips to Iowa since declaring his candidacy in May, compared with just nine such visits by this point in his last bid. His staff has been running television commercials in four early-primary states since July, at a cost of $1.8 million. In 2007, the team had no TV advertising until the end of the year.

Second, the campaign is trying to tap more diverse groups. A television commercial that shows Vietnam veterans backing Paul and refers to his stints as a surgeon in the Air Force and in the Air National Guard, which often go unmentioned, started airing at the end of September. Outreach efforts that target groups including farmers and evangelicals are underway.

Even as he looks to grow his support, Paul’s rising profile is affecting the tone of the Republican contest — and perhaps even the party — strategists said.

“He serves as an anchor to the right that will have a Romney or a Perry appealing more to libertarian bases,” said Ron Christie, a GOP strategist who served as a special assistant to President George W. Bush and is unaffiliated this year. “They will not want to be outflanked by him.”

Christie noted that Perry and former House speaker Newt Gingrich (Ga.) have been pushing anti-Federal Reserve stances in recent television debates. Other strategists observe that all the candidates have started peppering their speeches with references to the Constitution. Paul’s years of insistence on small government are widely considered to have paved the way for the emergence of the tea party movement, which has recast much of the GOP.

Beyond fiscal policy, though, the congressman remains a hard sell among much of the party. His antiwar stance alienates foreign policy hawks. He condemned last week’s fatal U.S. drone strike in Yemen and insisted that the target, Anwar al-Awlaki, a U.S.-born radical Muslim cleric, had a constitutional right to a trial.

Some Republicans wryly suggest that Paul’s strong support among young voters stems from his libertarian call to legalize almost all drugs.

His toughest audience is “somebody that’s been in the Republican Party for 30 years and they’re middle-aged and in business and they just sort of don’t like to rock the boat,” Paul said in an interview as he traveled between town hall forums.

On the trail in Iowa, the congressman did at times move his speeches beyond their usual terrain. He stressed his experience in the military. He offered a rare criticism of President Obama on business regulation in an attempt to ground his theories in an everyday way. But such moments were rare.

In any case, Paul’s famously committed fan base is happy with him just as he is. His town hall events were filled with students, middle-class workers, farmers and retirees who had registered as Republicans solely to vote for him. For them, his consistency is key.

“I love the fact that you always know how he’s going to vote” in Congress, said Mona Kilborn, 62, a caregiver for the disabled who attended the chili dinner. “If it’s constitutional, he will vote for; if it’s not, he will vote against.”

“People used to pooh-pooh him, but now they think, ‘He was right,’ ” she added.

This small but solid base allows Paul to outstrip many of his rivals in fundraising. The congressman brought in $4.5 million in the second quarter, second only to Romney’s $18 million — although that was before Perry entered the race in August. And Paul’s campaign is set to announce that he brought in $8 million in the third quarter, which ended Sept. 30, against Perry’s $17 million (the other candidates have yet to announce their totals).

Four of Paul’s trademark “moneybombs” — 24-hour online fundraisers — have passed the $1 million mark this year.

“All I know is that my reception is better and growing. And people say I gain by being consistent,” Paul said in the interview. “These views are becoming mainstream. . . . I think just the development of events is serving our campaign very well.”

Many of his supporters say they are for Paul alone, making it hard to ascertain whether he is peeling away votes from his rivals. “I don’t think I’d vote for any of the other candidates” if he withdrew, said Tony Gotto, a 23-year-old farmer, at a town hall event in Dubuque. “I wasn’t even interested in politics till I heard about Ron Paul.”

Yet the congressman is unperturbed. He is simply happy that after more than three decades, his ideas are being accepted. He is less likely than his younger rivals to run again. He has decided not to seek reelection to the House next year after 12 consecutive terms.

“I am not the average politician who will think in conventional terms” about winning, he said as his car arrived at a chartered plane that would take him to his next campaign stop. “I have a much more significant goal: changing ideas.”

Marijuana-shaped candy alarms parents & government nannies

Chill out man, this stuff won't even give you a buzz!!!

Source

Marijuana-shaped candy alarms parents, officials

Associated Press

6:39 a.m. CDT, October 10, 2011 Candy shaped like marijuana that's showing up on store shelves around the country won't get kids high, but aghast city leaders and anti-drug activists say the product and grocers carrying it represent a new low.

"We're already dealing with a high amount of drug abuse and drug activity and trying to raise children so they don't think using illegal substances is acceptable," said City Councilmember Darius Pridgen. "So to have a licensed store sell candy to kids that depicts an illegal substance is just ignorant and irresponsible."

The "Pothead Ring Pots," ''Pothead Lollipops" and bagged candy are distributed to retail stores by the novelty supply company Kalan LP of the Philadelphia suburb of Lansdowne. It also wholesales online for $1 for a lollipop and $1.50 for a package of three rings.

Company president Andrew Kalan said the candy, on the market six to nine months and in 1,000 stores around the country, promotes the legalization of marijuana.

"It does pretty well," he said.

"This is the first complaint I've heard," Kalan said, "and people are usually not shy. I'm actually surprised this is the first."

An irate parent brought the candy to Pridgen's attention, hoping the city could apply pressure and get it out of stores.

Pridgen and Councilmember Demone Smith displayed the candy, along with fake marijuana known as "K2" that's also sold in some stores at Tuesday's Common Council meeting, where Pridgen said he'd refuse to grant licenses to stores in his district that planned to sell the merchandise and would seek to embarrass stores that carry it. The synthetic marijuana is sold as incense but is smoked.

Synthetic marijuana typically involves dried plant material sprayed with one of several chemical compounds. The products contain organic leaves coated with chemicals that provide a marijuana-like high when smoked. The Drug Enforcement Administration recently used its emergency powers to outlaw five chemicals found in synthetic marijuana.

It appeared Pridgen's message had gotten out by Thursday. A check of about a half-dozen stores in Buffalo, often in impoverished neighborhoods where real drugs are a festering problem, turned up none of the controversial candy.

The bags of "Pothead Sour Gummy Candy," and lollipops shaped like marijuana leaves appear to be a recent addition to the inventory of some corner stores. The sour apple-flavored candy contains nothing illegal, but with its marijuana leaf, the word "Legalize" and a joint-smoking, peace sign-waving user on the packaging, critics say it's not only in poor taste but an invitation to try the real thing.

"It's the whole idea that it promotes drugs and the idea that, here, you'll look cool if you use this — which is what gets these kids in trouble in the very first place," said Jodie Altman, program supervisor at Renaissance House, a treatment center for drug- and alcohol-addicted youth.

Charmaine Rosendary, 36, of Buffalo shook her head when she saw a picture of the package.

"That's not right. It's just promoting marijuana," she said while buying produce Friday at a Buffalo market. She said she wouldn't allow her five teenagers, ages 15-19, to have it.

"I would not buy it or give them money to buy it," she said. "It looks like weed."

It's not the first legal product to come under fire.

In 2008, the Hershey Co. stopped making Ice Breakers Pacs in response to criticism that the mints looked too much like illegal street drugs. Police in Philadelphia complained that the packets, nickel-sized dissolvable pouches with a powdered sweetener inside, closely resembled tiny heat-sealed bags used to sell powdered street drugs.

Candy cigarettes and fruity or energy drink-infused alcoholic beverages have been criticized for targeting young people. And in 1997, the Federal Trade Commission said the iconic Joe Camel cigarette ads and packaging violated federal law because they appealed to kids under 18. The tobacco company, R.J. Reynolds, eventually shelved the caricature.

A spokesman for the Office of National Drug Control Policy said advocates for legalization who claim marijuana is benign are not supported by science.

"Trivializing drug use is a threat to public health because it erodes perceptions of harm among young people," said Rafael Lemaitre.

Kalan said his company carries several products with the marijuana leaf and "legalize" message to accommodate growing demand in the movement to legalize marijuana.

"We don't advocate for a political position. We just look at what the marketplace wants and respond to it," the wholesaler said. "It's just candy... It's sour apple flavor, it doesn't claim to be pot in disguise or anything like that."

NYPD infiltration of colleges raises privacy fears

Remember it's not just these students at Brooklyn College that the cops are spying on, it's everybody. There is almost certainly a Federal Homeland Security thug, an Arizona DPS thug or a locate police thug from the Tempe Police or Maricopa County Sheriff that read this email before you did, and any email replies to this email will almost certainly read by the same police thugs.

So say hi to the police thug that is reading this email before you and ask him why he is spying on you instead of hunting down real criminals.

Source

NYPD infiltration of colleges raises privacy fears

Posted 10/11/2011 8:01 AM ET

By Chris Hawley And Matt Apuzzo, Associated Press

NEW YORK — With its whitewashed bell tower, groomed lawns and Georgian-style buildings, Brooklyn College looks like a slice of Colonial Virginia dropped into modern-day New York City. But for years New York police have feared this bucolic setting might hide a sinister secret: the beginnings of a Muslim terrorist cell.

Investigators have been infiltrating Muslim student groups at Brooklyn College and other schools in the city, monitoring their Internet activity and placing undercover agents in their ranks, police documents obtained by The Associated Press show. Legal experts say the operation may have broken a 19-year-old pact with the colleges and violated U.S. privacy laws, jeopardizing millions of dollars in federal research money and student aid.

The infiltration was part of a secret NYPD intelligence-gathering effort that put entire Muslim communities under scrutiny. Police photographed restaurants and grocery stores that cater to Muslims and built databases showing where people shopped, got their hair cut and prayed. The AP reported on the secret campaign in a series of stories beginning in August.

The majority of Islamic terrorism cases involve young men, and infiltrating student groups gave police access to that demographic. Alarmed professors and students, however, say it smacks of the FBI spying conducted on college campuses in the 1960s. They are calling on college administrators to investigate.

"It's really about personal freedom," said Moustafa Bayoumi, an English professor at Brooklyn College. "The government, through the police department, is working privately to destroy the private lives of Muslim citizens."

Last week, professors at the City University of New York's Law School issued a statement warning that the spying at CUNY campuses may have violated civil rights laws. The Brooklyn College Faculty Council has passed a similar measure.

Outside a prayer room used by their club on the edge of the Brooklyn College campus, members of the college's Islamic Society worried they might be marked for life -- flagged on a terrorism watch list or blacklisted in a police dossier -- because of the surveillance.

"We come to the room, we talk, we chill," said Shirin Akter, 20, an elementary education major. "So if another sister comes into the room and she's a cop, that's not cool. I'm really scared about this."

Following revelations about widespread spying, the New York City Council demanded answers Thursday from Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly, who defended the department he has transformed since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. He said police only follow leads and do not single out groups based on religion.

"The value we place on privacy rights and other constitutional protections is part of what motivates the work of counterterrorism," he said. "It would be counterproductive in the extreme if we violated those freedoms in the course of our work to defend New York."

The NYPD's intelligence division first turned its attention to colleges after receiving sketchy information that a student wanted to be a "martyr," according to a law enforcement official familiar with the program who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the program. But police never found this person and did not bring cases charging Muslim student groups with training terrorists, the official said.

In their surveillance, undercover officers from the department's Special Services Unit attended events organized by Muslim students, the official said, as did members of the NYPD's Demographics Unit, a secret squad that used plainclothes officers of Arab descent to monitor neighborhoods and events.

The NYPD's Cyber Intelligence Unit used speakers of Arabic, Persian and other languages to monitor the websites of Muslim student organizations. They trolled chat rooms and talked to students online, the official said.

By 2006, police had identified 31 Muslim student associations and labeled seven of them "MSAs of concern," the documents show.

Six were at branches of the City University of New York: Brooklyn College, Baruch College, City College, Hunter College, La Guardia Community College and Queens College. The other was at St. John's University, a Catholic college in the borough of Queens.

Members of the Brooklyn College Islamic Society said their association is typical of the groups.

The club occupies two prayer rooms, one for men and one for women, off a student lounge on the western edge of campus. The American Medical Students Association is next door; the Veteran Students Organization is at the end of the lounge.

On a recent afternoon, society members made their way past students playing board games in the lounge. Hip-hop music by Flo Rida and T-Pain blared from the office of another student club.

The Muslim students entered the prayer room for men, knelt on a patch of carpet and recited quietly, occasionally touching their heads to the floor in unison.

A bumper sticker on the door of the women's room read: "Discover Jesus in the Quran." A table held tracts with titles like "Women's Dress in Islam" and "Samples from the Illustrious Qur'an." A bulletin board offered free Arabic classes.

Nazim Hussain, 21, a senior accounting major, said the club offers a quiet place to worship on the busy campus, as well as a social outlet.

"It's just a brotherhood, nothing extreme, nothing like that," he said. "We just do football, basketball, stuff like that."

