Posted on 08/21/2006 5:54:00 PM PDT by Know your rights
Former Seattle police Chief Norm Stamper doesn't have dreadlocks, a Zig-Zag T-shirt or a single Phish album. He just sounds like it. "It's laughable when people say we are winning the drug war," said Stamper, who had just finished a main-stage speech to the crowd gathered Sunday at the Seattle Hempfest in Myrtle Edwards Park. "The people who are prosecuting the drug war are invested psychically and financially. It's a holy war for them.
"We should legalize all drugs."
While the comments might be unusual for most law enforcement careerists, they are nothing new for Stamper, who was Seattle's top cop from 1994 to 2000. That is why organizers brought him in for the popular two-day, pro-pot festival.
Organizers estimated 150,000 people flowed into the waterfront park, which for the weekend turned into a dense village of food booths, stages, arts-and-crafts sellers, hemp product manufacturers, leafleteers, hackysack circles and picnickers.
Now in its 15th year, Hempfest is at its core all about decriminalizing marijuana. So is Stamper, especially after years of witnessing firsthand what he sees as the futility of the federal drug war.
The drugs are winning, he said. It's time to change tactics.
"Police should be focused on violent crime," he told the crowd.
Stamper, a member of pro-legalization Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, said many of his peers agree with him but will only say so privately. He told a story about a recent chat with a police chief in a "major American city" who had read Stamper's 2005 book, "Breaking Rank."
In it, Stamper advocates legalizing and regulating drugs as a way to reduce collateral problems such as addiction, violence and property crime.
"He came up to me after a talk and said he agreed with the chapter on drugs," Stamper said. "I asked, 'Can I quote you publicly?'
"He said, 'What have you been smoking?' "
Stamper saw similar reticence Sunday, as he preached to the choir in the sunny, 90-degree heat.
Waiting for hand-dipped ice-cream bars in the festival's munchie midway, Seattleites Tony Witherspoon, 31, and Neil Toland, 28, said they don't see pot as a rip in society's fabric.
"I wouldn't think a little weed is going to hurt anybody," Witherspoon said.
Added Toland, "There needs to be a little space for (pot)."
Creating that political space is what the festival is all about, chief organizer Dominic Holden said.
Hempfest has matured over the decade and a half it's existed, he said. Initially, it went unnoticed by local police. Then, Holden recalled, it became tense and even adversarial between organizers and police in the late 1990s -- at a time when Stamper was chief.
"For a while there, it seemed like it would go downhill," Holden said. "They were doing backstage raids looking for pot. They didn't find any."
Since then, the political landscape has changed, Holden said.
First, state voters approved medical marijuana. Subsequently, Seattle residents said they are not worried about pot as a law enforcement issue.
Now, he said, the relationship is much more mellow.
"We all want it to be a safe festival," Holden said. "The police have been great. Very collaborative.
"This might be our biggest festival ever."
Robert Shafer was probably one of the most conservative Republicans you could have found. Maybe too conservative.
He promised to objectively pursue the truth of the matter, and then he went and actually did it.
I think Soros is actually just the front man for an international conspiracy run by a secret society of jazz musicians.
"Speaking" slowly, you're still showing your inability to keep up:
Each time a "legalize pot" discussion occurs on FR, the SAME posters who want to keep the drug war going (consistent with socialistic prohibitions on most everything else, like guns, tobacco & 'sin'), will bombard the pages of FR with their irrational rants on the benefits of criminalizing property, -- in direct opposition to our constitutional rights to life, liberty and property.
Why is that? Why do you people claim to be supporters of a free republic, -- yet you advocate unconstitutional prohibitions?
BTW, -- heres an 'irrational rant' on living your life as a free man, -- unafraid that someone, somewhere might be relaxing by abusing a substance.
ON SHEEP, WOLVES, AND SHEEPDOGS (an excellent read!)
Address:http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1687633/posts?page=1
The Constitution does not make murder illegal, either.
Your argument is made of whole cloth.....
Civilization lasted thousands of years - just fine without cannabis arrests - and now we have a problem - a problem caused by prohibition of marijuana.
This is true! My wife really likes it.
6) It helps you to deal with an injured child if one was unfortunate enough to get injured while mommy/daddy was getting stoned.
This is also true.
An interesting thing about cannabis is that - one can be quite high and if a serious matter develops - you can snap out of the high to deal with the problem.
10) It grows easy on your neighbors property.
With the great new GPS devices available today, gorilla style cannabis gardening will be much easier.
It doesn't need to pass a nationwide ballot. We as the people do not create or repeal federal laws. All the feds need to do is reclassify marijuana as a schedule IV drug and let the states decide whether or not to decriminalize its use.
