Fed Gov revenue stream gotta flow uphill somewhere.
Idaho must be full of white folks.
Posted on 05/21/2012 7:31:52 AM PDT by Altariel
At 5:30 a.m. on May 10, armed men broke into the bedroom of Kirk Kyle Farrar’s 12 year-old daughter and shook her awake. The men led her downstairs at gunpoint and forced her to lie on the floor next to her mother and father, with her hands behind her head. Another armed man took Farrar’s two-year-old son from his crib, and would not let his parents hold him. “My son screamed for his mother for what seemed like an eternity,” Farrar wrote in an email to friends, obtained by Reason. “I will never forget the hopeless feeling of not being able to comfort my son or daughter.”
The armed men who broke into Farrar’s home were officers with the Meridian, Idaho, Police Department and the Drug Enforcement Administration. They were executing a federal warrant for Farrar’s arrest for the crime of selling bongs.
Farrar’s wasn’t the only family traumatized that morning. Agents from the Drug Enforcement Administration, the U.S. Marshals Service, the Idaho National Guard, and four Idaho police departments raided the homes of 13 other headshop owners and employees on May 10. All of the headshops had their inventory seized. One shop lost more than $80,000 worth of merchandise (bongs and pipes marketed as “tobacco water pipes”). Another headshop owner had his and and his employees' vehicles seized.
The investigation into these 13 shops and their employees (two of which are still at large) for selling drug paraphernalia was led by U.S. Attorney Wendy J. Olson, a Barack Obama appointee. Nine of the shops were also accused of selling "spice," a synthetic alternative to the prohibited and significantly safer drug marijuana.
In his email, Farrar denies selling spice. "Piece of Mind Boise has never carried these products EVER! We made a commitment from the start not to carry it because we believe it is dangerous and not being used in a legal fashion."
He also notes that his cousin, "[who] has never previously committed a crime and has absolutely no criminal record," has been charged with "with 4 Federal felony charges stemming from selling tobacco products."
“The open sale of drug paraphernalia promotes unlawful drug use and helps drug traffickers thrive,” Olson said at a press conference on May 10. “These indictments show federal, state and local law enforcement partners will attack drug trafficking on all fronts.”
During a speech at the Center for American Progress earlier this month, Drug Czar Gil Kerlikowske said that the law enforcement-only approach to America's drug problem was not "humane, compassionate" or "realistic." He also said that the Obama administration does not believe it can "arrest its way out of the drug problem."
Reason spoke to one headshop owner. At his attorney’s behest, this owner declined to go on the record, but did say that local police had been aware of the store’s existence and sales of glass pipes for years, but had never threatened charges or discouraged the business from operating. The owner believes that the raids came at the behest of federal law enforcement officials.
According to the Idaho Statesman, “the DEA, Idaho National Guard, IRS and the U.S. Marshals and Attorney’s offices worked on the case,” which the agencies built over the course of an entire year.
As if more evidence were needed that President Obama's drug war looks a lot like George W. Bush's: The charges against Farrar and the other Idaho headshop owners are reminiscent of the federal prosecution of actor Tommy Chong under Bush's DOJ. Chong was convicted in 2003 for distributing paraphernalia through his company Nice Dreams Enterprises. Chong was fined $20,000, and made to forfeit his domain name, all of his inventory, and $103,514 in cash.
OOOOOOOO we law-abiding folk are really really scared. And, yes, we support pointing loaded weapons at tired, frightened children who are in the presence of armed, deranged, drug-peddling monsters who destroy America. Thank you for verifying that the angry, self-absorbed, David-Koresh-group that huddles with you is as crazy as we thought.
Fed Gov revenue stream gotta flow uphill somewhere.
Idaho must be full of white folks.
Wrong. The agents could just have easily produced a warrant for arrest at the business itself during business hours.
They CHOSE to terrorize his two small children, threatening them with DEATH.
It’s only a matter of time before the death THREATS turn into the callousness to actually pull the trigger.
Will it be your children, your nephew(s) or your niece(s) or your grandchildren who have the dubious “honor” to be the first, on that day?
