cannabisnews.com: Prepare for Life in a Police State





Prepare for Life in a Police State
Posted by CN Staff on January 25, 2005 at 22:54:23 PT
By Sarah Ryley, Voice Editor
Source: South End
The U. S. Supreme Court ruled Monday that narcotics-detecting dogs can be used for all routine traffic stops — and you can bet that we, as students with varying degrees of other “incriminating” visual factors, are going to be the targets.The case involved John Caballes, an Illinois man who was stopped for doing only six miles over the speed limit, but narcotics-detecting dogs ended up finding $250,000 worth of marijuana while sniffing around his trunk. The fact that he was stopped for doing only six over is a sign that this ruling is going to open the door for more frivolous traffic stops with the officers hoping to find drugs.
In a 6-2 ruling, Justice John Paul Stevens issued a statement stating that Caballes had no legal right to privacy concerning illegal narcotics, and since narcotics dogs are only trained to detect illegal drugs — not money or any other lawful possessions — constitutional search and seizure protections were not violated.Not only do narcotics-detecting dogs often make mistakes resulting in the unlawful rummaging through one’s personal possessions, but it’s commonly because they detect money with drug residue on it — between 70 and 96 percent of bills are estimated to have residue from some illegal narcotic. According to the NPR report, another man was stopped by police using narcotics dogs and sent to jail because he had a large sum of money on him that dogs detected because of drug residue — but they found no actual drugs. The man still had to post bail and pay for a lawyer in his court case. In the Supreme Court’s dissenting opinion, Justice Ruth Ginsburg said that allowing narcotics-detecting dogs for routine traffic stops opens the door for using the dogs to survey parked cars, much like some schools do for students’ lockers, and having the dogs on street corners. She also made the point that the dogs are intimidating and will fundamentally change the police-driver encounter while also elongating it.Police are well known to profile drivers who they think might possess drugs based on visual factors such as race, age, piercings, dreadlocks, tattoos, the type of car being driven and the bumper stickers on it.Students on college campuses and low-income minorities are especially harassed because the officer figures that he or she can find other reasons to issue tickets if the apparent infraction is too minor, such as lack of registration, insurance or a license; drunk driving; or the jackpot infractions — possession and drug trafficking. The Supreme Court decision is only giving the officers further incentive to make these harassing and predatory stops. Even if the victim doesn’t have any actual drugs on him, he can still be forced to go through the process of going to jail, posting bail and paying crippling lawyer fees if he has a large amount of money containing drug residue on him, or if a friend left trace marijuana in his car. Imagine driving home from work and being pulled over for going only six miles over the speed limit, and then being carted off to jail because the $300 in tips you made bartending happened to have some cocaine on it. This can very easily start being commonplace around inner cities and college campuses.“Innocent” bystanders aside, police applaud this ruling as a major step toward combating the war on drugs, and one can only imagine the zeal with which they will put it into practice. But this ruling really targets the recreational pot smoker since they are the most common, and we need to stop clogging up the courts and jails with small-time drug users. This is a waste of our tax dollars and a waste of our youth. Sending young people to jail and then forcing them to pay thousands of dollars in legal fees for possessing a small amount of marijuana — a “mistake” many successful adults, such as our last two presidents, will have to admit to — is really just unfair and unproductive.It’s not likely that the ruling will be overturned, at least in the next four years, so prepare yourself for life in a police state.Complete Title: Prepare for Life in a Police State: Court Allows Drug Dogs in All Traffic Stops Source: South End, The (MI Edu)Author: Sarah Ryley, Voice EditorPublished: January 26, 2005Copyright: 2005 The South End Newspaper.Contact: sryley southend.wayne.edu Website: http://www.southend.wayne.edu/Related Articles:Justices Uphold Use of Drug-Sniffing Dogs http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread20157.shtmlCourt OKs Use of Drug-Sniffing Dogs http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread20156.shtmlCourt OKs Dog Sniff During Traffic Stophttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread20154.shtml
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Comment #22 posted by FoM on January 27, 2005 at 08:35:36 PT
kaptinemo
Thanks for understanding. I mind worrying like I do about Cannabis and if the laws will ever be changed. I will never forget what happened to Governor Johnson. When he mentioned he was for reforming marijuana laws he got good press and lots of support. Somewhere along the line he made a fatal error. He mentioned Heroin. We know how they tore him apart and now you don't hear anything about him. I want to avoid a fatal error. Cannabis has been associated with hard drugs way too long.