The documents show police were interested in guest speakers and any signs of Salafism, a strain of fundamentalist Islam.

The groups at Baruch and Brooklyn College's featured "regular Salafi speakers" and the one at City College had a "Salafi website," the documents said.

"Students are politically active and are radicalizing," agents said of the Baruch Muslim Student Association. The group declined to make immediate comment.

Mohammad Shamsi Ali, an associate cleric at the Islamic Center of New York, said some student groups have been known to invite speakers to campus without vetting them first.

"Some MSA groups in some colleges are being influenced by Salafi tendencies because many of these students, they don't know who the speakers are," Shamsi Ali said. "They invite them to speak in the college, and they influence them. They influence the minds of the students."

Police believed that the group at Queens College had a link to a member of Al-Muhajiroun, a Muslim organization that was banned in Saudi Arabia and Britain for condoning militant attacks.

In a few instances, NYPD detectives approached campus police for help, saying they were working narcotics or gang cases to win their cooperation and sometimes even access to records, the official said. Police used the records to identify students they were observing and get contact information, the official said.

The colleges may have broken the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, a federal statute, if they handed over student records without the students' consent, said Richard Rainsberger, a consultant on college privacy laws.

The punishment for such disclosures is severe: a school can lose all of its federal funding.

"That means every single federal dollar: the research funds, the federal loans, the Pell grants," said Meg Penrose, an expert on the privacy act at Texas Wesleyan University School of Law.

U.S. Education Department spokesman David Thomas said the agency had not heard about the NYPD program. But he said colleges are generally barred from giving law enforcement agencies any student records without their consent unless police have a court order or subpoena.

Sometimes, school police even let the NYPD use campus buildings as a quiet, out-of-the-way place to interview informants after hours, the law enforcement official said.

By 2006 police had placed NYPD undercover agents at Brooklyn College and Baruch, according to the documents obtained by the AP. At Hunter, City College, Queens College, La Guardia and St. John's, documents said there were "secondary" undercover officers. It was not clear from the documents if that meant the NYPD was relying on another agency's undercover officers or if the NYPD was one of two agencies infiltrating the groups.

The documents show police were worried about "militant paintball trips" organized by Muslim students at Brooklyn College. The Justice Department has in the past accused would-be terrorists of using paintball games as a sort of paramilitary training. But current and former officials said there was no standard for what kind of paintball trips the NYPD considered militant.

An old website formerly used by the group shows photos from one of these trips to a paintball range in Jim Thorpe, Pa. An announcement for an upcoming trip gives strategy tips like separating players into offensive and defensive lines. It jokingly describes the "luxurious cheesebus" members will ride in and advises them to check "the back of your 'Fruit of the Loom'" for equipment sizes.

Islamic Society members said it has been years since members did any organized paintball trips. They scoffed at the NYPD report, noting that the club has also organized basketball, football and cricket games in the past.

"You could say the same thing about football," said Karim Azzat, 19, a sophomore film major. "You know, football's violent. They could say, 'They're trying to teach Muslims how to hit.'"

The City University of New York says it knew nothing about the infiltration at the time. Police have not acknowledged to administrators that such a program ever existed, CUNY spokesman Michael Arena said.

But individual colleges said they were concerned.

"It is our view that except in extraordinary circumstances where specific evidence links a member of a campus community to terrorist activities, the college community should not be involved with any such surveillance," said Maria Terrone, a spokeswoman for Queens College.

"Had anyone on this campus been aware of this, we would have condemned it," said Jeremy Thompson, a spokesman for Brooklyn College.

At Baruch, administrators do not believe they have a problem with student radicalization, said spokeswoman Christina Latouf.

Professors have called the surveillance an attack on academic freedom. The Brooklyn College Faculty Council unanimously passed a resolution saying it would have a "chilling effect on the intellectual freedom necessary for a vibrant academic community."

Forty-three law professors at the CUNY School of Law signed a statement last week warning that such surveillance may have violated students' civil rights.

Undercover officers may also have violated a 1992 memorandum of understanding between CUNY and the NYPD, said Ramzi Kassem, one of the law professors.

That agreement says that in non-emergency situations, police "shall enter upon CUNY campuses, buildings and other property only upon the request or approval of a CUNY official."

Meanwhile, students said they worried the surveillance on campus could follow them after graduation or extend to their families and workplaces.

"We have nothing to hide. But this is obviously baby steps: it could lead to something greater," said Sultan Alreyashi, 18, a freshman. "They could say, 'Oh, now we need to investigate the mosques, now we need to investigate whatever.' So it becomes very disturbing to the whole community, not just to students in college. You give them a hand, they take a whole arm."

___

Apuzzo reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Adam Goldman and Eileen Sullivan in Washington contributed to this report.

I suspect the searches are mostly for drugs

And if you look at the stats for people in prison they show that two thirds of the people in prisons are there not for real crimes that hurt somebody but for victimless drug war crimes.

Amerika will continue to be the worlds biggest police state until the drug war is ended.

Source

In Supreme Court case, man says strip-search humiliated him

By Joan Biskupic, USA TODAY

WASHINGTON – Albert Florence was riding in a car with his wife and son on a New Jersey highway in 2005 when he was picked up on a warrant for an outstanding fine, taken to jail and, as part of routine processing, ordered to strip naked.

Florence said he went from the elation of having just bought a new home — the family was headed to a celebratory dinner — to the degradation of a strip search. And the arrest warrant was in error. Florence had paid the fine.

"It was a big shock," Florence, 36, the finance director at a car dealership, recalled before Wednesday's Supreme Court case over his ordeal. "I had just finished purchasing a home. It was a huge accomplishment to be living the American dream. Then, in a matter of moments, I was being processed like an inmate. … After that all happened, I cried, and I hadn't cried since I was a child. I just had so much emotion from being scared, humiliated."

The question for the justices is whether, under the Fourth Amendment's protection against unreasonable searches, jails may strip-search people arrested in connection with minor offenses, no matter what the circumstances. Once naked, Florence was ordered to open his mouth, lift his tongue, hold out his arms, turn around and lift his genitals. He went through a similar search after being transferred to another county jail. Once naked, he was ordered to squat and cough.

Florence's appeal comes two years after the justices ruled that Arizona school authorities' strip-search of a 13-year-old girl suspected of carrying drugs violated her rights. The majority emphasized how being forced to strip naked is a singular intrusion on privacy.

Yet the high court has given jailers wide latitude over how they treat inmates because of security interests. In Florence's case, a lower federal appeals court ruled for Burlington and Essex counties, saying routine strip-searches during processing are justified based on authorities' concerns that weapons, drugs and other contraband might be smuggled into the jail.

"Jails and prisons are fraught with danger," says Alan Ruddy, assistant Essex County counsel. "There's an infinite amount of contraband that comes in. A strip-search is the best way to deter it."

Florence sued on behalf of a class of individuals who were strip-searched after being detained in connection minor infractions. His lawyers say the group includes people picked up for driving with a noisy muffler, failing to use a turn signal and riding a bicycle without an audible bell.

Among the outside interests siding with Florence are a group of psychiatrists and advocates for victims of domestic violence. They point up the traumatic effects of a strip-search, especially among women.

On the other side, backing Burlington and Essex counties, are the U.S. Department of Justice and 12 states, emphasizing the dangerousness of jails. They say the case is controlled by past rulings tied to the needs of correction facilities.

Lawyers for Florence, who is African-American, raised racial concerns. They say in their written brief that Florence kept a copy of the document clearing up the warrant handy "because in his view, he had previously been detained as an African American who drove nice cars, and he wanted to avoid being wrongly arrested."

Florence's wife, April, was driving the family BMW when it was stopped in 2005. The trooper arrested Albert Florence based on a 2003 warrant erroneously in a state computer system. That warrant for failure to pay a fine stemmed from Florence having fled the scene of a stop in 1998, then pleading guilty to hindering prosecution. He was sentenced to two years of probation and a fine he paid at the time of the 2005 arrest.

At the core of the constitutional dispute before the justices, the opposing sides argue over how to apply the 1979 Supreme Court case, Bell v. Wolfish, in which the justices upheld strip-searches for prisoners after visits with outsiders. That case has divided lower courts, resulting in a split over whether a blanket policy of strip-searches for all those arrested is constitutional.

Florence's lawyers say jailers, and judges, must take into account the individual and his offense. "There is no reason to strip-search this particular group of people" arrested for non-criminal offenses, says Susan Chana Lask, Florence's lead lawyer. She says the government's interest in deterring contraband does not outweigh the wholesale intrusion on personal privacy.

Burlington County and Essex County officials counter that Fourth Amendment privacy protections do not cover the processing of prisoners. They say past cases do not distinguish among people arrested based on their alleged offenses.

Michigan and the 11 other states backing the New Jersey counties contend routine strip-searches protect the safety of everyone in jail. More than 13.5 million people spend time in jail or prison each year, the states say.

Washington lawyer Carter Phillips, who will represent the counties Wednesday, emphasizes that once any of those millions of people enter the corrections system, they lose an expectation of privacy. Preventing the type of search that occurred in Florence's case, Phillips says, would let inmates hide "small but dangerous items that threaten institutional order and security."

Cops will search your cell phone and computer without a warrant

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized

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Jerry Brown vetoes bill requiring warrant to search cellphones

October 10, 2011 | 4:42 pm

Gov. Jerry Brown

Gov. Jerry Brown has vetoed legislation that would have made it illegal for police to search a suspect's portable electronic devices during an arrest unless they had a court-issued warrant for the search.

Since he didn't sign that bill into law, California police remain clear to search suspects' cellphones, tablets and other mobile electronic gadgets in the event of an arrest.

Cellphones can aid law enforcement in their investigations, as they may contain a person's contact list, call logs, email and text messages, photos, videos and recent locations, among other personal data.

The measure, SB 914, was sponsored by the ACLU and written by state Sen. Mark Leno (D-San Francisco).

"This measure would overturn a California Supreme Court decision that held that police officers can lawfully search the cellphones of people who they arrest," Brown said in a statement on why he shot down the bill. "The courts are better suited to resolve the complex and case-specific issues relating to constitutional search-and-seizures protections."

As noted by Wired magazine, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed with the California Supreme Court's stance on this issue last week.

As reported by The Times' Patrick McGreevy and Anthony York, Brown also approved or rejected more than 140 other bills Sunday. Among the legislation Brown signed into law was a ban on minors using tanning beds in California.

Another police murder for a victimless drug war crime

Death in custody: Videotape of man's death raises questions about police conduct

By Steve Mills, Tribune reporter

October 11, 2011

In the video, it is apparent John Coleman Jr. is in distress. He is in handcuffs, sprawled on the floor of the back seat of the Chicago police SUV after being arrested on a drug charge. His eyes are bugging out, and he looks as if he is gasping for air. When the SUV stops and someone opens the door, Coleman's head lolls out, only to have an officer close the door to wedge it back inside the vehicle.

Then the officers drove on.

Coleman, who had stuffed small packets of heroin in his mouth, died minutes later at a police station.

That video of what lawyers said was the deliberate indifference of Chicago police officers to Coleman's suffering led the City Council to approve a $1.3 million settlement with Coleman's estate. That it came 14 months after Coleman's death — a speedy resolution in a world where cases often drag on for years — testified to the video's raw power.

The quick settlement reflects a new policy at City Hall. Roderick Drew, a Law Department spokesman, said city lawyers hope to evaluate lawsuits soon after they are filed and, when evidence is against the city, settle them. That, he said, would lessen what the city pays for outside lawyers, who are often hired to defend against lawsuits.

"They felt this was not a winnable case," Drew said. "The videotape was pretty clear and spoke for itself."

The videotape shows how the police violated department rules in handling Coleman. At one point, an officer used a stun gun to subdue the 39-year-old, but failed to get him medical help as he was required to do. Afterward, the officers wrote reports documenting the encounter with Coleman that conflict with the videotape.

"They know he's down and they don't care that he's in bad shape," said John Winters, a lawyer for the Coleman family. "They knew that he had something in his mouth and that he was struggling with it. Absolutely they knew it."

The two officers who transported Coleman in the SUV, Ronnie Black and Alexis Zayas, have been relieved of their police powers while the case is under investigation by the Independent Police Review Authority, or IPRA. The agency investigates allegations of police abuse and makes recommendations about discipline.

The officers could not be reached.

The case has been referred to Cook County prosecutors and federal authorities, standard policy when a person dies in police custody, said Ilana Rosenzweig, chief administrator at the IPRA.

Sally Daly, a spokeswoman for the state's attorney's office, said the office would not pursue charges against the officers. "We don't believe that there's sufficient evidence that there was any criminal conduct or intent on the part of the officers," she said.

