|
We Update
Daily!
Custom Search
Chris S. Kenoyer. Owner
MMJ Patient,
Medical Activist,
Online Patients Advocate,
Online News Journalist
My
Personal Medical Bio
Follow Us Now On Twitter
@MedicalMMJMan
Email Us Here
olpwebs@yahoo.com
Or Email Me 100% Securely Below
MedicalMMJMan@countermail.com
NEW 100% Encrypted Email Server
For
TV,
News, Press, Contact Info
Is CBD? A Possible
Cure For
Breast Cancer..?
And All The Other
Many
Forms & Types
Of Cancer..?
Learn
More About " CBD" Here
Cancer Cured..? A Cannabis Story
********************************
Advertise Here
On OnlinePot
Rates As Low As $50 a Year
24/7 - 365 Days A Year
Of Sales!
*******************************************
Website Navigational Links
Main
Start Page 2
*******************************************
Parody's
Cartoons US
Government Grown Pot,
Term Papers,
School
Reports, & Thesis's On
Marijuana & Cannabis
*******************************************
Amsterdam
A to Z
*******************************************
Canadian
Marijuana
Websites
*******************************************
Church's
& Pot Cannabis
*******************************************
Co-Ops, Clinics, Dispensary's
*********************************************
Marijuana
Doctors & Clinics
*******************************************
Pot
Cooking Recipes
*******************************************
Drug
Testing A To Z
*******************************************
Pot Games
*********************************************
Pot
Songs
*******************************************
100's
Of Grow Guides
*******************************************
Latest
Marijuana News Reports
*******************************************
Hash A- Z
*******************************************
Cannabis
Legal Info, Drug
Lawyers, State, Federal Laws,
State
& Supreme Court Rulings
*******************************************
POW's
Of The MMJ
War!
*******************************************
Other
Marijuana Websites
Websites
Link
Exchange!
*******************************************
Medical
Marijuana
Studies,
Research
Report's, Medical
Cannabis Clinic Study's
*******************************************
Avoiding Online MOM
Scammers
Newly
Re-Updated Info!
*******************************************
The Politics Of
Contraband
Medical Marijuana In The Mail?
*******************************************
The
Hall Of Shame Section
The Online MOM Scammers
*******************************************
Online
MOM Providers Ads
*******************************************
Politicians
&
Voters Rights
*******************************************
Medical
Marijuana, Strains
*******************************************
The OG
Marijuana Strain Guide
*******************************************
800+
FAQ Growing Questions
*******************************************
Patients
Spiritual
Guidance,
Free Online
Crisis Help Center
*******************************************
Online
Marijuana Seed Banks
*******************************************
Maximum Security
Section
Just Updated!
*******************************************
Traveling
Tips, Guides, B & B's
*******************************************
Vaporizers
A To Z
*******************************************
Online Pot Video's & Movies
*******************************************
Please
Visit Our Sister Website!
Reefer Madness Teaching
Museum.org
Listen Right Here Online!
To Original 1930-1950's
Reefer Madness Propaganda
Radio
Shows And Programs
Before TV There Were
"Radio Stars"
*********************************
OnlinePot Free Newsletter
The
Latest In MMJ News
Legal
Disclaimer
Guest Book
Translate Text or Web Page Go To:
Language Tools
Google
Translations
Article
Submissions & News
Reports
Are Always
Gladly
Accepted Here.

1999-2012 Copyright ©
All Rights Reserved.
No part of this site maybe used or
reproduced in whole or in part
without
the written consent of the
Copyright
Owner Chris Kenoyer
www.onlinepot.org
OnlinePot assumes no legal
liability
for
any products, or
information or
news
posted, services
offered,
Or
any contests or give away's offered.
| |
WHEN COPS ARE THIEVES
If the County Sheriffs of Colorado has its way, law-enforcement agencies will
soon be
able to take your house, cars, cash and jewelry, sell it off and divvy
up the proceeds
quietly and privately among themselves. This organization,
which lobbies for the
interests of sheriffs across the state, is the force
behind House Bill 1238, which rolls
back a 2002 law guaranteeing Colorado
residents reasonable protections against
"asset forfeiture" - a fancy
legal term for when the cops use the force of law to take
your stuff.
The idea behind asset forfeiture is to deprive criminals of property used to
commit crimes and the money they make by breaking the law. Think of a coke
kingpin with several houses, a yacht, a few helicopters, lots of guns and ammo,
as well as a fleet of fancy cars.
