cannabisnews.com: Eagles Get Drug Law Clarification 





Eagles Get Drug Law Clarification 
Posted by CN Staff on June 27, 2003 at 09:12:32 PT
By Bryan O'Connor of The Gazette Staff 
Source: Billings Gazette
The Drug Enforcement Administration in Washington, D.C., has issued guidance to its field offices nationwide after an incident in Billings involving enforcement of a new anti-drug law. On May 30, a DEA agent visited the local Eagles Lodge and told the manager that the business could be fined up to $250,000 if it allowed the Billings chapter of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) to hold a fund-raiser concert there and people attending smoked marijuana. 
Public outcry The lodge canceled the concert date. Public outcry locally and nationally prompted the DEA to clarify to its agents how to interpret and enforce the law, spokesman Will Glaspy said. Glaspy said the memo sent to the field offices is confidential, but much of the information is posted on the agency Web site: http://www.dea.govThe site has been updated in the past few days to address the public concern about the new law, giving answers to commonly asked questions, he said. The warning received by the Eagles Lodge in Billings apparently was the first issued by the DEA after the Illicit Drug Anti-Proliferation Act passed in April. The incident left many clubs, bars and other operators wondering how the law would be enforced and if they were at risk of being fined. Glaspy said the agency is working to dispel the concerns that have spread in the past few weeks. "We use the law to target those promoters who use concerts as a means to facilitate drug trafficking," Glaspy said. "The law does not target legitimate businessmen or women." In any case, legitimate businesses cannot be held responsible if someone lights up a joint at a concert on the business property, he said. "These legitimate businesses don't have to worry about the DEA coming in and holding them responsible for drug use by their patrons," Glaspy said. Targeting drug peddlers The law gives the DEA the power to target a very specialized type of scheme that involves drug peddling at concerts. Glaspy said some unscrupulous promoters falsely advertise concerts as drug-free and alcohol-free; when the teens show up, they are offered drugs and are packed into hot, poorly ventilated areas. Bottled water may be sold for $10. A few concertgoers a night generally end up in the hospital with dehydration or drug overdoses, he said. Why was the Eagles Lodge contacted by the DEA? The regional office of the DEA in Denver will no longer comment on the issue. The agent who warned the Eagles Lodge in May is under the jurisdiction of the Denver office, and Glaspy wouldn't discuss whether the agent had been reprimanded. Glaspy said he didn't know all the details of the Billings incident but gave his agency's position in the event that the same scenario presented itself in the future. "With the recent legal guidance that we've provided to the field offices, a place like the Eagles Lodge -- it would not apply to their situation." NORML's Web site, like the DEA's, is bristling with information about the new drug law, passed by Congress April 10 as part of the Amber Alert bill. The bill was sponsored by Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del. The laws aim to protect children from pornography and drugs, according to the bill's sponsors. Paul Armentano, a spokesman for NORML in Washington, said his organization does not think the bill's sponsors intended the law to be used to shut down benefit concerts like the one in Billings. They were unaware of the DEA's response to the incident, he said. "Hopefully, with these revised guidelines it will put an end to the actions of agents like this who purposely try to use the 'Rave Act' to target something they don't agree with personally," Armentano said. The Illicit Drug Anti-Proliferation Act is known by many as the Rave Act because a previous version of the bill, which died in Congress, held that title. The DEA says the law is not intended to target raves, dancing or any other expression, and should not be referred to as such, according to its Web site. The bill is an amendment to a law enacted 17 years ago known as the "crack house statute." The law allowed the Justice Department to go after property owners who knowingly allowed others to make, use or sell drugs on their property. But the law had a loophole, Glaspy said, because it did not address promoters who rent out a piece of property for an event, like a concert. "Before, we had no way to target a promoter because (the law) only dealt with owners," Glaspy said. Closer to home, the local Eagles Lodge has been talking to reporters from all over the country almost daily. Kelly, the bar manager there who asked