A spokeswoman for the FBI declined to comment.

Some parts of the encounter with Coleman will remain unknown. A video camera in the sally port at the Near North District police station, at Larrabee and Division streets, had been broken for about two years in spite of repeated requests to fix it, making it hard to establish everything that happened once police arrived with Coleman at the station.

What is certain, though, is that a routine drug arrest went horribly awry, leading to his death.

The incident began about 2:30 a.m. on July 11, 2010, when officers said they saw Coleman engage in a hand-to-hand drug deal in the 100 block of West Division. Coleman had been arrested dozens of times by Near North District officers, which suggests they were acquainted with him.

Although many of the arrests were for minor violations such as panhandling, Coleman's problems were significant. According to his family, he was schooled as a cook but began to use drugs. Work as a cook became sporadic, and Coleman soon began a slide that resulted in heroin addiction, Winters said.

His mother, Connie, said she was not aware of the details of his troubles, "but I kind of sensed them."

When police initially tried to stop Coleman, he fled but was quickly caught. Police said he struggled with them, and the audio on the videotape suggests a struggle, but it is not seen. At some point, he stuffed several small bags of heroin in his mouth; on the videotape, the officers can be heard telling him to open his mouth.

The officers ultimately got him handcuffed and into the back of a department SUV. With the music to the Foreigner song "Jukebox Hero" playing on the vehicle's radio, the tape shows Coleman in distress. He looks dazed and is rocking back and forth. The police can be heard yelling and cursing at bystanders to get away. On the tape, the bystanders are milling around, some of them already walking away.

On the drive to the station, the SUV stops, and one of the officers checks on Coleman, shining a flashlight at his face. His mouth is open, and again he appears to be in distress. When his head falls out of the back seat, the police close the door on his head to force it back inside. There appears to be little effort to determine if he needs medical attention.

When the police arrive at the station, the video camera in the car shows an officer pulling Coleman out and onto the floor. According to records, an ambulance arrived a short time later, and Coleman was pronounced dead.

An autopsy by the Cook County medical examiner's office found that Coleman died of cocaine and heroin intoxication. Winters disputes that, saying he believes Coleman choked and that an independent autopsy would have shown that. He said the bags of heroin did not break and that toxicology tests to measure the amount of drugs in Coleman's system indicated levels of an addict, not the spikes that suggest a rush of drugs if the bags had opened.

On tapes of interviews with the involved officers, Officer Tomasz Zatora said he saw no indication Coleman was in distress. He said bystanders on Division Street presented a threat to the officers, although the video does not show it. In fact, the IPRA investigator asked the officers about claims from two women who said the police intimidated them because they apparently believed the women were videotaping the arrest with cellphones.

Officer Kristopher Rigan, who used the stun gun on Coleman, described the scene as "very hostile," although the IPRA investigator said the video showed nothing hostile, according to the tape of the interview.

The IPRA's investigation of the incident continues

With the settling of the lawsuit, however, one avenue to find out more about what happened is closed.

Coleman's mother has not viewed the tape and said she does not plan to. But she is disturbed by how her son was treated.

"They knew him down at the station. So for them to treat him the way they did, that was wrong. There are people on the street who've done worse and they made it to the station alive. He didn't even make it there alive," she said. "Even if a person's done wrong, there's a certain amount they're supposed to do to protect that person. But they just treated him like garbage."

smmills@tribune.com

States Adding Drug Test as Hurdle for Welfare

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States Adding Drug Test as Hurdle for Welfare

By A. G. SULZBERGER

Published: October 10, 2011

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — As more Americans turn to government programs for refuge from a merciless economy, a growing number are encountering a new price of admission to the social safety net: a urine sample.

Policy makers in three dozen states this year proposed drug testing for people receiving benefits like welfare, unemployment assistance, job training, food stamps and public housing. Such laws, which proponents say ensure that tax dollars are not being misused and critics say reinforce stereotypes about the poor, have passed in states including Arizona, Indiana and Missouri.

In Florida, people receiving cash assistance through welfare have had to pay for their own drug tests since July, and enrollment has shrunk to its lowest levels since the start of the recession.

The law, the most far-reaching in the nation, provoked a lawsuit last month from the American Civil Liberties Union, arguing that the requirement represents an unreasonable search and seizure.

The flood of proposals across the country, enabled by the strength of Republicans in many statehouses and driven by a desire to cut government spending, recall the politics of the ’80s and ’90s, when higher rates of drug abuse and references to “welfare queens” led to policies aimed at ensuring that public benefits were not spent to support addiction.

Supporters of the policies note that public assistance is meant to be transitional and that drug tests are increasingly common requirements for getting jobs.

“Working people today work very hard to make ends meet, and it just doesn’t seem fair to them that their tax dollars go to support illegal things,” said Ellen Brandom, a Republican state representative in Missouri.

The last three years, she sponsored legislation requiring testing of welfare recipients, and her bill was signed by Gov. Jay Nixon, a Democrat, in July.

Advocates for the poor say the testing policies single out and vilify victims of the recession, disputing the idea that people on public assistance are more likely to use drugs. They also warn that to the extent that testing programs were successful in blocking some people from receiving benefits, the inability to get money for basic needs would aggravate drug addictions and increase demand for treatment.

At Operation Breakthrough, which provides day care services to low-income women here in Kansas City, Nicole, 22, who asked to be identified only by her first name, began to cry as she described trying to provide for her three children on a monthly welfare check of $342, plus $642 in food stamps.

Her electricity was cut off that morning, she said, which meant she could be evicted from her subsidized housing. The struggle to make ends meet while pursuing a health care degree was so consuming that the idea of taking drugs seemed ridiculous, she added.

Kimberley Davis, the director of social services for Operation Breakthrough, said the legislation sent a bad message. “All this does is perpetuate the stereotype that low-income people are lazy, shiftless drug addicts and if all they did was pick themselves up from the bootstraps then the country wouldn’t be in the mess it’s in,” Ms. Davis said.

Many states have already established ways to prevent people with known drug problems from receiving benefits — about 20 states prohibit unemployment payments for anyone who lost a job because of drug use, and more than a dozen states refuse welfare payments to anyone convicted of a drug felony.

But, as tight state budgets have raised concern about government spending and fostered an impatience with aid to the poor, these efforts have gone further. Some point to federal statistics showing that unemployed adults are about twice as likely as employed adults to have used drugs in the previous month.

This year, 36 states considered drug testing for recipients of cash assistance from the major welfare program, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures; 12 states proposed it for unemployment insurance; and some also considered making it a requirement for food stamps, home heating assistance and other programs.

At the same time, a number of cities, including Chicago and Flint, Mich., considered drug testing public housing residents. There have also been proposals in Congress for nationwide testing of welfare recipients.

To date, most of the proposals have failed to win support because of concerns about legality, stemming from a decade-old federal court ruling. That ruling struck down a Michigan law that mandated testing for all welfare recipients as a violation of the constitutional protection against unreasonable search and seizure.

Money has also been an issue — the sides dispute whether the savings in unpaid benefits will eclipse the spending on administration, including the cost of testing.

“It really speaks to how the politics of the moment are dominating the policy conversation in the virtual absence of any evidence,” said Harold Pollack, a professor at the University of Chicago whose research has indicated that people on welfare used drugs at rates similar to the general population.

In Arizona, under a 2009 program reauthorized this year, applicants are tested if they answer yes to a question about recent drug use. Only 16 out of 64,000 answered yes; 931 did not submit the form. The state estimated the savings on benefits had totaled $116,000.

The law in Florida, where the average recipient receives $253 a month for less than five months, is more expansive. It requires applicants to pay for their own drug tests, which the state says costs up to $40, and the state will reimburse those who pass. People who fail the test are disqualified for one year — six months if they receive treatment — and are reported to the Florida abuse hot line. Payments to children can continue through another person, like a grandparent.

Since July, 7,030 passed, 32 failed and 1,597 did not provide results, according to the state. The state said it does not track what drugs caused failures, but elsewhere the vast majority of cases involved marijuana.

Both sides have seized on the early results. Opponents argue that they suggest the number of drug users among people who receive public benefits is lower than the general population, and proponents say that it suggests that drug users are being deterred from taking the test.

A decline in the number of applicants appears to have accelerated since the testing started, according to a spokesman for the Florida Department of Children and Families.

State leaders have defended the program as “nothing more than an additional eligibility criteria,” noting that applicants are free to decline benefits if they do not want to be tested.

“To me it’s real simple: money is going to go to the benefit of children, not to a parent using drugs,” said Gov. Rick Scott, a Republican who campaigned on the proposal.

Arthenia L. Joyner, a Democratic leader in the State Senate who introduced a bill to repeal the law, said that now was not the right time for such policies.

“There are millions of people seeking aid from the state for the first time because they have lost their jobs and they still have children to feed and bills to pay,” she said. “These people now are having to suffer the indignity of having to undergo a drug test.”

Rand removes report on crime and pot dispensaries

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Rand removes report on crime and pot dispensaries

By John Hoeffel, Los Angeles Times

October 12, 2011

Rand Corp.'s website has removed a controversial study that suggested medical marijuana dispensaries may help reduce crime in their neighborhoods, a decision that came almost three weeks after enraged Los Angeles city attorneys slammed the report and demanded an immediate retraction.

Warren Robak, a spokesman for the Santa Monica-based think tank, said Tuesday, "As we've begun to take a look at the report, we decided it's best to remove it from circulation until that review is complete."

The study came under intense assault by the Los Angeles city attorney's office, which has argued in court that crime associated with dispensaries is a key reason the city needs to limit the number. The office called the report's conclusions "highly suspect and unreliable," saying that they were based on "faulty assumptions, conjecture, irrelevant data, untested measurements and incomplete results."

Jane Usher, a special assistant city attorney, said she was gratified by Rand's decision. "We spoke up to Rand, and Rand heard us out over a handful of communications," she said.

In a Sept. 21 letter to Mireille Jacobson, a health economist who was the lead researcher, Usher and Assistant City Atty. Asha Greenberg demanded that the study be repudiated. "Until you publicly retract your work, we expect the Rand publication to be referenced nationwide, at incalculable avoidable harm to public health and safety," they wrote.

Jacobson and the other researchers compared crime reports from the 10 days before the city's medical marijuana ordinance took effect on June 7, 2010, with the 10 days after, when some of the more than 400 illegal dispensaries shut down. They found a 59% increase in crime within 0.3 of a mile of a closed dispensary compared to an open one. But they acknowledged that those results were subject to a large margin of error and said that increase could range from as low as 5.4% to as high as 114%.

The researchers hypothesized that dispensaries may increase security because they employ cameras and guards, generate late-night foot traffic, displace street sales and draw more police patrols.

Usher and Greenberg challenged the assumption that most dispensaries closed on that date and remained closed for at least 10 days, noting: "To our knowledge, no comprehensive effort was ever made by anyone, including Rand, to track and record the precise openings and closings."

They also questioned the study's time frame, writing, "We were also terribly troubled by your suggestion that a 10-day period of statistical review constitutes a relevant crime trend."

Usher and Greenberg also said the researchers failed to use "available crime statistics, which cover considerably more offenses than you charted." They noted that the researchers did not acquire data from the Los Angeles Police Department that they said could be charted by city block.

Robak said Jacobson was not available for comment. He said he was not sure when Rand would complete its internal review. "People are working on this expeditiously," he said.

He acknowledged that the city attorney's office was the most outspoken critic. "I'm unaware of anyone else who's been so pointed in their criticism," he said.

Rand has previously removed studies from its website while they were under review, Robak said, explaining: "It does not happen often, but there is precedent."

He informed the media of the decision and noted, "That is a part of the Rand ethic, if I may boast a bit."

john.hoeffel@latimes.com

Drug Smugglers Tunnel Into Arizona Parking Spaces

Drug Smugglers Tunnel Into Arizona Parking Spaces

By RANDY KREIDER | ABC News

Drug smugglers are endlessly creative when it comes to inventing ways to move marijuana, cocaine and other contraband from Mexico into the United States.

In the latest innovation uncovered by law enforcement, smugglers in the border town of Nogales, Arizona were bringing drugs into the U.S. for the cost of a quarter.

The parking meters on International Street, which hugs the border fence in Nogales, cost 25 cents. Smugglers in Mexico tunneled under the fence and under the metered parking spaces, and then carefully cut neat rectangles out of the pavement. Their confederates on the U.S. side would park false-bottomed vehicles in the spaces above the holes, feed the meters, and then wait while the underground smugglers stuffed their cars full of drugs from below.

When the exchange was finished, the smugglers would use jacks to put the pavement "plugs" back into place. The car would drive away, and only those observers who were looking closely would notice the seams in the street.