When he's busted, the empire that cocaine built is taken from him, liquidated
and put toward paying for the expense that went into bringing him down.
Fair enough, right?
When it comes to drug kingpins, asset forfeiture seems just and reasonable.
But every law has unintended consequences. Prior to 2002, the state's
asset forfeiture law too often resulted in property and cash being taken from
innocent men and women - people who either hadn't committed a crime or who were
arrested but later acquitted. Further, the law gave law-enforcement
officers a financial incentive to see every arrest as a potential opportunity
for profit.
Consider the single mom who loaned her car to her cousin - only to lose it after
the police pulled her cousin over and discovered marijuana seeds and a wad of
cash hidden in the vehicle. It didn't matter that the car didn't belong to
the cousin or that the woman was innocent or that losing the car was a major
financial blow to her. The police sold the vehicle and pocketed the cash.
Then there was the disabled man who, prior to the state's medical marijuana law,
was busted for growing a couple of pot plants in his house. He wasn't a
dealer; he didn't sell dope to school kids. Instead, he used marijuana to
control his chronic pain. The police checked county records and saw that
he'd paid off his mortgage with settlement money from the accident that deprived
him of his mobility. After discovering how much money was tied up in his
house, they started forfeiture proceedings, depriving a man with no job and no
ability to work of his home at great profit to their agency.
And what about the Mexican worker who came here legally to help build Denver
International Airport? He bought a ticket home and boarded a plane with $15,000
in hard-earned cash. Police searched him and found the cash. They
discovered no drugs on him or in his luggage. Nor did they find any
evidence that the money came from the commission of a crime. But because a
drug-sniffing dog reacted to the money, they decided to keep it, even though
studies have shown that 99 percent of bills in circulation are tainted with the
scent of illegal drugs. After the man hired an attorney, he got 40 percent
of his wages back, but the cops kept the other 60 percent because they could.
The above are real incidents provided to Boulder Weekly by attorneys who worked
to get the 2002 reform bill passed and signed into law. ( See "Pirate
police," cover story, March 21, 2002. ) It was incidents like these
that brought people together from the left and the right and all points in
between to change state law to protect individual property rights and discourage
abuses by law-enforcement agencies.
The 2002 law, still currently in force, works in a couple of different ways,
requiring that a person be convicted before their property can be taken.
It also removes the financial motivation for law enforcement to seize assets by
dividing the money from forfeitures equally between local substance-abuse
programs and local county or city government for allocation through a public
budgeting process. And it requires law-enforcement agencies to stay on the
level by submitting an annual forfeiture report to the Department of Local
Affairs.
Now, some in the law-enforcement community want to revert to the way things were
before the 2002 law passed, when they could take people's money, jewelry, cars
and homes without first getting a criminal conviction and keep the majority of
it without any public accountability. It's a recession, after all, and
they need money from somewhere.
House Bill 1238, sponsored in the house by Rep. Joe Rice, D-Glendale, and
in the Senate by Sen. Brandon Shaffer, D-Boulder, would wipe away the 2002
reforms that curbed law-enforcement abuses. It would remove the
requirement that a person be convicted of a criminal offense before their
property could be taken. It would further allow a person's property to be
taken even if that person didn't know his or her property was being used to
commit a crime. It would even remove the requirement that law-enforcement
agencies prove that the property they're trying to seize was instrumental in
committing a crime. And it would allow cops to keep the majority of the
booty without any public accountability or reporting requirement.
In short, HB 1238 gives law-enforcement agencies both the incentive and the
legal ability to abuse their authority at the expense of your individual
property rights. As one local attorney, Dennis Blewitt, put it, "It
turns cops into privateers."
We need law-enforcement agencies to uphold our rights, not to rob us at
gunpoint. Fortunately, the same bipartisan, grassroots coalition that came
together to get the 2002 reforms passed is joining forces once again to defeat
Rice's ill-conceived bill. Boulder Weekly urges you to join that effort by
contacting Sen. Shaffer and other local representatives and asking them to
kill HB 1238. A bill like this is utterly at odds with the United State's
highest principles of justice, among them this gem: "innocent until proven
guilty."
Pubdate: Thu, 05 Mar 2009
Source: Boulder Weekly (CO)
Copyright: 2009 Boulder Weekly
|