Oklahoma Mom Sentenced to 12 Years In Prison For $30 Worth Of Weed May Get Parole!

“A small body of determined spirits fired by an unquenchable faith in their mission can alter the course of history” -Gandhi 

Patricia Spottedcrow, a mother and first time offender from Oklahoma, was originally sentenced to 12 years behind bars for selling $30 worth of marijuana. For months, the NORML Women’s Alliance, and other organizations have been bringing attention to one of the most egregious cases of the war on drugs in recent history.  After several outreach campaigns to local law enforcement and elected officials, and especially a strong grassroots effort spearheading my outraged mothers and reformers alike, the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board have recommended early parole for Spottedcrow. While this is a small victory in the battle against marijuana prohibition, it is significant in showing that grassroots efforts trult can make a significant difference in the lives of those adversely impacted by the government’s war on drugs.

OKLAHOMA CITY – Grassroots support may evolve into early parole for a Kingfisher mother who was handed a strict prison sentence for a first-time offense of selling $31 worth of marijuana.

After her story was published in the Tulsa World’s series on Women in Prison in 2011, a groundswell of support emerged. In October, a Kingfisher County judge reduced her sentence by four years.

Spottedcrow’s advocates expressed concern for possible racial bias, disparate sentences for drug crimes, Oklahoma’s No. 1 female incarceration rate per capita and the effects on children growing up with incarcerated parents.

Because children were in Spottedcrow’s home when she was arrested, a charge of possession of a dangerous substance in the presence of a minor was added. Her mother, Delita Starr, was also charged with the crime but was given a 30-year suspended sentence so she could care for Spottedcrow’s four children while their mother was incarcerated.

Board member Marc Dreyer, senior pastor at Tulsa’s Memorial Baptist Church, was instrumental in getting Spottedcrow’s case early consideration.

He said he requested to meet Spottedcrow while visiting Eddie Warrior Correctional Center in Taft a few months ago, after reading about her case in the Tulsa World.

“Based on quantity of drugs involved and the desperation of her situation at the time, it was my view that she ought to have consideration by the board for parole, as there were some extenuating circumstances,” Dreyer said. He requested that her case be moved to the board’s April hearing.

Click here for more information.

The NORML Women’s Alliance would like to thank everyone who took the time to make their voice heard against this injustice.  Together, we will prevail. Support the NORML Women’s Alliance with a donation by clicking the link below:

Supreme Court Makes It Even Worse To Be A Cannabis Consumer Under Prohibition

Supreme Court Authorizes Strip Searches for Any Criminal Offense

By Kellen Russoniello, George Washington University Law School and  NORML legal intern

If you are sent to jail, be prepared to get naked, squat, and cough.

In Florence v. Board of Chosen Freeholders, a 5-4 decision drawn on party lines released on April 2, the Supreme Court upheld the practice of forcing detainees who would be entering the general jail population to undergo strip searches. The Court noted that they “must defer to the judgment of correctional officials unless the record contains substantial evidence showing their policies are an unnecessary or un-justified response to problems of jail security.” Despite the dissent’s assertions that the massive affront to human dignity that strip searches cause is not outweighed by the scant evidence that these procedures actually produce discovery of more contraband, the Court ruled that jails can force detainees to undergo an extremely close inspection while unclothed.

The rationale for the decision is that corrections officers should have deference to deal with the serious problems faced by admitted new people to the general jail population. These dangers include: introducing contagious diseases or lice; the possibility that the detainee may have open wounds; the fact that a detainee may have gang tattoos, which could lead to violence within the jail; or the chance that the person may be carrying contraband (weapons or drugs) in places that are not visible from a general visual search. Additionally, jails are often more dangerous than prisons because little is known about the admitted offender.

As if the breadth of the ruling was not striking enough, the case becomes more shocking when the facts are recounted. The case arose from the 2005 arrest of Albert Florence, a middle-aged African-American man. When Florence’s wife was pulled over for speeding, a records search revealed that Florence, who was in the passenger’s seat, had an outstanding warrant for failure to appear at an enforcement hearing as a result of unpaid fines from two years prior. In fact, the fine had been paid a few days after the issuance of the warrant, but the warrant was never taking off the system.