In all, U.S. Border Patrol agents found 16 tunnels leading to the 18 metered parking spaces on International Street. The pavement is now riddled with neat, symmetrical patches.

"It's unbelievable," Nogales mayor Arturo Garino told Tucson, Arizona ABC affiliate KGUN. "Those are the strides these people take to get the drugs across the border."

Past methods of smuggling have included catapults that launch bales of drugs across the border fence. "The [smugglers] have tried everything," said Garino, "and this is one of the most ingenious [methods] of them all.

The city, advised by Homeland Security, has agreed to remove the parking meters. Nogales stands to lose $8,500 annually in parking revenue, plus the cost of citations.

Non-profit sues Fountain Hills over marijuana dispensary

Non-profit sues Fountain Hills over marijuana dispensary

Non-profit's suit alleges town 'unreasonably restricts' potential dispensary locations

by Edward Gately - Oct. 13, 2011 12:00 AM

The Arizona Republic

A non-profit corporation has filed a lawsuit against Fountain Hills, claiming the town's medical-marijuana ordinance "unreasonably restricts" potential locations for a dispensary.

Pure Medical Marijuana & Wellness Center II filed the civil suit in Maricopa County Superior Court. The town and Town Council are named as defendants.

Town Attorney Andrew McGuire said Fountain Hills plans to fight the legal challenge.

"The town's ordinance is a reasonable land-use regulation as permitted by state law," he said.

The center wants to own and operate a non-profit dispensary at 17005 E. Colony Drive.

One medical-marijuana dispensary will be allowed within the town, in a commercial-zoning district that includes the area along Colony Drive off Saguaro Boulevard.According to the suit, Fountain Hills senior planner Bob Rodgers said the town wouldn't take any action on the center's application pending a decision in a federal lawsuit that prompted the need for clarification in the state law.

Arizona municipalities have been considering applications for proposed dispensary locations. Zones established throughout the state determine how many dispensaries are allowed in a given area.

City or town approval of a location does not guarantee a dispensary could open there. Should the law be allowed to take effect, the final decision on who receives a permit would lie with the Arizona Department of Health Services.

The only geographical restriction included in the state law is that medical-marijuana dispensaries and cultivation facilities cannot be within 500 feet of a school, said attorney Jeffrey Kaufman, who is representing the center. The town imposed an additional restriction that no licensed dispensary can be within 500 feet of a place of worship, he said.

At issue is the proposed location of the dispensary in proximity to North Chapel Community Bible Church, which operates in an office building at 16929 E. Enterprise Drive.

"We're trying to force the town to acknowledge primarily that the offices of the church located within 500 feet of the proposed dispensary do not constitute a church because they do not conduct services at that location," Kaufman said.

Marlo Hardy, manager of Messinger Fountain Hills Mortuary, 12065 N. Saguaro Blvd., has confirmed that North Chapel uses that facility for its Sunday worship services.

However, Dan Scruggs, pastor of North Chapel, has said numerous church functions, including Bible studies and worship, take place at the Enterprise Drive location. He said the church encompasses most of the building.

The suit seeks a judicial determination that the activities at North Chapel do not constitute a church or place of worship, and that the geographic restriction imposed by the town ordinance makes it "unreasonable and unenforceable," Kaufman said.

The town and council "purposely adopted an ordinance that unreasonably restricts potential locations" of dispensaries to two vacant lots, which are owned by the same party, he said.

Policing for profits in Pinal County

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Pinal supervisors warn Babeu over helicopter plans Sheriff is told he won't get funds to operate new helicopter

by Lindsey Collom - Oct. 15, 2011 12:00 AM

The Arizona Republic

Pinal County supervisors have warned Sheriff Paul Babeu they won't give him a cent to operate a used helicopter he's buying with most of the $1 million he received from the state Legislature to fight drug and human smuggling.

Babeu will pay $799,850 for a chopper he plans to use for smuggling interdiction, search and rescue and high-speed pursuits. An additional $100,000 to $150,000 is needed to make the craft law-enforcement ready.

Lt. Scott Elliot, one of two pilots for the helicopter, told supervisors on Wednesday that the sheriff plans to use seized drug money and remaining state funds to cover service and fuel costs, anticipated to be $300,000 annually if the chopper were to stay in the air 15 hours a week.

"We as a county do not have the general funds to operate this luxury, and it is a luxury," said Supervisor Bryan Martyn, a retired U.S. Air Force helicopter pilot. "The Sheriff's Office will need to find its own funds."

Word of the purchase came just as the board was asked to spend more than $600,000 in contingency funds to offset a deficit in the sheriff's 2011 budget for fuel and overtime costs. A deficit of $700,000 is anticipated for 2012, and sheriff's officials blame high gas fees and the county's non-response to repeated requests for a larger fuel budget.

The timing riled Supervisor Pete Rios.

"The sheriff's department has exceeded their current budget as it is, and to now say it's OK to buy a luxury item and spend another $300,000 on fuel?" Rios said. "I can't support this."

Sheriff's spokesman Tim Gaffney said the office has been given the same fuel budget since 2009 but uses about $122,000 in gas each month, mostly through prisoner transport and patrol operations.

Gaffney said helicopter fuel will be paid out of the sheriff's private fund.

"The county needs to project the rising cost of fuel properly and supplement the Sheriff's Office budget appropriately so that we don't continue to have this issue," he said.

A chopper has been on the sheriff's wish list for some time.

In July, Deputy Chief Steve Henry told the state's Joint Border Security Advisory Committee that the fight against cartels was like "going to war" each day and that a helicopter is necessary to better track smugglers and conduct night operations. A small, fixed-wing airplane is currently being used for daytime surveillance.

Gaffney said there is no mechanism in place to track the number of times the office has asked other law-enforcement agencies for helicopter assistance, but that it "far exceeds 100 times per year."

Elliott is set to pick up the single-engine chopper next week from a broker near Austin, Texas. Capital Rotor Craft was the only one of 129 companies across the nation to respond to the county's bid invitation.

The bid sought one used, McDonnell Douglas 500E or similar helicopter with seating for at least four occupants. The craft could be no more than 25 years old, have no more than 8,000 hours in the air, no history of damage, and have been maintained according to manufacturer recommendations. Capital Rotor Craft met those specifications.

"The value of even one life saved in a rescue, or avoiding a fatal crash in a dangerous high-speed pursuit should be reason enough for the county to purchase a helicopter on its own," said Gaffney. "However, our legislature and Governor (Jan) Brewer realized our need and provided 100 percent of the funding to purchase this aircraft."

Lawmakers gave Babeu $1 million after he pleaded for more resources.

They don't even obey their own laws!!!!

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Quakers try to stop flow of inmates to Arizona's private prisons

Posted: Friday, October 14, 2011 4:55 pm

By Howard Fischer, Capitol Media Services

A Quaker group asked a judge on Friday to block the state from putting more inmates in private prisons, saying the Department of Corrections has never shown it is safe or even cost effective.

Vince Rabago, representing the American Friends Service Committee, told Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Arthur Anderson that the law requires the state to make a comparison every two years between the services and safety of state-run facilities and those operated by private companies. But there has never been such a study even though that law has been on the books for more than 20 years.

Without the study, Rabago argued, there is no basis to know whether it makes sense for the state to go ahead with its plans to contract for another 5,000 private prison beds. So he wants Anderson to block that contract from being awarded until the first study, which the Department of Corrections is finally doing this year, is completed.

“The state has an obligation to follow its laws,” Rabago told the judge.

The 1987 law dealing with awarding of contracts for private prisons requires the director of the Department of Corrections to look at the job contractors are doing every two years, considering everything from the programs and services offered to inmates to food service and security. Rabago told Anderson the state needs the study as a baseline to compare to what bidders for the new contract are offering.

Assistant Attorney General Rex Nowlan conceded that the state never had performed the study. But he said that is legally irrelevant, arguing that the Department of Corrections is effectively looking at all those issues.

He also pointed out that same law already prohibits the state from contracting for private prison beds “unless the proposal offers cost savings to this state.”

Anyway, Nowlan questioned how the Quaker group — or the other plaintiffs who are the parents of an adult inmate in a private prison — has any right to sue simply because the Department of Corrections has not complied with the law requiring a study. He said the only people who would have a right to complain are the lawmakers who are supposed to get the report.

Rabago disagreed.

“Taxpayers have a right to prevent the illegal expenditure of taxpayer monies,” he told the judge.

Nowlan responded that the Legislature specifically directed the Department of Corrections to contract for another 5,000 beds at privately run prisons. That is on top of the 6,400 inmates already housed in private facilities.

With that direction, Nowlan said, what the agency is doing cannot be called illegal.

Rabago said this is more than a question of a missing report.

“Maybe had the state done its job, maybe had it been doing these studies properly ... maybe we would not be in a position where we would have had Kingman (private prison) escapees murdering innocent people,” he said. “Maybe we wouldn’t have riots and unsafe conditions which we know exist.”

That murder reference is to an incident last year when three violent criminals escaped from a private prison run by Management and Training Corp. after an accomplice threw a wire cutter over the fence.

All eventually were recaptured, but not before an Oklahoma couple, kidnapped at a New Mexico rest area, was murdered; several of those involved have been charged in that incident.

A study following that incident found various failures with the operation of the facility, including a perimeter alarm system that malfunctioned so often that corrections officers routinely ignored it.

The study also concluded the state itself had done a poor job of oversight.

State officials have not said when they will finally award the new contract. But Barrett Marson, a spokesman for the Department of Corrections, said his agency asked all the bidders to extend the expiration date on their offers until Nov. 22 to provide more time to review the proposals.

Anderson gave no indication of when he will rule.

L.A.'s much-contested medical pot ordinance is upheld

L.A.'s much-contested medical pot ordinance is upheld

By John Hoeffel, Los Angeles Times

October 15, 2011

A local judge on Friday upheld Los Angeles' much-contested medical marijuana ordinance, denying motions from 29 medical marijuana dispensaries that had sought to halt enforcement of the law.

The decision is a major victory for the city attorney's office, which has invested considerable time and expense in defending the law from a phalanx of lawyers working for dispensaries.

Superior Court Judge Anthony J. Mohr, who handles some of the most complex cases in Los Angeles County, held a series of hearings over many months on numerous constitutional challenges raised by the pot collectives. He delved deeply into the issue, studying vaguely worded state medical marijuana laws, a tangle of court cases and exhaustive briefing papers filed by the opposing sides.

"It has been a long wait but well worth it," said Jane Usher, a special assistant city attorney. "It is absolutely gratifying to have the city's ordinance validated."

Aaron Lachant, a lawyer whose firm represents 21 of the dispensaries, said he was disappointed. "We believe the ordinance poses a threat to patient safety," he said. "We're exploring our options to invalidate the city's ordinance, and one of those options does include an appeal."

In his 26-page opinion denying a preliminary injunction, Mohr rejected all of the arguments raised by collectives, concluding that the local law was properly adopted, provides due process rights, protects patient privacy and does not set up an arbitrary process to limit dispensaries. He also ruled that the city's dispensaries have no vested rights to continue operating, which Usher called a crucial finding.

"Had that argument prevailed, we would be addressing the claims of more than 200, perhaps as many as 500 collectives," she said. "I never felt that argument had a shred of credibility."

Last year, Mohr struck down portions of the city's first ordinance. The city appealed, but the appellate court has not ruled. The city enacted a second ordinance in January, which drew more lawsuits.

Despite Mohr's strong endorsement, the City Council will meet Tuesday in closed session to start work on a third version. A state appellate court ruled earlier this month that Long Beach cannot use a lottery to choose dispensaries because the city violated federal law by effectively authorizing the distribution of a drug that is illegal. Los Angeles had planned to hold a lottery to select 100 dispensaries that would be allowed to keep operating.

In his ruling, Mohr declined to take into account the Long Beach decision, noting that it conflicts with other state appellate decisions. "The law appears to be unsettled now, and this court sees no benefit or present need to add to the fray with another ruling," he wrote. But he noted that the decision, handed down by a Los Angeles-based appeals court, could have a "profound impact" on the city's ordinance.

Los Angeles and the collectives are also trying to negotiate a settlement. "Our clients are still willing to work with the city to find a reasonable solution," Lachant said.

Usher said Mohr's decision denying that dispensaries have a vested right to operate could shape the way the council decides to limit the number of outlets in the city. The ruling could lead the lawmakers to adopt a much simpler ordinance that relies on strict zoning regulations to limit the number of locations.