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Comment #21 posted by kaptinemo on January 27, 2005 at 08:17:12 PT:
I've never disagreed with you on that, FoM
After reading that article, it just amazes me how persistant ignorance can be despite it being *soooo* easily cured. Mr. Murkowski is playing to an largely ignorant audience...except they have a partial excuse: they expect him to tell them the truth. In this day and age, expecting a politician to tell you the truth about anything - after we've been lied into a no-win war by them and scores of thousands of innocents have died - is one more sad sign of the decline of this country.And they say us 'pot-heads' suffer from mental difficulties?
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Comment #20 posted by FoM on January 26, 2005 at 15:12:07 PT
On My Comment #16
I meant to say we are getting many pre approved credit card offers in the mail and we throw them in the trash. We have one credit card and we keep a couple hundred dollar balance on it to keep it active. That's all. There I feel better.cloud7 thanks for the advice. I agree.
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Comment #19 posted by cloud7 on January 26, 2005 at 14:58:09 PT
...
"It's one thing to arrest some tough young punk, but who wants to throw sweet ol' Granny in the pokey with him?"Every jackboot kicking down doors.Also, getting gold or silver now is an especially good idea for security to echo some posts below.
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Comment #18 posted by FoM on January 26, 2005 at 11:53:16 PT
kapt
Check this out. This is why I shy away from hard drug issues because politicians keep them as closely connected as possible and Meth is a drug and Cannabis is not man made.Alaska Governor Seeks Increased Penalties for Certain Illegal Drugs Proposed legislation supplements current prohibitions on methamphetamines; Targets marijuana possessionhttp://www.allamericanpatriots.com/m-news+article+storyid-5099-PHPSESSID-8c88c3af89468d60a860fad591cd8023.html
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Comment #17 posted by kaptinemo on January 26, 2005 at 11:38:58 PT:
The problem here is: will Fed LE functions be cut
Or will they all be folded into "Homeland Defense" and then be considered justified expenditures? Despite past instances of being proven ineffective in their roles courtesy of GAO studies, you can expect the 'narcoterrorist as threat to national security' dead horse to be whipped with increased frenzy, more than they did immediately after 9/11.Bureaucracies may be slow and fat in easy times, but they become vicious gutter fighters when their meal ticket is threatened.
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Comment #16 posted by FoM on January 26, 2005 at 11:17:17 PT
afterburner
What is war good for?Absolutely nothing!For us being conservative in spending is what we are doing our best to do. We are getting all kinds of credit cards recently and they are getting thrown in the trash. We won't buy anything except what we need. I'd be afraid to get deep in debt in this day and age.
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Comment #15 posted by afterburner on January 26, 2005 at 11:12:20 PT
FoM and kaptinemo
The Bush administration just announced recently that they will make deep domestic spending cuts to pay for the war. This will create further hardship for states, cities, and non-combatant citizens. In some ways this is good because it hastens reform, but at a vicious cost. It guns and butter: economic shorthand for the conflicting demands of the military and "homeland" businesses for the available dollars."Trade equals peace." "War, what is it good for?"
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Comment #14 posted by FoM on January 26, 2005 at 10:33:04 PT
kaptinemo
I agree with you. I wasn't being sarcastic with my comment. I just see it that way and I think you do too.
