Thursday, September 16, 2004

Lawsuit details bad warrant procedures in 2002 raid Residents of Eugene, Oregon have filed a suit for $25,500 in damages, plus punitive and other damages. A lawsuit over a controversial 2002 drug raid in Eugene's Whiteaker neighborhood claims that police lied to persuade a judge to give them a search warrant to raid three adjacent houses near West Fifth Avenue and Adams Street in search of a marijuana growing operation. The early morning raid - in which 59 officers used an armored truck and diversionary explosions of "flash-bang" grenades in a militaristic show of force - found no drug operation and resulted in no criminal prosecution. [emphasis added] The article is quite interesting in that it lists a whole range of specific details and ways that the police purposely misled the judge in order to get the warrant. Read it all. You'll be amazed. 11:55:24 PM |  drug policy | Links | permalink | comment []

Another bad address raid Fortunately, no one died in this one. Teresa Guiler and James Elliott, who are in their 50s, were home watching television when the masked men stormed into the house. Guiler, whose arm was in a sling from a previous injury, told police that they had the wrong man as they pointed a gun at her and Elliott, who is deaf and had recently received a liver transplant, she said. ... "What justification can you give to kick a 54-year-old man who's down on the ground,'' Meeks said about Elliott, who is a Vietnam War veteran. "All he saw was men in masks with rifles. He was terrified. Then to get knocked down and stomped. They picked him up like a suitcase. The Police Department said they acted in normal procedure, but that's not normal." The police plan on sending a written apology. See Last One Speaks and Desert Cat for commentary. I don't feel up to it tonight. 11:43:28 PM |  drug policy | Links | permalink | comment []

M.A.S.H. is online Mobilizing Activists and Students for Hemp (M.A.S.H.) is a registered student organization at Illinois State University, and they now have a spiffy new web site. I am their somewhat neglectful faculty advisor, finding myself too often busy working on this site rather than attending their meetings, but I'm a huge fan of what they're working to do. If you're at Illinois State, why not get involved with M.A.S.H.? Their meetings are every Wednesday at 8 pm in Stevenson 223. They also have occassional movie showings (they showed Grass earlier this week. They also have Hey Hemp events where they make some incredible hemp jewelry and they hold a Hemp Fest in December and April. 11:31:11 PM |  drug policy | Links | permalink | comment []

Lots of stuff! Last One Speaks has: The story of a victory in the fight against the Rockefeller Drug Laws. Reformer David Soares won the primary for Albany's district attorney overwhelmingly in a race that appeared to be in large part a referendum on the Rockefeller laws. More good medical news as some additional cancer fighting properties of THC are discovered. Baylen's got a bunch of stuff over at D'Alliance, including: Einstein's Relativity Theory Applied to Drug Profits is an odd piece dealing with the strange behavior of the Colombian peso. Feds Seek to Seize Home, Land of Med-Pot Grower Not satisfied with his 500 marijuana plants and $105,000 in cash, the federal government is looking to seize the home of a California medical marijuana grower and the building in which he does business. Richard Marino doesn't actually own the building, and he has yet to be charged with any crime. His dispensary, Capitol Compassionate Care, served about 1,000 patients near Sacramento before the raid. He points out that he was operating with a license from the city of Roseville and in compliance with California state law. Link (pdf) to the Drug Czar's largely incoherent reply in the new edition of National Review and Ethan Nadelmann's reply. I hope to comment more on this soon. Jacob Sullom already has at Hit and Run. 8:16:21 AM |  drug policy | Links | permalink | comment []

Soros calls for ethics investigation George Soros has lodged a formal complaint against Speaker Dennis Hastert before the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct. (This is for Hastert's ridiculous innuendo on national television that Soros received funding from drug cartels.) Josh Marshall has the full text of the letter. Here's an excerpt: Such conduct brings discredit on the House. It is inconsistent with basic notions of fair play and open debate that are the basis of our Constitutional system, and it is all too reminiscent of the McCarthyite tactics that were used to such scurrilous effect to stifle dissent during one of the darkest periods of recent United States history. Members of both political parties have recently decried "the politics of personal destruction." It is time for the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct to formally declare that smear tactics and innuendo are discrediting our political process and the House of Representatives as an institution by taking appropriate action to investigate and censure Representative Hastert for these outrageous remarks. I'm glad to see this happening, although of course I don't hold much hope for anything coming of it, since the ethics committee appears right now to be corrupt. 7:52:53 AM |  drug policy | Links | permalink | comment []