Regardless of what the council decides to do, Usher said she expects dispensaries to challenge it. "We did become a magnet for massive, voluminous litigation," she said.

john.hoeffel@latimes.com

California Medical Assn. calls for legalization of marijuana

I find that hard to believe. Ever since I was a child and was aware that marijuana was used to get high, I remember the Feds doing tons of medical research attempting to prove marijuana was a dangerous drug. Of course the Feds have failed miserably in that effort. I can't remember even one negative thing the Fed have discovered about pot. Well other then the rubbish in the movie "Reefer Madness" where we were taught in high school that if a Black man smokes pot it will make him rape 6 White women.

Any pot smoker will tell you pot does a real good job of making you sleep, with out the unhealthy effects of booze or sleeping pills. Pot also gives sick people who are having a hard time eating the ability to eat. And of course pot cures pain, a lot better then aspirin, with out the addictive problems of morphine.

Last while pot does give you a good buzz like booze does, it doesn't turn people into *ssholes like liquor does.

Last there are an amazing large number of medical claims on how marijuana is a miracle drug and prevents cancer and helps the body in many other ways. I don't know if they are true or not, but we certainly can't do the medical research needed as long as Uncle Sam has his stuck in a hole claiming marijuana is a dangerous drug.

Source

California Medical Assn. calls for legalization of marijuana

By Anthony York, Los Angeles Times

October 16, 2011, 6:01 p.m.

Reporting from Sacramento— The state's largest doctor group is calling for legalization of marijuana, even as it pronounces cannabis to be of questionable medical value.

Trustees of the California Medical Assn., which represents more than 35,000 physicians statewide, adopted the position at their annual meeting in Anaheim late Friday. It is the first major medical association in the nation to urge legalization of the drug, according to a group spokeswoman, who said the larger membership was notified Saturday.

Dr. Donald Lyman, the Sacramento physician who wrote the group's new policy, attributed the shift to growing frustration over California's medical marijuana law, which permits cannabis use with a doctor's recommendation. That, he said, has created an untenable situation for physicians: deciding whether to give patients a substance that is illegal under federal law.

"It's an uncomfortable position for doctors," he said. "It is an open question whether cannabis is useful or not. That question can only be answered once it is legalized and more research is done. Then, and only then, can we know what it is useful for."

The CMA's new stance appears to have as much to do with politics as science. The group has rejected one of the main arguments of medical marijuana advocates, declaring that the substance has few proven health benefits and comparing it to a "folk remedy."

The group acknowledges some health risk associated with marijuana use and proposes that it be regulated along the lines of alcohol and tobacco. But it says the consequences of criminalization outweigh the hazards.

Lyman says current laws have "proven to be a failed public health policy." He cited increased prison costs, the effect on families when marijuana users are imprisoned and racial inequalities in drug-sentencing cases.

The organization's announcement provoked some angry response.

"I wonder what they're smoking," said John Lovell, spokesman for the California Police Chiefs Assn. "Given everything that we know about the physiological impacts of marijuana — how it affects young brains, the number of accidents associated with driving under the influence — it's just an unbelievably irresponsible position."

The CMA's view is also controversial in the medical community.

Dr. Robert DuPont, an M.D. and professor of psychiatry at Georgetown Medical School, said the association's call for legalization showed "a reckless disregard of the public health. I think it's going to lead to more use, and that, to me, is a public health concern. I'm not sure they've thought through what the implications of legalization would be."

Dr. Igor Grant, head of the Center for Medicinal Cannabis at UC San Diego, defended the drug's therapeutic use.

"There's good evidence that it has medicinal value," he said. "Can you say it's 100% bulletproof? No. But the research we've done at the center shows it's helpful with certain types of pain."

The federal government views cannabis as a substance with no medical use, on a par with heroin and LSD. The CMA wants the Obama administration to reclassify it to help promote further research on its medical potential.

But Washington appears to be moving in the other direction. As recently as July, the federal government turned down a request to reclassify marijuana. That decision is being appealed in federal court by legalization advocates.

In recent weeks, the Obama administration has begun cracking down on California's medical marijuana industry, threatening to prosecute landlords who rent buildings to pot dispensaries.

California's marijuana laws have eased over the last 15 years. State voters passed Proposition 215 in 1996, decriminalizing it for medicinal purposes. Federal law still prohibits the sale or possession of the drug for any reason.

The CMA opposed Proposition 215, and it argues that doctors have been placed unwillingly in the center of the feud over the drug.

"When the proposition passed, we as an organized medical community got thrown into the middle of this issue, because the posture of the proposition and its proponents found that cannabis is a medicinal product that is useful for a long list of specific ailments," Lyman said.

The state has since softened its laws on even recreational use of the drug. In 2010, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a bill that reclassified possession of less than an ounce from a misdemeanor to an infraction.

At the same time, the number of marijuana dispensaries was skyrocketing, to between 1,000 and 2,000 statewide, according to estimates by law enforcement officials. In January, the Los Angeles City Council set strict limits on pot outlets, ordering the closure of hundreds of them.

Opinion polls show that state voters continue to be in favor of medical marijuana but are divided on the question of total legalization. A recent survey by the Public Policy Institute of California found 51% opposed to complete legalization and 46% in favor.

Last November, California voters rejected Proposition 19, which would have legalized the possession and cultivation of limited amounts of cannabis and permitted local governments to regulate it and tax sales. The CMA took no public position on the measure, its leaders said.

Across the country, physicians have called for more cannabis-related research. The CMA's parent organization, the American Medical Assn., has said the federal government should consider easing research restrictions.

Meanwhile, Lyman said, "there is considerable harm being done."

anthony.york@latimes.com

Medical-pot convention attendees warned

Source

Medical-pot convention attendees warned

by Bill Laitner - Oct. 15, 2011 11:37 AM

Detroit Free Press

DETROIT - A two-day convention for medical marijuana users planned for Saturday and Sunday in Detroit will have judging for best strains of marijuana and an "outdoor medicating section," organizers say.

The High Times Cannabis Cup is being staged by New York-based High Times, a 38-year-old monthly magazine that says it has 250,000 subscribers.

The judges' favorite marijuana strains will get prizes "and will afterward be known as the highest in their fields," a news release said.

"We're doing this entirely on private property -- the medication area will be sealed off -- and only people with (state registry) cards will be allowed in there," High Times executive editor Dan Skye said.

"Michigan needs jobs and medical marijuana could help," Skye said. The event will have seminars and booths on health, cultivation, cooking and veterans rights, he said.

"We're following all the laws," Skye added. But, he said, he was worried about Michigan's legal climate, including recent court decisions and statements by the state attorney general that have tightened access to medical marijuana and sent some users to prison or jail.

The Wayne County Prosecutor's Office cautions those planning on attending.

"It's against the law in Michigan to use marijuana in a public place," spokeswoman Maria Miller said.

"This is true even if you are the holder of a medical marijuana card" because cardholders should get the drug only from their state-registered caregivers, Miller said Friday

Detroit police echoed the Prosecutor's Office.

"We will be monitoring this, and all laws will be enforced," said Assistant Police Chief Chester Logan, although he would not specify whether the event's contests would constitute breaking the law.

Felipe Calderon doesn't want his drug war to end

Source

Mexico’s President Works to Lock In Drug War Tactics

By RANDAL C. ARCHIBOLD, DAMIEN CAVE and ELISABETH MALKIN

Published: October 15, 2011

MEXICO CITY — As the twilight of his presidency sets in, President Felipe Calderón of Mexico is striving to lock in the militarized approach to drug cartels that has defined his tenure, pushing aside public doubts and pressing lawmakers to adopt strategies he hopes will outlast him.

Mr. Calderón has recently stepped up calls for Mexico’s Congress to approve stalled initiatives to remake state and local police forces, codify the military’s role in fighting crime and broaden its powers, toughen the federal penal code and tighten laws to stop money laundering.

At this pivotal point, with violence swelling and presumptive candidates jockeying for position ahead of Mexico’s presidential election in July, Mr. Calderón has limited time to make the case that his strategy has worked.

He insists that the country will eventually become more secure, although about 40,000 people have been killed since he declared his war against organized crime. He began waging it shortly after taking office in 2006 as violence climbed, and he has continued pressing his offensive against drug organizations as they have splintered and descended into bloody infighting over territory and criminal rackets.

But in a wide-ranging interview, he could not say that his approach had made Mexico safer.

“What I can say is Mexico will be safer,” he said, “and to have not acted, it would have deteriorated much more.”

It is a nuanced, difficult argument to make as his party, the right-of-center National Action Party, faces the real prospect of losing the presidency, raising the question of whether Mr. Calderón’s approach will continue after his six-year term ends next year. Term limits prevent him from running again.

The killings in Mexico have reached such a point, analysts say, that no matter who wins the election, there will be intense pressure for a new course to somehow ease the violence without giving in to the cartels. The new president will also face demands from the United States, which has invested heavily in personnel, equipment and expertise and whose political leaders worry about the growing reach of transnational gangs.

“There seems to be a growing consensus that there needs to be a more refined strategy, a more targeted strategy, a more nuanced strategy,” said Eric Olson, a senior associate at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. “It’s anybody’s guess what that will be.”

The inability to control the violence, with fresh horrors nearly every week, has rattled even some admirers in the United States Congress, who have begun to question publicly whether Mr. Calderón’s strategy — supported by the $1.4 billion in anticrime aid the United States is providing through the multiyear Merida Initiative — is making progress.

“I admire him for taking them head on, which is a very dangerous thing to do,” said Representative Michael McCaul, a Texas Republican on the House Committee on Homeland Security. “He is the first president to confront the problem and do something about it. But has it been 100 percent successful? Not at all. It seems to keep getting worse.”

The Obama administration, too, while consistently praising Mr. Calderón for taking on the cartels and making some gains against its leaders, has remained concerned about the violence, the spread of Mexican drug gangs into Central America, and the slow pace of strengthening law enforcement and judicial institutions.

“Mexico’s military and police still struggle to break the trafficking organizations or contain criminal violence,” Philip S. Goldberg, an assistant secretary of state, testified in a House hearing on Thursday. He also said that “rising violence is taking a toll on public perceptions of the government’s ability to defeat the trafficking organizations.”

As he took stock of his presidency, Mr. Calderón emphasized what he considered his triumphs, including creating jobs, expanding health care, arresting or killing more than two dozen cartel leaders, and pushing efforts to build trustworthy police and judicial institutions, as well as social programs to fight the root causes of crime.

Still, coming close to self-criticism for someone who has typically blamed the United States or Mexican lawmakers for what goes wrong, Mr. Calderón said he would have shored up state and local police forces that were now overwhelmed as well as hobbled by inexperience, lack of training, incompetence and corruption.

“We would have done it in a more aggressive, much more determined way from the start,” he said.

No doubt, especially outside Mexico, Mr. Calderón, whom American officials credit for raising cooperation with United States law enforcement agencies to extraordinary levels, has won praise for taking on the fight and steering the Mexican economy through the global financial crisis.

“He has done amazing things for Mexico,” said Susan Segal, president of the Americas Society in New York, which gave Mr. Calderón an award last month to a standing ovation. “Mexico has some of the best economic management in the world, and this is the first time Mexico has taken on a lot of really bad people.”

But back at home his approval among voters, 53 percent, according to a recent poll, has fallen to a point lower than the ratings for any recent Mexican president at this point in the six-year term.

“He has not been able, maybe because it has been very difficult to impossible, to explain to Mexicans why the security fight is worth fighting,” said Luis de la Calle, Mexico’s under secretary for international trade from 1999 to 2002.

While Mr. Calderón is barred by law from publicly endorsing a candidate, associates have said he favors his former finance minister, Ernesto Cordero, who has suggested keeping the current public security minister in his cabinet and promises to continue the administration’s economic policies. But Mr. Cordero trails most of the other candidates.

Instead, the party that dominated Mexico for 70 years, the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, could well return to the presidency, invoking a time when criminal organizations and government officials kept the peace but corroded the political system. The party’s presumed front-runner for the nomination, Enrique Peña Nieto, leads most polls significantly, though political analysts caution against giving that too much weight so early in the process.

Mr. Calderón looked disgusted at the mere mention of the PRI. When told that Mr. Peña Nieto had criticized the deployment of the military in a recent BBC interview, saying it showed a lack of planning, Mr. Calderón scoffed.

“Imagine me, president of Mexico, waiting 5 or 10 years” to take action “while criminals come to your house, taking advantage of people, taking governments they wanted,” he said. “It’s absurd.”

Mr. Calderón has also warned American legislators about his political rivals.

“He said the PRI candidate is going to be weak on this issue and sleep in the same bed as the cartels,” said Mr. McCaul, the Texas Republican.

Mr. Peña Nieto declined to comment, but in interviews with local news media he has not outlined a plan drastically different from Mr. Calderón’s.

That may reflect the public mood, with polls like one by the Pew Research Center conducted last spring showing that while only 45 percent think the government is making progress in its campaign against drug cartels, 83 percent support the use of the military in the crackdown.