Additionally, anticipating potential confusion and/or conflict with police during any future traffic stop or like encounter, Florence presented photocopies to arresting police of the paid receipts. To no avail, he was arrested on the spot.

Florence was held for six days in Burlington County jail and then transferred to Essex County jail where he was held for an additional day. At each facility, detention officers forced Florence to strip naked while they examined him for tattoos, scars, and contraband. In the second jail, Florence had to lift his genitals, turnaround, squat, and then cough. After his release, Florence sued the government under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for violating his Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment Rights.

This ruling built on precedent set in Bell v. Wolfish, which held that prisoners detained in any correctional facility run by the Federal Bureau of Prisons could be forced to undergo a strip search after every contact visit with a person from outside the facility. Additionally, the Court cites favorably the decision of Atwater v. City of Lago Vista, which held that a person can be arrested and held in detention no matter how minor the criminal offense is (in that case, a woman was arrested for not wearing her seatbelt). Taken together, this means that a person can be detained for any criminal offense, and therefore forced to undergo a strip search for any criminal offense.

Justice Breyer in dissent points out the absurdity of this approach. Under this ruling, minor offenses such as driving with a noisy muffler, failing to use a turn signal, riding a bicycle without an audible bell, or walking your dog without a leash, could subject the arrestee to a strip search.

Breyer also notes that other procedures used by jails, including the jails in which Florence was detained, have not shown to be any less effective in finding contraband, gang tattoos, or removing lice than the strip search procedure. For example, both jails performed pat-down searches, made detainees go through metal detectors, made inmates shower with de-lousing shampoo, and searched the inmate’s clothing.

Furthermore, a New York Times article summarizes the trend that states have taken so far regarding strip searches for newly admitted persons to jails:

The procedures endorsed by the majority are forbidden by statute in at least 10 states and are at odds with the policies of federal authorities. According to a supporting brief filed by the American Bar Association, international human rights treaties also ban the procedures . . . . Monday’s decision endorsed a recent trend, from appeals courts in Atlanta, San Francisco and Philadelphia, allowing strip-searches of everyone admitted to a jail’s general population. At least seven other appeals courts, on the other hand, had ruled that such searches were proper only if there was a reasonable suspicion that the arrested person had contraband.

Although Justice Breyer argues that people who commit minor offenses should not be subject to strip searches unless there is reasonable suspicion to believe that they possess drugs or other contraband, he agrees that all people detained for drug offenses can be forced to undergo one.  As you may know, there were over 850,000 arrests made in 2010 for marijuana offenses alone. Although not all of these result in jail time, a significant proportion does, meaning that non-violent marijuana users could be subjected to strip searches. Even in states that have decriminalized to a certain extent, people could still be sent to jail while it is determined whether or not charges will be brought against them. The Court specifically pointed to this possibility in both this ruling and the Atwater case.

As Justice Kennedy points out in his majority opinion, 13 million people are jailed annually.  This means that 4% of Americans could be subject to these humiliating procedures under this ruling every year. Pointedly, for cannabis consumers and patients, with 850,000 cannabis-related arrests annually in America–90% for possession only–many hundreds of thousands can now be readily exposed to multiple strip searches emanating from a single encounter with law enforcement that begin over an adult possessing no more than a single joint.

Perhaps it is time to try and stop people, instead of contraband, from entering jails.

Over 300 Economists Agree: It’s Time to Legalize Marijuana

Over 300 economists have signed on to an open letter to the President, Congress, Governors, and State Legislators asking them to allow this “country to commence an open and honest debate about marijuana prohibition.” The petition states that the undersigned “believe such a debate will favor a regime in which marijuana is legal but taxed and regulated like other goods.”