Look...they knew the risk of playing on the edge with any type of drug paraphanalia.....legal or not. They also knew it’s a fine line regardless of how the situtaion played out or plays out from here on.... Fools says it well.
As for coming for guns...do you honestly believe that will be stopped if they choose to do so? Yes they have the power and yes they will use it when and how they choose....why invite it? ....Which is exactly what these fools did by the what they choose to involve themselves and their family with. The buck stops with them....the outcome will of course be another story.
Notice how you are dehumanizing American citizens.
Observe that the same dehumanization will be done to you, when you are the owner or consumer of an “illegal” possession or substance.
What will it be for you? Your firearms? Your truck? The butter or bacon in your rerigerator? The chocolate chip cookies in the pantry? Will you own a dog breed not approved by the State?
If you think the noose cannot be tightened around your neck, if you truly think you cannot be found guilty of violating some law already on the books (or which will be added to them), it is you who are woefully naive.
Will it take the threat of death or the actual deaths of your children, niece or nephew or grandchildren to wake you up, too late, to the hunger of the government hydra?
If it can happen to them, it can happen to you.
Be careful what you justify the government doing to others—you grant it the power to do the same to you as well.
Thanks, I didn’t know who he was before.
Baloney Alteriel....that's not how it really works...and we all know it. If they intend to capture you they will do so with or without what is legal or not.....it is what it is.
Parents who put their children in harms way are responsible for the outcome no matter how much one wants to avoid or justify the actions taken against them....or how the operation went down.
This is not the first time nor will it be the last such a situation has occured.....whatever the outsome the buck stops with the parents of these children.
So you would have no complaints if a Freeper posts one day to report his/her children were murdered because he/she committed the “crime” of firearms ownership?
After all, surely that Freeper brought it on himself, wouldn’t you agree, Comrade?
Increasingly, it seems to be only a matter of time.
Will it be the child of a Freeper who has the dubious “honor” of being the first?
Those who have no compunctions against pointing armed weapons at children today will surely shoot them when they are sufficiently emboldened tomorrow.
After all, the actions of the parents warranted the murder of the children, right?
Water pip, bong, hookah. . .aren’t these all basically the same type of instrument?
Hookah bars are opening up all over the place. Why are they legal?
Yes.... Like it or not their are laws in each state which one is to adhere to in purchasing firearms....you hold them illegally your going to pay the price for breaking those laws. It's that simple. To think otherwise is being a fool.
A left handed batter if I ever saw one.
Use the DEA to harass some pot heads but push the immoral sodomy on us all. We are sooooo far gone.
Baloney Alteriel....that's not how it really works...and we all know it. If they intend to capture you they will do so with or without what is legal or not.....it is what it is.
It is what they choose it to be, which was Alteriel's point. Their choice to endanger lives because of bong-selling was immoral, and should not be defended by anyone who wants to think of themselves as conservative.
Exactly. I mean, it's not like we needed that Constitution or anything.
B I N G O !!!
Not even pot heads ... bong sellers and their children.
So I’m confused ... would a hooka qualify as a bong? If not, why not.
Take all of your police state nazis and go to h*ll!
The Constitution is such a little thing isn’t it?just brush it aside when you want to impose your will on everyone.Funny how the United States was a land of opportunity and freedom that drew people from all over even in the 1800s when the government didn’t regulate every aspect of life.
Funny how huge organized crime became with the prohibition of alcohol.
Funny how organized crime thrives because there is lots more profit for dealers and government by keeping substances illegal.
Funny how someone on a conservative site is fine with police and military personnel terrorizing American CHILDREN .
Funny how a government that can force others to your beliefs can also force you to comply with someone else’s.!
Funny how so few of us still believe in the freedom of others even if we personally don’t use alcohol,drugs,bungee jump,scuba dive,ride a motorcycle without a helmet,etc.etc.
I’m not laughing.
Yes....and using “Freepers” doesn’t change the equation. You own fire arms you have a respossibility to make them legal. If you choose otherwise you also know the risk for doing so. Simple.
I was thinking more along the lines of something involving four horses, four ropes, and a lot of pain, but that would work too.
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