Once again and despite the will of voters, Alaska authorities show they are not going to go along with the legalization of marijuana in the state.
Friday March 20, Anchorage police served warrants at the Alaska
Cannabis Club supposedly searching for evidence of "misconduct involving a
controlled substance." One of
the operators of the club, Charlo Greene has been an outspoken advocate of
legalized pot.
Short video of Charlo Greene telling what's going on during the police raid.
Short video of Charlo Greene telling what's going on during the police raid.
According to a report in the Alaska Dispatch News, officers
found nine marijuana plants in one side of a duplex and 17 on the other side.
Greene told reporters there were 10 to 12 medical marijuana cardholders in the building
at the time.
Along with plants and boxes and paper bags of other
“evidence" police towed away two vehicles. That seizure may have been illegal. Attorney General Eric Holder recently issued new federal regulations regarding forfeiture of civil assets in drug busts limiting how those assets can be used by law enforcement. Often those assets have been kept even when the persons charged were acquitted. In one notorious case police seized a suspect's parents' house in such a forfeiture.
A police spokesman told the News Dispatch the department had received
reports of illegal marijuana sales at the club house. Received reports? The target of this raid is a known
supporter of legal pot and a defendant of the use of medical marijuana who
apparently everyone but the police knew was selling pot to legal medical-marijuana
card holders. So they sent 12 officers to serve the warrant for a fourth degree misdemeanor.
Now, given that the legalization vote last fall did not make
sales legal until details have been worked out, to the letter of the law, sale
is still illegal. As to the sprit of the referendum, well, not so much.
The first day pot was legal police targeted and arrested
three persons for smoking in public. Now, again they target what seems to be a
simple outlet of medical marijuana. It seems like the police want to get as many people arrested and charged on pot offenses as they can before they can't do it any more.
Taken together they indicate police are targeting simple
marijuana use in an effort to intimidate, and discourage as many people as possible
before marijuana truly becomes legal, if it ever does. What threat to the public
does this club constitute? None, it just offends authorities that people sell
and use pot despite what a majority of voters say.
Meanwhile the Legislature chips away at the legalization
process, adding more and more restrictions rather than looking for ways to streamline the legalization
process. And the police are feeding more nonviolent simple possessers
into the court and penal systems as quickly as they can before they can't any
more. And they are picking on the easy targets.
There are far more serious drug problems in Anchorage and
Alaska than a few stoned marijuana users. How many meth labs are there? When was the last time we read about a lab raided? Recently the news reported an increase in heroin use in Alaska. But, oh boy, we
caught a woman who sells marijuana right out in the open. That took a lot of
detective work. Public inebriation is still a problem as far as I know and that
goes on unabated, but by god we shut down that woman selling pot.
The folks who initiated the referendum along with
the rest of us need to pay attention here before the Legislature enacts such a
tangle of regulatory obstacles that the idea of legalization will be lost in the
red tape while police again and again will target pot users for simple possession
and use along with sale of small amounts.
There is a broader issue here is of elected officials not following the will of the people they represent and that lesson needs to be brought home. Instead of looking at the many benefits of legalized pot, everyone in authority has taken a negative view toward it and continues to look for ways to keep it from happening. That sort of subversion is very obvious in the malfunctions of Congress and now we have a spotlighted example in our own state government. It would be an excellent masters thesis for some graduate student to document and interpret how legislators subvert the will of the people to promote their own beliefs and purposes.
Take a lesson from Colorado and Washington, states that worked in a positive direction to make the will of the people the law of the land.
There is a broader issue here is of elected officials not following the will of the people they represent and that lesson needs to be brought home. Instead of looking at the many benefits of legalized pot, everyone in authority has taken a negative view toward it and continues to look for ways to keep it from happening. That sort of subversion is very obvious in the malfunctions of Congress and now we have a spotlighted example in our own state government. It would be an excellent masters thesis for some graduate student to document and interpret how legislators subvert the will of the people to promote their own beliefs and purposes.
Take a lesson from Colorado and Washington, states that worked in a positive direction to make the will of the people the law of the land.
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