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Comment #13 posted by kaptinemo on January 26, 2005 at 10:28:31 PT:
The more 'money' they print, the worse it gets
And the top people in the Bush Administration know it, if only because the ones they squeezed out for not being loud enough cheerleaders told them about it.But the chickens are already coming home to roost, and the Asians know that their financing the debt will only feed the military machine of the US...which is seeking to surround them with a ring of bases. They have their own ideas about that.If you can buy another currency like Euros, I'd do it now. Because if Bushie-Wushie and his starry-eyed imperialists have their way, the dollar will have less value than toilet paper.
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Comment #12 posted by FoM on January 26, 2005 at 09:44:56 PT
afterburner
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/nation/daily/graphics/budget_012605.gif
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Comment #11 posted by FoM on January 26, 2005 at 09:41:31 PT
afterburner
I mean that too. We don't have a gold standard so printing more money can be done don't you think?You got mail.Record '05 Deficit ForecastWar Costs to Raise Total to $427 Billionhttp://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A35029-2005Jan25.html
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Comment #10 posted by afterburner on January 26, 2005 at 09:17:21 PT
FoM
"They'll just print more money."Inflation after many years of deflation just to maintain the Drug War? Are they really that insane? Inflation would cause a crisis in confidence of the Asian investors in US debt. Bad economics to prop up a dying police state? Turning the country into a third world country? This sounds like fast buck Texas Hold 'Em, not a well-reasoned global chess game. 
Check your email
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Comment #9 posted by FoM on January 26, 2005 at 09:04:28 PT
kapt
My opinion about the drug war and money. They'll just print more money. That's what I think. This administration is out of control.
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Comment #8 posted by kaptinemo on January 26, 2005 at 08:50:41 PT:
It's nice to be vindicated
Global Warming's offering just makes our point that much more inescapable: the DrugWar is a costly lemon of a car that needs junking. If the pols won't listen to human screams, they'll listen more intently to the cries of pennies being pinched.
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Comment #7 posted by FoM on January 26, 2005 at 08:44:48 PT
Off Topic: New York Times
Government Seizes Oil Wells It Says Were Bought With Drug MoneyPublished: January 26, 2005 The federal government has seized control of 43 oil wells in northwestern Pennsylvania that it says were financed with drug money laundered by a Florida marijuana smuggler in the 1970's, officials said Tuesday.The federal government has never before taken control of oil wells as part of a money laundering investigation, said officials with the Department of Homeland Security, which ran the investigation. Complete Article: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/26/national/26seizure.html
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Comment #6 posted by Hope on January 26, 2005 at 08:33:52 PT
Stan White's letter
Thanks The GCW. Stan's letter is just beautiful. It's bound to do some good...and "some good", no matter how little, is adding up to a positive change, eventually.Keep up your blessed good work, Stan!More power to Stan White!
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Comment #5 posted by global_warming on January 26, 2005 at 08:09:00 PT
Group wants drug sentences changed to help budget
 Group wants drug sentences changed to help budgetPublished by the Gannett State Bureau 1/26/04By TOM BALDWIN
GANNETT STATE BUREAUTRENTON -- A group that has lobbied for abandoning mandatory-minimum sentences for drug offenses -- often because they may seem unfairly harsh -- argued Tuesday that its goal can help close New Jersey's budget shortfall.New Jersey Families Against Mandatory Minimums, or FAMM, also unveiled results of a new poll that they said showed the public in New Jersey favors giving judges discretion to sentence drug offenders and order mandatory treatment, rather than jail time."New Jersey is ripe for reform," said Laura Sager, FAMM's national campaign director. She later added, "The budget crisis has made legislators take a look. ... Taxpayers can't bear the freight" of subsidizing prisons.Sager said the poll, which her group commissioned, by the Eagleton Center for Public Interest at Rutgers University, found 80 percent of New Jerseyans questioned supported sentences of mandatory treatment for substance abuse, with community service, for low-level, nonviolent drug offenders -- if such sentences reduce the amounts that taxpayers have to spend on corrections.Sager said "low-level" offenders are those not at the top of the drug