that her last name not be used, said Wednesday that if the agent who told her the lodge could be fined acted in error, she doesn't hold it against him. "Nobody's perfect, I'm sure he had the best of intentions," Kelly said. "But it would have saved us from a sticky situation." Kelly was also good-natured about all the phone calls, and said everyone from the Los Angeles Times to the ACLU has been very polite. Would the Eagles host NORML's benefit concert if the group asked in the future? Kelly said such a decision would be up to the organization's board of trustees. Source: Billings Gazette, The (MT)Author: Bryan O'Connor of The Gazette Staff Published: June 26, 2003Copyright: 2003 The Billings GazetteContact: speakup billingsgazette.comWebsite: http://www.billingsgazette.com/Related Articles & Web Sites:ACLUhttp://www.aclu.org/NORMLhttp://www.norml.org/Montana NORMLhttp://www.montananorml.org/Was Eagles Lodge Threatened by DEA?http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread16628.shtmlNew Law Assists Political Intimidationhttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread16624.shtmlFree Drugs or Free Speech?http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread16606.shtml
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Comment #5 posted by lag on June 27, 2003 at 17:18:26 PT
This doesn't make sense
"The law gives the DEA the power to target a very specialized type of scheme that involves drug peddling at concerts. Glaspy said some unscrupulous promoters falsely advertise concerts as drug-free and alcohol-free; when the teens show up, they are offered drugs and are packed into hot, poorly ventilated areas. Bottled water may be sold for $10. A few concertgoers a night generally end up in the hospital with dehydration or drug overdoses, he said."I thought that concert locations that provided water and places to cool off were suspect for just that? So what do you want? No water and cool off location? Or someplace for people to cool off? The type of logic provided speaks volumes about how backwards their thinking is on this subject.
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Comment #4 posted by FoM on June 27, 2003 at 10:37:35 PT
Thanks kapt!
I really mean what I say about this article. My analysis about the drugs the peddlers push is this.All those drugs do are make you an addict and you don't even enjoy the drug! Now that is stupid! 
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Comment #3 posted by kaptinemo on June 27, 2003 at 10:11:46 PT:
FoM, you took the words right off my keyboard
Every time I hear that rushed, breathless list at the end of the commercials of all the things that could go wrong with you for taking the pill being touted, I think of the time a prescription pharmaceutical almost killed me.Who's the 'pusher'? Who's the 'dealer'? Who's the 'peddler'? Who is earnestly trying to get you to take a drug that you may learn, years too late, has created addictive tendencies in long term users, like many Prozac type pills do? They aren't standing on poorly lit street corners, hissing at prospective buyers. They are in glass-faced high-rises, wearing Brookes Bros suits, puffing Cohibas, counting their profits and waiting for their buyouts. While writing off potential corpses as myself as acceptable 'collateral damage'. And stalling legitimate scientific inquiry into cannabis as medicine for as long as they can. Drug peddlers? You betcha.
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Comment #2 posted by FoM on June 27, 2003 at 09:34:01 PT
Targeting Drug Peddlers 
Who is a drug peddler? I sure never met anyone that was peddling drugs. When I think of a drug peddler I think of all the ads on TV to buy the little purple pill or some other drug. http://www.purplepill.com/
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Comment #1 posted by kaptinemo on June 27, 2003 at 09:26:19 PT:
"Squee! Squeeeeee! Squeeeeeeee!
The sound of boar pig as it's being neutered. Normally it's a heartwrenching sound for a male of any species to hear.But in this case? It's pure music to my ears. Somebody in Billings, thinking they'd be slick, got caught overstepping their Constitutional boundaries and put the DEA in a very bad light indeed. The future of their agency is in serious question; scores of agents have taken early retirement or transferred to the Sky Marshalls. Morale is at an all-time low, and many of them have no faith at all in the new Administrator, who's already in hot water over her approval of the anti-paraphenalia sweeps they did not too long ago.DEA is not only in bureaucratic crosshairs for it's excesses, but other agencies are looking at their funding with covetous eyes.They are on the ropes, and this won't help at all.
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