One change Mr. Calderón has pressed for would give the president wide latitude to declare a state of emergency and suspend constitutional guarantees, provoking criticism that the plan would worsen abuses by the military.

Locking in the changes he seeks and solidifying his legacy may be difficult because Mr. Calderón, who won a narrow victory in 2006, faces a divided legislature whose members are already focusing on next year’s election. Efforts to revamp local and state police forces under a unified command have languished for months.

Mr. Calderón has toured Mexico and the United States, trumpeting economic gains, the expansion of health care to most Mexicans, and the construction of roads and hundreds of hospitals.

He has remained steadfast in his relationship with the United States, despite obvious friction. While he pushed for the ouster of the previous American ambassador, who had derided Mexican law enforcement and military agencies in diplomatic cables, he declined to criticize the United States over a program known as “Fast and Furious” in which American agents lost track of weapons they had allowed to cross into Mexico, with dozens ending up at crime scenes.

Mr. Calderón said he learned of the program just after meeting with Mr. Obama in Washington, from a newspaper account. It troubled him, he said, but lashing out at the United States would not serve Mexico’s interests.

“If I take the bait and go against President Obama, against the A.T.F.,” the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, “the only thing I’m doing is weakening what I know are true allies and falling into the strategy of those who are really damaging Mexico, such as gun dealers.”

All in all, Mr. Calderón said he made no apologies.

“I don’t heed what they say in the polls,” he said. “Mexico must be cleaned up, and it is up to me to do it.”

Pot growers move to Calif. farms

AP Enterprise: Pot growers move to Calif. farms

Posted 10/17/2011 6:30 AM ET

By Gosia Wozniacka And Marcus Wohlsen, Associated Press

SANGER, Calif. — This summer, California narcotics officers have pulled millions fewer pot plants from the state's remote forests than in past years. The reason, investigators say, is that drug traffickers have come down out of the mountains to plant pot in plain sight in backyards and on prime farmland, where California's medical marijuana law makes them tougher to bust.

Historically, growers of large-scale illicit pot gardens relied on the cover and isolation of California's wildernesses to protect their plants. Last year, the state's annual campaign to root out such grows netted more than 4.3 million plants worth billions of dollars. This year, however, the number of plants seized dropped by almost half.

State anti-drug agents say traffickers have migrated to California's Central Valley, one of the country's most fertile agricultural zones. From here, they say pot grown on tree-sized plants makes its way not just to California's storefront marijuana dispensaries but also to street dealers across the country.

In Fresno County alone, investigators typically expect to find 60 to 80 large grows in the mountains, said Lt. Richard Ko, head of marijuana eradication for the county sheriff's office, in response to inquiries from The Associated Press. In 2011, they found nine, he said. Meanwhile, the number of large pot farms on the Valley floor rose to 121 countywide, up from 37 in 2010.

Instead of huge, isolated gardens, traffickers have turned to networks of smaller growing operations, investigators say.

Their smaller size keeps them off the radar of federal agents seeking bigger hauls, and local prosecutors are wary of pursuing cases against growers claiming the pot is for medical use, said longtime narcotics agent Brent Wood.

"We can't touch 'em, and it's everywhere," said Wood, who commands the multi-agency Central Valley Marijuana Investigation Team.

Investigators say growers often lease plots from landowners or farmers. In some cases, the growers are small farmers themselves who grow pot to supplement their incomes or simply raise other crops as a cover from onlookers' eyes.

During a helicopter flight over Fresno County this past week, pot plantations were easy to spot. Ko pointed out farms where marijuana plants covered dozens of acres. Most of the massive grows were fenced and surrounded by vegetables on trellises. Some were concealed within abandoned orchards. On several grows, workers harvested plants and dried marijuana on tarps.

Over the city of Fresno, Ko pointed to dozens of pot plots in the backyards of homes.

On the ground, Ko drove down a dirt road to a farm on the outskirts of Sanger, near Fresno. Above tall vines of yellowing melons, marijuana plants the size of fruit trees were just barely visible. The plot of about 60 plants was surrounded by a fence decked with lights and motion sensors.

Three growers approached Ko and presented makeshift medical marijuana cards.

One grower, Mike Kipraseut, led Ko past a pit bull and a lookout platform in a tree. Several pot plants were on the ground, chopped at the stems. The family, who said they were refugees from Laos, decided to get rid of the plants, Kipraseut said, because they had seen the helicopter circling earlier that week. In any case, he said the plants would not mature in time to harvest them before the rains.

Kipraseut said this was the first year he had grown pot and that he sells vegetables for a living. He said he smoked it for headaches following brain surgery. His uncle, who didn't give his name, said he suffered from back pain.

"I'm not going to do it next year," said Kipraseut, whose family leases 20 acres of farmland at $500 per acre. "It's too much of a risk."

Ko asked if the family wanted help in getting rid of the plants, and they agreed. Later that day, federal agents dragged the plants to a trailer that would haul them away. The family would not be arrested because they had cooperated with authorities, Ko said, adding that similar marijuana plots were growing on four nearby farms.

Growers often post multiple pot recommendations or ID cards near their gardens, investigators say. Under California's landmark 1996 ballot measure, patients with a doctor's recommendation or their caregivers can grow pot for medical use. The state Supreme Court found last year that the measure trumped a later state law limiting how much pot a patient can grow. Efforts by counties to restrict the number of plants per patient were left in limbo.

"Some fields have hundreds of recommendations from doctors," Ko said. "In order to get them, we have to catch them selling out of state or for profit."

Investigators believe much of what's grown in farms and backyards as medical marijuana gets shipped as far as Texas, Illinois and Boston. While a glut of high-grade marijuana has brought wholesale prices in California as low as $900 per pound, agents say the same pot on East Coast streets can bring up to $3,000 per pound.

Hundreds of pot plants can be grown per acre, each potentially yielding a pound or more of pot.

"I don't know of any crop that brings that kind of money per acre," said Ryan Jacobson, director of the Fresno County Farm Bureau.

Earlier this month, federal prosecutors announced a crackdown on hundreds of California pot dispensaries who were warned to stop selling pot or face prosecutions and asset seizures.

But several federal cases highlight the scale some farmland pot farms have reached.

Agents raided a 54-acre farm near Sanger in November 2010 and pulled up nearly 4,400 plants and seized more than 1,100 pounds of processed pot.

In July, agents returned and found about 25,000 plants growing in a sophisticated operation staffed by 50 workers, protected by barbed wire and a lookout tower. Those plants were uprooted, but officials said the site was replanted again -- this week agents pulled out more than 200 plants.

As with several other landowners accused of leasing to pot growers, federal prosecutors are seeking to seize the land.

Growers appear to find the profits worth the risk. The region has abundant sunlight and irrigation, and fertilizer is as close as the nearest hardware store. Investigators claim the marijuana plants grown on farmland yield five pounds of pot compared to one pound per plant raised in the forest, where growers sacrifice sunlight to keep plants hidden from law enforcement flyovers.

Said Wood: "These backyard grows have been producing these monster marijuana plants like I've never seen in my life."

___

Marcus Wohlsen can be reached on Twitter at http://twitter.com/MarcusWohlsen. He reported from San Francisco.

Gosia Wozniacka can be reached on Twitter at http://twitter.com/gosiawozniacka

Border agency's rapid growth accompanied by rise in corruption

Border agency's rapid growth accompanied by rise in corruption

By Andrew Becker and Richard Marosi

October 16, 2011, 10:30 p.m.

When Luis Alarid was a child, his mother would seat him in the car while she smuggled people and drugs across the U.S.-Mexico border. She was the sweet-talking commuter, he was her cute boy, and the mother-son ploy regularly kept customs inspectors from peeking inside the trunk.

Twenty-five years later, Alarid was back at the border in San Diego, seeking a job as a customs inspector. To get hired by U.S. Customs and Border Protection, he first needed to clear screening that examined his personal, financial and work histories.

Alarid had served in the Marines and Army, which was a factor in his favor. But there was cause for concern: His finances were in shambles, including $30,000 in credit card debt. His mother, father and other relatives had been convicted of or indicted on charges of smuggling.

After the background check and an interview, Alarid was cleared for a border posting.

Within months, he turned his government job into a lucrative criminal enterprise. In cahoots with a gang that included his uncle and, allegedly, his mother, Alarid let cars into California filled with drugs and illegal immigrants.

"I was inside now, going around understanding how things work," Alarid said in a telephone interview from federal prison in Kentucky, where he is serving a seven-year sentence for corruption.

Alarid's is one of several corruption cases in recent years that have raised concerns about the adequacy of the customs agency's screening, a joint examination by The Times and the Center for Investigative Reporting has found.

As the agency rapidly increased staffing, the system designed to identify shady job applicants struggled to keep pace, resulting in hurried background checks and loosened hiring standards, said former and current Customs officials, background investigators and Border Patrol union officials.

At a congressional hearing in June, Customs Commissioner Alan Bersin acknowledged screening problems, and other officials have said that insufficient funding created a backlog of background investigations. "The accelerated hiring pace under which we operated between 2006 and 2008 … exposed critical organizational and individual vulnerabilities within," Bersin said.

Alarid's case and others also highlight the difficulty of assessing job candidates: Should prospective agents, for instance, be rejected because of the crimes of relatives? Should a background in Mexican law enforcement be enough to disqualify a candidate because of that country's rampant police corruption? Are high debt levels a sign of recklessness or the consequence of a weak economy?

Border agents and Customs inspectors are exposed to endless illegal moneymaking opportunities. Dozens of officers in recent years have turned their government jobs into illicit riches, funding desert estates and Las Vegas gambling binges, luxury cars and buying sprees at Tiffany's.

"It's such a perfect storm, if you will, down there along the southwest border, with the vast supply of money and the aggressive tactics of the cartels," said Terry Reed, an FBI supervisory agent.

Since October 2004, 132 Customs employees have been indicted or convicted on corruption-related charges, the majority from the Southwest border. Since 2006, the number of investigations has more than tripled, from 244 to about 870 last year, according to the Department of Homeland Security's Office of the Inspector General.

Of the 24,000 Customs agents along the southwest border, about half were hired in the last five years. The agency is on track to hire 2,500 additional agents in the next year.

Job requirements at Customs, for which agents don't need a high school diploma, have always been more lenient than at other federal agencies. The FBI, for example, requires a college degree and relevant work experience. Critics contend that the Border Patrol traditionally hired candidates with some military or college experience but that that changed in recent years, when the ranks were filled with younger and less-experienced applicants, some still in their teens.

W. Ralph Basham, Customs commissioner from 2006 until 2009, said he told high-ranking officials at the Department of Homeland Security that he was not comfortable with the agency's rapid expansion. Those concerns were dismissed.

"We cautioned against this strategy, but we were under tremendous pressure along the Southwest border to do something," Basham said.

The sharp increase in corruption cases has resulted in reforms. Customs started bolstering its internal affairs division in 2007, and Congress last year passed legislation that requires all prospective agents by 2013 to undergo polygraph testing.

So many applicants were awaiting screening in 2009 that the turnaround time was 294 days, government statistics showed. In some cases, investigators under pressure to work faster cut corners by doing fewer, or shorter, interviews of candidates' former employers, landlords and relatives. Some of the background checks are done by outside contractors who get paid per investigation and have an incentive to quickly complete the reviews.

"Whenever there's a big fluctuation in hiring, it puts a real strain on the selection process and background investigations involved," said William Henderson, a retired government background investigator and author of a security clearance manual.

The backlog has also hampered reviews of veteran agents, who often don't undergo the required five-year periodic investigations until years later, said background investigators and agents.

Even with sufficient time, screeners can't always get a full picture of an applicant's life. John Paul Yanez-Camacho, for instance, was a former law enforcement officer from the Mexican state of Chihuahua and a manager of a nightclub in Ciudad Juarez owned by a suspected drug trafficker when he applied in 2003 to be an inspector. But investigators didn't know his full employment history, in part because the Mexican government doesn't permit U.S. background investigators to conduct probes in their country.

Two years after being hired, Yanez-Camacho started accessing a sensitive law enforcement database without authorization. From 2005 to 2006, he did so more than 250 times, often trying to get information about law enforcement investigations involving the suspected drug trafficker, according to his plea agreement.

Authorities suspected that Yanez-Camacho was passing along confidential information, but his motives remain a mystery. "He can't explain how he did that, why he did that and why he compromised his situation at the port of entry," Assistant U.S. Atty. Ed Weiner said at a court hearing in 2009 at which Yanez-Camacho was sentenced to probation for the misdemeanor violation.

Agents who are longtime border residents are often more susceptible to corruption because they often inherit networks of family members involved with organized crime, Customs officials say.