trade or those not involved in violence.Sager said her organization's next step is to lobby lawmakers, with three goals -- repeal mandatory sentences, assure treatment for the dependent and then hand discretion in sentencing back to judges.Acting Gov. Richard J. Codey's spokeswoman, Kelley Heck, said, "He doesn't have a position, but he will review it."Since January 2004, the state has had a sentencing commission made up of lawmakers and jurists and others studying this issue. Mandatory sentences sprung from the 1970s and 1980s as part of the nation's war on crime.An obstacle to the FAMM approach has been politicians' desire not to appear soft on crime. But at Tuesday's Statehouse news conference, letters from two veteran lawmakers endorsed FAMM's ideas, and FAMM members argued that prosecutors and career narcotics police have come over to their position."I think we're too quick put people in prison for minor drug offenses. We could save their futures and our money by requiring them to get treatment instead of packing them off to prison," said Sen. John H. Adler, D-Camden, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.Assemblyman Wilfredo Caraballo, D-Essex, said, "New Jerseyans have some misgivings about New Jersey's love affair with mandatory-minimum sentences. ... At a time when the state is facing a potential $4 billion budget deficit, New Jersey needs to get smart on crime instead of tough on crime."Caraballo said mandatory-minimum sentences have filled Jersey prisons.A nonpartisan analyst's assessment last spring of the Department of Corrections budget noted that mandatory-minimum sentences were partly responsible for a steady rise in prison populations, which doubled to more than 30,000 between 1987 and 1999 but fell slightly since then.In 2002, inmates serving mandatory-minimum sentences accounted for 61 percent of the total prison population.John Hulick, director of the New Jersey division of the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence, said 35 percent of those inmates are in for drug offenses.One woman at Tuesday's news conference, Mary Burke of Easton, Pa., described the ruins that she said became of her teenage son's life after Jersey's mandatory-sentencing laws sent him to nine months in prison for selling two ounces of marijuana."We simply can't afford these mandatory sentences," Burke said.from the Asbury Park PressPublished on January 25, 2005
Group wants drug sentences changed to help budget
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Comment #4 posted by kaptinemo on January 26, 2005 at 07:58:21 PT:
You know the end is in sight
Thanks to PotPal for his link. It only serves to make my point. When the middle aged and aching get a whiff (or a refersher course) in the effectiveness of cannabis in analgesia, half the war is over. It's one thing to arrest some tough young punk, but who wants to throw sweet ol' Granny in the pokey with him?
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Comment #3 posted by b4daylight on January 26, 2005 at 07:35:13 PT
sad
we suck
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Comment #2 posted by potpal on January 26, 2005 at 06:23:08 PT
Grandma eats cannabis...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/tyne/wear/4208699.stm
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Comment #1 posted by The GCW on January 26, 2005 at 03:31:57 PT
Cannabis: The stairway to heaven 
US CO: LTE: Cannabis: The stairway to heaven (Placed on web, January 25, 2005 
Printed January 26, 2005) Re: Your spiritual series that ran Jan. 9-15. Christ God, Our Father, and His spirit of truth are important in my life and cannabis helps me know and understand it more than most anything else. What led me closer to the spirit of truth, to begin with, was praying for the truth about cannabis, while being persecuted by clergy for using it. A reason people like to use cannabis (kaneh bosm before the King James Version) is because it makes people feel closer to God, but most people don't know it and just enjoy the buzz. Until I was persecuted for using cannabis and found the truth, I would never have imagined it could help people's spiritual life; but it does. Protect yourselves from clergy who mistakenly teach the table of the Lord is defiled. The table of the Lord is not defiled. See Malachi 1:6-14, subtitled, "Sin of the Priests," (New American Standard Bible) along with the very first page where God created all the seed-bearing plants, saying they are all good. People should stop supporting cannabis prohibition since it harms themselves by separating them from the spirit of truth, which is promised to those who obey Jesus Christ and love one another (John 14-16.) You can not love someone and cage them for using what is good. The only Biblical restriction placed on cannabis is that we accept it with thanksgiving (1 Timothy 4:1-5). If you use cannabis, thank God for it. Stan White 
Summit Cove http://www.summitdaily.com/article/20050125/LETTER/101250009
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