Notably, three of the economists who have already signed on are Nobel Laureates. Three hundred plus additional economic scholars have already signed on, you can view the list and more details here. Full text of the petition letter is below:

We, the undersigned, call your attention to the attached report by Professor Jeffrey A. Miron, The Budgetary Implications of Marijuana Prohibition. The report shows that marijuana legalization — replacing prohibition with a system of taxation and regulation — would save $7.7 billion per year in state and federal expenditures on prohibition enforcement and produce tax revenues of at least $2.4 billion annually if marijuana were taxed like most consumer goods. If, however, marijuana were taxed similarly to alcohol or tobacco, it might generate as much as $6.2 billion annually.

The fact that marijuana prohibition has these budgetary impacts does not by itself mean prohibition is bad policy. Existing evidence, however, suggests prohibition has minimal benefits and may itself cause substantial harm.

We therefore urge the country to commence an open and honest debate about marijuana prohibition. We believe such a debate will favor a regime in which marijuana is legal but taxed and regulated like other goods. At a minimum, this debate will force advocates of current policy to show that prohibition has benefits sufficient to justify the cost to taxpayers, foregone tax revenues, and numerous ancillary consequences that result from marijuana prohibition.

You can view media coverage of this effort here.

Colorado: State Democratic Party Announces Support For Marijuana Regulation Measure

[Editor's note: This post is excerpted from today's NORML weekly media advisory. To have NORML's news alerts and legislative advisories delivered straight to your in-box, sign up here.]

The Colorado Democratic Party on Saturday announced its support for Amendment 64, a statewide ballot initiative that seeks to eliminate civil and criminal penalties for the limited possession and cultivation of cannabis by adults. The Party indicated its support for the measure during its state convention.

“This is a mainstream issue,” Cindy Lowery-Graber, chair of the Denver County Democratic Party, stated in a press release. “Polls show that more than 60 percent of Democrats and a solid majority of Independents believe marijuana should be treated like alcohol. A broad coalition is forming in support of Amendment 64 and I am proud to say that it now includes the Colorado Democratic Party.”

Now included among the Party’s 2012 ‘essential platforms’ is the following: “Regulate and tax marijuana in a manner similar to alcohol, limiting its use to those 21 or older. We support Amendment 64, the initiative to regulate marijuana like alcohol.”

If enacted by voters this November, Amendment 64, The Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol Act of 2012, would immediately allow for the possession of up to one ounce of marijuana and/or the cultivation of up to six cannabis plants by those age 21 and over. Longer-term, the measure seeks to establish regulations governing the commercial production and distribution of marijuana by licensed retailers.

The initiative does not change existing medical cannabis laws for patients, caregivers, and medical marijuana businesses. The measure also prohibits the imposition of an excise tax on any retail sale of medical marijuana.

The Colorado Democratic Party’s support for legalization comes approximately one month after a slim majority, 56 percent, of Denver County Republicans also voted to endorse Amendment 64. However, the position was not officially adopted because of the local party’s requirement of a two-thirds majority to change its platform.

Amendment 64 is backed by a broad coalition of drug law reform organizations, including NORML, the American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado, SAFER, Sensible Colorado, Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP), Students for Sensible Drug Policy (SSDP), the Drug Policy Alliance, and the Marijuana Policy Project. Gary Johnson, former two-term Republican governor of New Mexico, and Pat Robertson, evangelist and founder of the Christian Coalition, have also recently endorsed the initiative.

The full text of Amendment 64 is available here.

NORML’s Weekly Legislative Round Up

Marijuana law reform legislation still remains pending in several this 2012 legislative session. Is your state among them? Find out here.

More importantly, have you taken the time to call or write your state elected officials this year and urged them to support these pending reforms? If not, NORML has provided you with all of the tools to do so via our capwiz ‘Take Action Center’ here. (FYI: NORML’s capwiz page is specific to legislation only, not ballot initiative efforts. A summary pending 2012 ballot initiative campaigns may be found at NORML’s Legalize It 2012 page on Facebook here or on the NORML blog here.)