It will only pass in Blue States, such as CA, NY, etc., where the potheads/liberals reside en masse.
Again, the country would NOT approve it in the vast majority of States, no matter what arguments are made to legalize dope.
Again, we don't need a reason or approval to make something legal. You need a reason to make something illegal, and the only reasons to make pot illegal are conveniently ignored when one applies them to alcohol.
And I disagree. I think most states would legalize it. The following states have already made small amounts of marijuana posession a minor non-jail offense: CA, NV, OR, NE, MN, OH, NC, NY, ME, MS, and AK.
It's time to stop treating pot-smokers like degenerate felons.
You just proved yourself incorrect: these states did NOT legalize it, they only reduced the possession penalties.
Legalization is a FAR CRY FROM REDUCED PENALTIES.
Secondly, the possession is ALREADY ILLEGAL, and claiming you "need a reason to make something illegal" is a moot point:the law is already on the books, whether YOU approve of it or not.
Again, on a nationwide basis, legalization will not pass, and only a very few BLUE states would approve the legalization on a state-by-state vote.
Each time a "legalize pot" discussion occurs on FR, the SAME posters who want to get the drug legalized (consistent with legalizing all drugs in the Soros' plan), will bombard the pages of FR with their irrational rants on the benefits of pot laws being repealed.
Ask for help, if you can't understand the posts.
"Speaking" slowly, you're still showing your inability to keep up:
Each time a "legalize pot" discussion occurs on FR, the SAME posters who want to keep the drug war going (consistent with socialistic prohibitions on most everything else, like guns, tobacco & 'sin'), will bombard the pages of FR with their irrational rants on the benefits of criminalizing property, -- in direct opposition to our constitutional rights to life, liberty and property. Why is that? Why do you people claim to be supporters of a free republic, -- yet you advocate unconstitutional prohibitions?
The Constitution does not make murder illegal, either.
Malum Prohibitum - An act which is immoral because it is illegal; not necessarily illegal because it is immoral.
Malum in se - An innately immoral act, regardless of whether it is forbidden by law. Examples include adultery, theft, and murder.
See, e.g. United States v. Bajakajian, 524 U.S. 321 (1998).
Your argument is made of whole cloth.....
"-- The utterly insufferable arrogance of power, and the need for it, is an absolute fact of the human condition.
-- Nothing can be done about it. - Just as the poor shall always be with us, so shall we have these infinitely shrewd imbeciles who live to lay down their version of 'prohibitory law' to others. --"
Just as we have the infinitely shrewd imbeciles who espouse anarchy, at the expense of the rest of society, where no law allows each individual interpretation of what his responsiblities are to society, i.e., Dahmer, Bundy, Manson, etc.
Depends on whose ox is being gored, in all cases of self-indulgent "intellectuals"....
Beginning in 1803, with the Marbury opinion, it has been recognized as a principle of our system that laws repugnant to the US Constitution are null & void from enactment, -- "whether YOU approve of it or not".
Read much?
--- Before we had socialistic laws that decree what each individuals "-- responsibilities are to society --"?
Which is exactly what I said they did.
Secondly, the possession is ALREADY ILLEGAL, and claiming you "need a reason to make something illegal" is a moot point:the law is already on the books, whether YOU approve of it or not.
It is not a moot point if the basis for making marijuana illegal was misleading and fraudulent.
Again, on a nationwide basis, legalization will not pass, and only a very few BLUE states would approve the legalization on a state-by-state vote.
You really have no basis to make this assumption. In fact, it is illogical to assume this given the above example of states that have greatly reduced the penalty for posession, including red states such as Ohio, Nebraska, and Mississippi.
It's YOUR opinion, not a legal finding of fact. That's why the law is in force; if you don't like it, challenge it in court and see where it gets you. The LAW still stands.
Again, NO State has legalized marijuana use (except Kalifornia's feeble "medical use") which proves further the point that reduced sentencing/penalties is nowhere near comparable to repealing the Law.
"There are 100,000 total marijuana smokers in the US, and most are Negroes, Hispanics, Filipinos, and entertainers. Their Satanic music, jazz, and swing, result from marijuana use. This marijuana causes white women to seek sexual relations with Negroes, entertainers, and any others."
"...the primary reason to outlaw marijuana is its effect on the degenerate races."
"Reefer makes darkies think they're as good as white men."
"You smoke a joint and you're likely to kill your brother."
"Marijuana is the most violence-causing drug in the history of mankind."
Mr. Anslinger was a key figure in making marijuana illegal. Now, I think any reasonable person will look at these quotes and find them both misleading and fraudulent.
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