Former Border Patrol agent Salomon Ruiz, convicted of corruption in 2009, had uncles who were longtime smugglers in the McAllen, Texas, area, and his father had been deported to Mexico for drug trafficking. Jesus Huizar, a border patrol agent convicted in 2008, partnered with his wife's uncle, a known trafficker, in a human-smuggling scheme in El Paso.

The Customs agency could address the problem by forbidding most agents from working in their hometowns. But relocation is costly, and it's harder to find applicants who want to move, border authorities said.

The background investigator for Alarid, the San Diego customs inspector, asked him if he had contact with his parents. Alarid, who was raised in foster homes for much of his youth, said no. It was a lie.

Alarid was proud of his family's smuggling pedigree. He said he idolized his grandfather, a longtime drug trafficker from Baja California who in 1978 was indicted on trafficking charges. He'd visit with his father, a convicted drug dealer, and he'd take groceries and money to his often-homeless mother, who had served jail terms for smuggling and arson convictions.

But Alarid had a lot going for him. He was a high school track star and received commendations for his military service in Kosovo and Iraq. When his employment application was forwarded to an adjudicator who made hiring decisions, the adjudicator decided in Alarid's favor.

Alarid's large debt "was carefully reviewed, and there was believed to be mitigating factors, and there was a determination of suitable," said James Tomsheck, the agency's assistant commissioner for internal affairs.

Within months of going to work for Customs in October 2007, the rookie opened the gates. On cigarette breaks he would make calls to smugglers in Tijuana, telling them which lane at the port of entry he was handling. Over a four-month period, Alarid's scheme earned him about $200,000.

Some federal officials and investigators question Alarid's hiring. Screeners should have delved deeper into his relationship with his biological parents, and his debt seemed excessive, they said.

"There should have been some red flags that went up there. That guy should never have been hired," said Earl Stickler, a background investigator from Arizona.

Even Alarid, 35, wonders how he got the job.

"If I was a background investigator, I wouldn't have hired me," he said.

richard.marosi@latimes.com

abecker@cironline.org

This report was published in cooperation with the nonprofit Center for Investigative Reporting in Berkeley, where Becker is a staff writer.

Coming clean on 'dirty DUIs' in Contra Costa County

Coming clean on 'dirty DUIs' in Contra Costa County

By Maura Dolan, Los Angeles Times

October 16, 2011, 8:07 p.m.

Reporting from Martinez, Calif.— David Dutcher met Sharon on Match.com in late 2008, a few months after separating from his wife. "We had a lot in common," he recalled. Sharon loved four-wheel-drive trucks and sports.

They met for coffee, then dinner. Sharon was tall, slender, blond and beautiful. She moaned that she had not had sex in a long time. She told him he had large, strong hands and wondered if that portended other things. She described his kisses as "yummy."

"It felt a lot like Christmas," said Dutcher, 49, a tall, burly engineer with wavy red hair.

On their second date, Sharon suggested they join one of her friends "who was partying because she had closed a real estate deal," Dutcher said. They drove to an Italian restaurant in a suburb near San Francisco. Sharon's friend, "Tash," was a loud and raucous brunet who was pounding down shots.

The women fiddled with Dutcher's tie and massaged his neck and shoulders. The brunet unbuttoned her blouse to reveal generous cleavage. "I am way over my head with these girls," he remembered thinking. "I hadn't been out dating in a while."

Sharon had trouble finishing her tequila shots and asked Dutcher to help, he said. When the women went to the bathroom, two men at the other end of the bar peppered Dutcher with questions.

"Are you a celebrity?" they wanted to know.

The women suggested going to a house with a hot tub that Tash was housesitting, Dutcher said. He followed them in his truck. Within a few minutes, a flashing red light appeared in his rearview mirror. The officer said he had been swerving.

Three months later, Dutcher's wife filed a motion in their divorce case, telling the court that her soon-to-be former husband had been arrested on suspicion of drunk driving and that she feared for their children's safety. The judge ordered that Dutcher's visits be supervised.

Then, earlier this year, Dutcher received a letter from Contra Costa County Senior Deputy Dist. Atty. Harold W. Jewett. It contained a transcript of a police interview with Christopher Butler, a private detective and the subject of a state and federal criminal investigation.

"I hope in some small way this information will help you recoup both rights and dignities lost in one of the most deplorable legal practices I have ever heard of," Jewett wrote.

::

Dutcher had been duped.

The women who'd ogled him worked for Butler's detective agency. Sharon, who told Dutcher she was a divorcee employed by an investment firm, actually was a former Las Vegas showgirl.

A man who once worked for Butler had blown the whistle. He told authorities Butler arranged for men to be arrested for drunk driving at the behest of their ex-wives and their divorce lawyers — and that entrapment was only one of many alleged misdeeds.

Butler, 49, a former police officer, was arrested in February. In addition to setting up at least five DUIs, he sold drugs for law enforcement officers and helped them open and operate a brothel, collecting and delivering the profits, according to prosecutors and a statement Butler gave them after his arrest.

In the March 15 statement obtained by The Times, Butler said his accomplices reasoned that they could shield their illegal businesses because any complaints would be investigated by a state-run narcotics task force, which one of the officers headed.

The alleged crimes implicated three different law enforcement agencies — the San Ramon and Danville police departments and the narcotics task force — and took place in Contra Costa County, a collection of mostly middle-class communities that stretch from the East Bay shoreline opposite San Francisco to upscale suburbs inland.

Jewett called the scandal a "sordid drama" that overwhelmed the resources of the county and raised potential conflicts for police departments being asked to investigate their own.

In May, the FBI took over the probe, interviewing Dutcher and other ex-husbands arrested on suspicion of drunk driving. A federal grand jury indicted Butler and two of the officers in August and September. The charges included drug dealing, running a prostitution business and illegal possession of a weapon.

More indictments are expected. A third officer, implicated by Butler in the DUIs, faces state charges of accepting bribes to make arrests.

Stunned prosecutors combed through pending criminal cases and eventually dismissed charges in at least 20 DUI and vice crimes, tainted by the involvement of the accused officers. Two of them had once worked with Butler on the police force of the East Bay city of Antioch.

Butler also apparently hoodwinked reporters. His agency received national attention for employing gumshoe "housewives" who juggled soccer games with undercover spying. People magazine and Dr. Phil did stories. An East Bay magazine reporter who went on a ride-along with Butler later discovered that everything he had witnessed had been staged.

In what prosecutors now call "dirty DUIs," Butler paid his decoys $25 an hour for four-hour minimums. The women worked in pairs. One drank heavily with the target and the other drove.

Butler videotaped the encounters from a nearby table. When the man got into his vehicle, Butler tipped off police. The last DUI setup occurred in January.

Susan Dutcher, a substitute schoolteacher, said in a sworn declaration that she paid Butler $2,500 to obtain evidence that her husband drove while drinking. She insisted she did not authorize Butler to have him arrested because she did not want to imperil his job and his ability to pay child support.

Her lawyer's paralegal, who had recommended Butler, "made this all seem completely legal and as though it was standard practice" in divorce cases, she said.

Once Dutcher got into his truck, Butler called a police officer friend to report Dutcher had been drinking. Butler maintained the officer was not paid by him and did not know Dutcher had been set up. The officer, who has not been charged, later went to work for Butler.

::

Dutcher, an avionics engineer who works on rockets, said he was dumbfounded when he learned what happened. After his arrest, he could not get the heightened security clearance he needed for certain jobs.

Driven by anger and embarrassment, he contacted others he had learned had been set up, including Declan Woods, a contractor arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence in 2007. Woods' ex-wife was represented by Mary Nolan, the same divorce attorney who worked for Susan Dutcher.

Butler told prosecutors the attorney referred him to Susan Dutcher because she was thrilled with his performance in the Woods case. In a sworn court declaration, Nolan denied having anything to do with hiring Butler in the Dutcher case; she could not be reached for comment about Woods' arrest.

Woods' ordeal began with a call for a kitchen remodel estimate. The prospective client turned out to be an attractive, flirtatious brunet. She told him she was new in town, a writer, and wondered what he was doing that night. He said he planned to grab dinner at a local cafe.

"Hey, this chick is picking up on me," Woods joked to his business partner after the two men met with her.

The woman showed up with a friend that evening. They went to a nearby bar, where the three drank lemon drops.

Woods said in an interview that the brunet was so aggressive he twice pushed her off his lap. Calm yourself, calm yourself, he remembered telling her. Looking back, he said, he should have realized something was wrong.

"Things like that don't happen to blokes like me," said the British-born Woods. "But the alcohol kicks in, you are having a good time, and you think, what the hell."

The women suggested going to a house with a hot tub. Woods hopped into his truck and followed them. He was pulled over almost immediately. "I have been set up," he remembered telling the officer.

Prosecutors offered to help Dutcher and Woods remove their DUI convictions and approved the dismissal of charges against the three other men. Dutcher obtained a court order last month to expunge his conviction.

Even though the men had been drinking, prosecutors said Butler's stings violated a little-used 19th century law that makes it a felony to conspire to subject another person to arrest. The female decoys have not been charged.

Woods said the arrest hurt his business and cost him thousands of dollars in fines. His ex-wife declined to discuss the case but said she did not authorize Butler to have Woods arrested.

Dutcher has worked long hours seeking vindication. After spending nearly $30,000 on an attorney, he decided to represent himself in an attempt to overturn the divorce and custody agreement he signed last year. He said his ex-wife had him "over the barrel" after the DUI.

M. Pamela Lauser, Susan Dutcher's current lawyer, doubts Dutcher will succeed. "Nobody held a gun to his head," she said of his drunk driving arrest. "Nobody forced him to drink.... The guy was drunk and he was driving. How is that a dirty DUI?"

Dutcher agreed he "made a terrible mistake."

A trial date on the divorce settlement is set for Nov. 17.

maura.dolan@latimes.com.

Cops will use any lame excuse they can to pull you over and search you for drugs.

Source

Pinal deputies find 53 pounds of marijuana in car, arrest man

Oct. 17, 2011 01:51 PM

Associated Press

CASA GRANDE - A man was arrested Monday after 53 pounds of marijuana were found in his car following a police chase, authorities said.

The Pinal County Sheriff's Office said that a deputy on patrol Monday morning on Interstate 8 near Casa Grande tried to pull over an unusually slow car that was clocked at 59 mph in a 75 mph zone.

The sheriff's office says the driver pulled over, but then sped away into the desert when the deputy approached him.

The deputy called for backup and saw the man jump out of his moving vehicle about 100 yards away from the interstate, jump a barbed-wire fence and continue running.

The deputy found the marijuana in the car, and backup deputies found and arrested the man, identified as 26-year-old Jose Ernesto Garcia-Reyes of Phoenix. He does not yet have a lawyer.

Garcia-Reyes faces charges of drug possession, transporting marijuana for sale and unlawful flight.

Poll: 50% of Americans -- a record high -- favor legal marijuana

Poll: 50% of Americans -- a record high -- favor legal marijuana

October 17, 2011 | 4:14 pm

Slowly but surely, Americans seem to be making peace with the pot pipe.

According to a poll released by Gallup on Monday, 50% of Americans surveyed say marijuana use should be legal — up from 46% last year. This year, 46% percent said it should be illegal.

Those numbers mean that, for the first time in the poll's 42-year-history, Americans who say that marijuana should be legal outnumber those who say it should be illegal.

Societal acceptance of marijuana has come a long way since 1969, when Gallup first posed the question "Should marijuana use be legal?" Back then, only 12% of Americans favored legalization of the drug. From the '70s through the mid-'90s, support remained in the 20s, but it has been climbing steadily since 2002.

Some interesting results from the most recent poll:

Men are more likely to support legalizing marijuana than women (55% vs. 46%).

People in the West are more likely to support it than people in the East (55% vs. 51%).

People ages 18-29 are twice as likely to support marijuana use as people 65 or older (62% vs. 31%).

The findings come less than six months after the federal government ruled that marijuana should remain classified as a Schedule 1 drug, which means the government considers it as dangerous as heroin.

In June, Michele M. Leonhart, head of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, said that marijuana would remain classified as Schedule 1 because it "has a high potential for abuse" and "has no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States."

That now appears slightly out of step with what most Americans think. A Gallup survey last year found that 70% of people favored making it legal for doctors to prescribe marijuana to reduce pain and suffering.

Fire Chief's son bribes TSA to smuggle marijuana

Source

Ex-L.A. fire chief's son accused of bribing TSA officer

By Rick Rojas and Richard Winton, Los Angeles Times

October 18, 2011

The son of a former Los Angeles fire chief was charged Monday with bribing a federal Transportation Security Administration officer at Los Angeles International Airport to help him smuggle marijuana past security on nine separate trips.

