Last week, Josh Farley at the Kitsap Sun reported that WestNET, the drug task force that raided several locations recently in an investigation of medical marijuana dispensary North End Club 420, would return a number of I-1068 petitions that they took during the raid.
It turns out that this isn’t quite over yet. Jane Hamsher at Firedoglake has sent out an action item to pressure WestNET to return the stolen petitions. Philip Dawdy has now posted on the latest developments.
UPDATE: In other wasted taxpayer money news, Marc Emery just plead guilty in a Seattle courtroom as per his previous plea agreement and will be incarcerated for the next five years on our dime (maybe we can ask the Canadian government – who collected hundreds of thousands in dollars in taxes from Emery before turning him over to the U.S. – to pitch in for the prosecution and incarceration costs). I guess we can all breathe easier knowing that our lives can no longer be threatened by marijuana seeds.
why the big deal over cops photocopying the petitions?
#1 Er, I believe the story is that they took the ACTUAL signed petitions. I’m not sure that is legally allowed. Once signed, these are part of a public legislative process.
Yes, pot is illegal, and therefore evil (by inverse logic). Lets not try to catch actual “terrorists”, lets waste our time with this bullshit. What a joke.
Marijuana is a plant. I know I’m not “supposed” to have it or grow or it smoke it. But the seeds have been here for LONG before this country existed. Marijuana existed FAR before any country or laws to ‘regulate’ it. It’s not a manufactured product, just a plant. It’s incredible we actually go through all this to make a plant illegal because the government (and libertarians must LOVE this) gets to decide WHICH intoxicants we’re allowed to have…and not based on science or rational thought, but magic and accidents of history.
(sigh)
why the big deal? Maybe because there is nothing relevant in the petition sheets to the raid. Maybe because the feds are interfering with a state legislative action (as SoS Reed correctly argued before SCOTUS regarding petitions). Maybe because the Obama administration has promised to leave med-mar states alone.
This is an attempt at intimidation, and it’s lame.
@2..yes, I understand that they took the real petitions and it sounds like the cops will be returning those…however in one of the links, there was mention that 420 Club wanted the copies destroyed as well..
@3….hhmmm, intimidation…hmmm…Gee, I seem to remember many of the progressives here supporting the public release of signature names on the anti-gay marriage proposition last time around. The concern back then was that the signers would be intimidated or harassed.
Now, it would appear, that the shoe is on the other foot.
Funny how that works…you know, that whole karma/irony thing…
@4
I believe that the identity of petition signers for I-1068 should be public information. Not sure how many other I-1068 supporters agree with that.
However, I believe it should be illegal for law enforcement to collect petitions as “evidence” in any crime. Federal officers photocopying the petitions is a different level of intimidation than what gay rights suppporters asked for. People in this country should not be deemed criminal solely for political speech. This isn’t the Middle East.
@4 Ah, fair point. As for the “copies”, if they just have copies, no biggie, since those names are supposed to be public anyway. Well…the Supreme Court will tell us shortly if that’s REALLY true. I signed it. It’s a public process to put forward legislation. I don’t mind if my name is seen on it. Unlike the folks who put up the petition to remove domestic partnership rights, I’m not hiding or ashamed of it…or fearing “intimidation”. So keep ’em and enjoy.
Justice served. Happy to pay for it. Have another toke Lee and quit whining you pussy.
Minor point here, but initiative petition signatures only become public AFTER sponsors have submitted them to the Secretary of STate and they have been counted. Seizing and inspecting and copying such petitions BEFORE they have been submitted, while the signature collection process is still under way, is intimidation, pure and simple.
This is taken from the DOJ’s (WestNet’s funder) official website. It seems to be classic ’50s “Reefer Madness” writing with George Soros conspiracy crap thrown in. There is a lot more of Teh Crazy on their website: http://www.justice.gov/dea/mar.....html#lobby
“THE LEGALIZATION LOBBY
[Deleted — see HA Comment Policy]
I don’t understand why the Canadians surrendered one of their citizens to the goons in out govnerment over marijuana seeds. If Emery isn’t yet another reawson for total reform of marijuana laws, I don’t know what there is that will get everyone’s attention that we’re absolutely crazy with our laws and marijuana.
@10
I’m not sure what to make of it just yet, but I have been thinking about the contrast between our ability to extradite Emery and what happened when we tried to extradite the Jamaican drug kingpin today.
lock him up with noriega…lol
@9
Bert,
I didn’t delete the copied text in your comment. One of the other admins did. We have a rule about copying and pasting large amounts of text into comments.
I just clicked through to your blog. Some good stuff over there. It’s a shame you haven’t had more time to post. Thanks for the comment.
Feedburner is really very useful for syndicating feeds from other websites.`~~