Below is this week’s edition of NORML’s Weekly Legislative Round Up — where we spotlight specific examples of pending marijuana law reform legislation from around the country.

** A note to first time readers: NORML can not introduce legislation in your state. Nor can any other non-profit advocacy organization. Only your state representatives, or in some cases an individual constituent (by way of their representative; this is known as introducing legislation ‘by request’) can do so. NORML can — and does — work closely with like-minded politicians and citizens to reform marijuana laws, and lobbies on behalf of these efforts. But ultimately the most effective way — and the only way — to successfully achieve statewide marijuana law reform is for local stakeholders and citizens to become involved in the political process and to make the changes they want to see. Get active; get NORML!

California: Longtime NORML ally Mark Leno is sponsoring legislation, Senate Bill 1182, that seeks to clarify how medical marijuana dispensaries may legally operate under state law. As introduced, SB 1182 seeks to bar from state prosecution those establishments that operate within the state Attorney General’s 2008 written guidelines for the ‘lawful operation of cooperative or a collective’.
The measure also “exempts those entities and persons from criminal prosecution or punishment solely on the basis of the fact that they receive compensation for actual expenses incurred in carrying out activities that are in compliance with those guidelines.” California NORML strongly supports SB 1182, as it would substantially eliminate confusion over the legality of the state’s several hundred dispensaries. You can learn more about the measure here.

Maryland: As anticipated, a series of bills that sought to allow for the physician-supervised use of medical marijuana once again stalled in the Maryland legislature. On a more positive note, however, lawmakers did take action this session to reform the way minor marijuana possession cases are prosecuted and defendants are sentenced. Specifically, lawmakers passed legislation that lowers the penalty for possession of 10 grams or less of marijuana from up to a year in jail and a $1,000 fine to up to 90 days in jail and a $500 fine. Legislators also passed a separate measure that provides police the discretion to cite, rather than arrest, minor marijuana offenders. Both measures await the signature of democrat Gov. Martin O’Malley.

Massachusetts: State lawmakers on Wednesday, April 11, delayed action on several bills that sought to allow for the limited use of marijuana therapy. By failing to take action on any of these measures, lawmakers all but assured that a binding ballot question on the topic will go before voters this November. According to the statehouse news report: “Rep. Jeffrey Sanchez, co-chair of the committee, told the News Service after [the] hearing … that his committee is ‘not working on anything’ that would stop the planned ballot question. The Legislature has until May 1 to either pass the initiative, draft its own version of legislation, or refrain from acting on it and allow the process to continue toward the November ballot.” (You can read a full summary of the hearings and initiative effort here.)

In previous elections, Massachusetts voters have overwhelmingly supported non-binding public policy questions regarding the legalization of medical marijuana. Further information on Massachusetts statewide reform efforts is available from NORML’s statewide affiliate Mass/Cann NORML here.

New Hampshire: House lawmakers in March passed marijuana decriminalization legislation. Senate lawmakers are considering doing likewise this week. On Thursday, April 19, members of the Senate Judiciary Committee will hear testimony in support of House Bill 1526, which amends penalties for possession of marijuana (up to one-half ounce) from a criminal misdemeanor punishable (by up to one year in jail and a $2,000 fine) to a civil infraction, punishable by a maximum fine of $250 and no criminal record. Click here to contact your state Senator regarding this proposal.

Separate legislation (Senate Bill 409), which allows for the possession and cultivation of cannabis for therapeutic purposes, has passed the Senate and remains pending in the House. You can track this legislation here or by contacting NH Compassion here.

Tennessee: Tennessee’s Safe Access to Medical Cannabis Act (House Bill 294/Senate Bill 251) will receive a final hearing on Tuesday, April 17th. This will be the final opportunity for advocates to publicly show lawmakers their support for marijuana law reform during the 2012 legislative session. The hearing will take place at a special meeting of the Senate Health Committee at 9:00am. More information on this proposal and NORML’s ongoing lobbying efforts in Tennessee is available here.