Millage Peaks IV admitted to FBI agents that he and his associates made the trips with the aid of a TSA officer, whom they paid $5,000 to $6,000 in bribes to avoid detection, according to an FBI affidavit.

Peaks and TSA Officer Dianne Perez were arrested on bribery charges Sunday following what the FBI said was his most recent attempt. A baggage handler smelled marijuana in the luggage and alerted authorities, who found 14 pounds of marijuana. Perez was charged Monday with accepting a bribe.

Authorities said Peaks bought the marijuana for $38,000 the day before in the Bay Area, then drove back to L.A. to make the 7:25 a.m. American Airlines flight to Boston, where investigators believed he intended to resell the marijuana.

Peaks, a 23-year-old construction worker, told authorities that Perez, 28, of Inglewood, helped him circumvent security nine previous times. Each time, he would pay her $500 per bag.

Peaks' father is Millage Peaks III, who had been chief of the Los Angeles Fire Department until earlier this year. His sister is an officer with the LAX Police Department. But she and his father told investigators they had no knowledge of alleged drug smuggling by Millage Peaks IV.

TSA issued a statement Monday saying the agency was involved in the investigation and that "appropriate disciplinary action will be taken."

In interviews with authorities, Peaks offered a detailed explanation of the system devised by he and Perez to get drugs onboard planes.

On Sunday, authorities said he told them, he met Perez outside the terminal and checked in for his American Airlines flight for Boston. He then gave her two pieces of checked luggage, which Perez took to a TSA screening room, according to an affidavit from federal investigators.

She returned three minutes later and waved, an indication that "everything is good," he said in the affidavit. He also said that Perez taught him how to pack his bags to avoid detection.

Text messages from cellphones Peaks turned over to the FBI show he sent a number of text messages to Perez. In a message dated Oct. 7, he wrote: "He made it coo. Thanx soo much. U have no clue how clutch u r. Without u none of this would b possible….Ill have ur 700 Monday maybe earlier."

In another, dated Sept. 30, he wrote: "500$ tom night. Good looks."

Perez, a TSA officer for seven and a half years, was assigned to run bags through an X-ray machine and search for explosive, dangerous items or dense items. Although she initially told investigators that Sunday was only her second time to move bags through security for Peaks, she later said she had helped him many more times. She said, however, that Peaks had paid her $3,000.

Peaks and Perez were released from custody in lieu of $20,000 bail Monday. Their arraignments are set for Nov. 14. If convicted, Peaks and Perez each face up to 15 years in federal prison, said Thom Mrozek, a U.S. Attorney's office spokesman.

rick.rojas@latimes.com

richard.winton@latimes.com

Reefer Madness: Pot Busts, Broken Windows, and the City Budget

Chicago spends $78 million a year busting and prosecuting pot smokers??? "They put the tab at $78 million a year" I suspect most of it goes to pay the cops, lawyers and judges that shake down the pot smokers.

Source

Reefer Madness: Pot Busts, Broken Windows, and the City Budget

Posted Oct 17, 2011 at 02:10 PM

By Whet Moser

Worth reading in the wake of Rahm Emanuel's first budget proposal: Mick Dumke and Ben Joravsky on the high cost of marijuana arrests and prosecution. They put the tab at $78 million a year. Which is quite close to the Drug Policy Alliance's estimate that New York City spent $75 million on possession arrests and prosecution in 2010, and one in seven of all arrests were for "lowest-level" marijuana possession. Dumke and Joravsky estimate that the CPD makes 23,000 possession busts a year; in 2009, the CPD totaled 181,669 arrests in all, making Chicago's percentage about the same (a bit less than one in eight).

Chicago's arrests for pot possession haven't exploded in the way that New York City's have, but they're still up: in 1989, according to the CPD's annual report, the total number of marijuana-related arrests was 9,285. This is in line with broader national trends; according to "The War on Marijuana: The transformation of the war on drugs in the 1990s" by Ryan S. King and Marc Mauer, "marijuana arrests increased by 113% between 1990 and 2002, while overall arrests decreased by 3%." And the concern over the cost of arrests and prosecution is not new, either. King and Mauer write:

In Chicago, similar concerns have been raised, this time in a report submitted by a city police sergeant [in 2004]. Sergeant Thomas Donegan noted that the vast majority (over 90%) of marijuana arrests in Chicago were dismissed or dropped, leading him to question why law enforcement agents were dedicating significant resources to pursue marijuana when approximately nine of ten cases will not result in a conviction. Donegan recommended the use of fines rather than arrest for marijuana use, a proposal endorsed by Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley.

Seven years later, Joravsky and Dumke found an identical percentage of arrests were tossed out in court, around the same time Garry McCarthy was suggesting exactly the same thing Donegan did—fines instead of arrest.

Why does this allocation of police resources continue? The main cause usually cited is the "broken windows" theory of law enforcement pioneered by William Bratton (a McCarthy mentor) in New York City, the principal reason New York's marijuana-possesion arrests have increased so much in the past couple decades. But this basis for the low tolerance of possession has come in for substantial criticism. In "Deterrence and Public Policy: Trade-Offs in the Allocation of Police Resources," (PDF) Bruce Benson, David Rasmussen, and Iljoong Kim address the "zero sum" nature of law enforcement and argue that the time spent on low-level drug arrests leads to increases in Index I—i.e. the most serious—crimes:

The increased law enforcement emphasis on drug arrests has significantly altered the incentives facing the crime-prone population, but not in ways that are typically suggested by drug-control advocates. Drug enforcement policy apparently has drawn resources away from Index I crime control, has caused some drug criminals to shift into nondrug crime, or both. The coefficient on DRUG-ARRj implies that allocating the resources necessary to make one more drug arrest a year results in about 0.7 more Index I crimes that year. These results, therefore, support the deterrence hypothesis: Policing does influence the incentives to commit crime.

Or, as Jens Ludwig and Bernard Harcourt write in "Reefer Madness: Broken Windows Policing and Misdemeanor Marijuana Arrests in New York City, 1989-2000" (PDF):

The positive relationship between the change in MPV arrests and serious crime, when prior crime levels are held constant, means that, controlling for mean reversion, an increase in MPV arrests over the period translates into an increase in serious crime—not, as the broken windows theory would predict, a decrease in serious crime. This result is exactly the opposite of what we would want in terms of the effect of MPV arrests. It suggests that this policing strategy focused on misdemeanor MPV arrests is having exactly the wrong effect on serious crime—increasing it, rather than decreasing it.

John Fritchey, La Shawn K. Ford, and Walter Burnett Jr. have gone so far as to gently float the idea of legalization, or at least talking about doing so. But don't get your hopes up: the tension between state and federal law remains, and if anything the Obama administration has been more aggressive about that gray area than its predecessors:

U.S. Attorney Laura Duffy of Southern California has said that she is ready to go after newspapers, radio stations and other outlets that run ads for medical marijuana shops because federal law targets those who place ads for an illegal substance. Duffy told California Watch, "I am willing to read (the law) expansively, and if a court wants to more narrowly define it, that would be up to the court."

It's actually a very recent development, as Salon's Justin Elliott points out—the momentum has actually substantially shifted at the federal level in recent months, and anything pushed at the local level will inevitably encounter the atmosphere higher up the ladder.

Pot seizures plummet as growers change tactics

Pot seizures plummet as growers change tactics

Associated Press

Posted: 10/18/2011 09:43:33 AM PDT

The number of plants seized by the state's Campaign Against Marijuana Production plummeted this year, in part because drug traffickers shifted production from public to private land, where they more easily blend with legal pot operations, according to the state Department of Justice.

"They're changing their tactics," said Michelle Gregory, a spokeswoman for the justice department.

Weather, the manhunt for murder suspect Aaron Bassler and a truncated growing and eradication season also are factors in the decline, law enforcement officials said.

A total of 2.2 million plants were seized during the three-month CAMP operation this year, half as many as in 2010, Gregory said. CAMP operations concluded last week, she said.

Mendocino County again ranked No. 1 for CAMP pot seizures this year, despite its plant numbers dropping to 341,306, down from 572,680 plants last year. In Sonoma County, ranked 11th, pot seizures fell to 65,545, down from 311,147 in 2010. Lake County's seizures dropped to 123,645 from 374,958.

In 2010, 73 percent of the marijuana plants seized statewide during CAMP operations were on public land.

This year, it was about 60 percent, despite an intensive three-week federal, state and local offensive on pot production in the Mendocino National Forest. The six-county initiative, dubbed Operation Full Court Press, yielded 632,058 marijuana plants and 1,986 pounds of processed marijuana, figures included in CAMP's totals, Gregory said. The operation stemmed from complaints that armed pot growers had taken over public lands, making them unsafe for hikers and hunters.

The numbers indicate that many organized drug operators have shifted production from forests to private land, where they can blend with medical marijuana growing operations, Gregory said. Fresno County law enforcement agencies have reported a spike in large pot gardens in their jurisdictions, she said.

"They're inundated," Gregory said.

Drug traffickers are renting homes and growing pot in the backyards, she said. Some suspects claim to be growing medical marijuana but many don't bother, she said.

There's a similar shift toward growing illegal pot on private land in Mendocino County, said Bob Nishiyama, commander of the Mendocino Major Crimes Task Force.

Operation Full Court Press was highly publicized and drug traffickers likely decided it was safer and easier to hide their marijuana in plain sight, Nishiyama said, noting that medical marijuana gardens are ubiquitous in the county.

Another factor affecting pot seizures this year was the month-long manhunt for Bassler, who was accused of killing Matthew Coleman and Jere Melo in August. Dozens of local, state and federal law enforcement officers were diverted to the effort to catch Bassler, who was hiding out in the woods around Fort Bragg, Nishiyama noted. The search ended with Bassler being shot by law enforcement.

Unseasonably cool weather also affected pot operations, Nishiyama said.

A late winter and cool, wet spring and fall affected pot production, much as it did wine grapes, he said.

The late winter and delayed growing season also reduced the number of days CAMP operated this year by about 20 days, Gregory said.

The various factors that affected marijuana eradication efforts this year are subject to change, including the preference for growing pot on private land, Nishiyama said. He noted that illegal growers in the past shifted from private and public land in response to law enforcement action.

___

(c)2011 The Press Democrat (Santa Rosa, Calif.)

Distributed by MCT Information Services

ICE officer in Arizona faces drug charges after chase

ICE officer in Arizona faces drug charges after chase

Oct. 19, 2011 12:45 PM

Associated Press

A deportation officer with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement led Arizona state police and federal agents on a high-speed desert chase in his government vehicle, throwing bundles of marijuana out of the window as he fled, the Department of Public Safety said Wednesday.

The deportation officer, identified as Jason Alistair Lowery, 34, had been under surveillance for more than month after a known smuggler who had been arrested gave authorities a tip about the officer in an effort to get lenient treatment, Department of Public Safety Officer Carrick Cook told The Associated Press.

Lowery, who lives in the Phoenix suburb of Chandler, does not yet have an attorney.

DPS and federal agents tried to pull Lowery over Tuesday after he picked up a load of marijuana in the desert with his unmarked ICE pickup truck, Cook said. The officer fled, leading agents on a 45-minute chase at speeds of up to 110 mph as he threw 10 of the 14 bundles of pot that he had in the truck out of the window, he said.

"He got pretty desperate," Cook said.

The chase began in the Vekol Valley about 45 miles south of Phoenix and ended just south of Sacaton, about 20 miles as the crow flies northwest from where the chase began. It ended when Lowery's truck rolled over and he gave himself up.

DPS believes Lowery was taking the marijuana to a man working for a drug cartel whose house served as the nexus of the drug distribution.

Lowery was booked into Pima County jail on charges of smuggling and felony flight. The sheriff's office also booked the man who was to receive the marijuana, identified as 33-year-old Joshua Duane Powell of Arizona City.

At Powell's home, police found 14 rifles and guns in the trunk of his car, seven of which had been reported stolen, according to a DPS document.

The document also said that Powell had been out on a $25,000 bond stemming from a separate investigation last month in which multiple bulletproof vests, weapons, stolen night-vision equipment, hundreds of rounds of ammunition and various drugs were found in his home.

"Since his release only a few weeks ago, (Powell) has amassed a small arsenal of weapons and has proven to continue involvement in the illicit drug trade," the document said.

Powell does not yet have an attorney.

ICE spokesman Vinnie Picard declined to say how long that Lowery had worked for the agency or other details about him or the case.

"ICE is cooperating with federal and state authorities in this matter," Picard said in a statement. "We hold our officers and agents to the highest levels of responsibility and are committed to supporting the agencies investigating this incident."

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