Reefer Madness Du Jour: Utah Encourages Marijuana Snitching

While no one wants to see public and private lands be misused to cultivate large commercial outdoor cannabis grow operations, does this problem exist with other agricultural products that can create psychoactivity (or a ‘high’) like grapes, sugar cane, barley, hops, corn, apples, potatoes or wheat? Large commercial grow-ops are purely a function of prohibition, so if law enforcement really care about these grow-ops they’d advocate for getting rid of them by not creating an opportunity for agricultural entrepreneurs to seek the profits from growing a vegetable matter that can fetch $100-$500 ounce.

Instead, states like Utah waste taxpayers’ money by encouraging citizens to visit a one-stop-snitch webpage to narc out suspected cannabis cultivators.

Thanks to NLC members Robert Latham in Bountiful UT for the heads up…and Daniel Margolis of Cleveland OH for musing:

10 arrests in 2009!  82 flight hours, presumably in a helicopter.  What is the hourly rate for the helicopter and pilot?  Assume a pilot and co-pilot/observer.  One arrest every for 16.4 hours of hours of pilot time, 8.2 hours of helicopter time, to say nothing of ground crew, etc…How much did each arrest cost just from flight time alone?

Drug War’s Underbelly Examined By National Public Radio

Kudos to the producers and editors at National Public Radio for the second time in a week for examining parts of the drug war’s underbelly, notably the economics of cannabis under prohibition and the immense problems created in America’s criminal justice system by its over reliance on  informants.

Annually, over $30 billion in local, county, state and federal tax revenues don’t find their way to public tax coffers because the government continues to prohibit rather than tax cannabis-related businesses, products and services. To make matters worse, an estimated $300-$400 million is paid out annually by law enforcement to confidential informants and snitches.

Another Public Broadcast Corporation entity, the long-running documentary series Frontline, performed an important public service when it broadcast Snitch in 1999.

In a free society guided by a constitution that secures numerous rights and privilege to individuals–with checks and balances on government power–the over reliance of snitches by American law enforcement is yet another terrible outgrowth attributable to a 73-year old public policy, cannabis prohibition, that has failed to the point where even greater government atrocities are justified to maintain the failed policy.

Cannabis Does Not Kill. Unfortunately, Cannabis Prohibition Enforcement Can!

The Tallahassee Police Have Much To Answer For Regarding The Murder Of Rachael Hoffman

For the last few days I’ve receive email from the Tallahassee area from NORML supporters claiming to either know or be friends with Rachael Hoffman, that she was busted a few weeks ago and accused by police for selling a small amount of cannabis and possessing MDMA was squeezed by local police to become a snitch, and that, disturbingly to them all, she had been missing for a few days. They were genuinely in fear of her life.

In the last 48 hours, police arrested two suspects in Rachael’s disappearance, and early yesterday she was confirmed murdered.

Today, as the general public around Tallahassee and Florida learn more about how the police used this young woman for controlled drug buys, the public comments found online and on local radio talk shows demonstrate terrific outrage directed towards the police.

Thankfully.

I spoke with Rachael’s mother Margie Weifs late yesterday afternoon. Talk about a difficult conversation. What do you say to a mother who has just found out that her only daughter is dead? A beautiful daughter dead not at the hands of cannabis, but the police agency that chose to bust her for pot (or, as Tallahassee law enforcement are calling pot in this case, narcotics), wire her and send her towards men who were reportedly buying and selling hard drugs, actual narcotics, to ensnare them for future arrest and prosecution?

To say that Rachael’s mom is not confused, angry and wanting answers to this terrible tragedy in Tallahassee would be a woeful understatement. After the answers, she tells me she wants justice in this case.

Watch the video of Tallahassee’s Chief of Police here trying to explain why getting murdered was Rachael’s fault, not the police’s. Further, watch here the Police Department’s Public Information Officer get grilled by Florida media about police procedures.

Did the police follow proper procedure in using Rachael for controlled buys? See the Tallahassee Police’s ‘rules and procedures’ for using snitches here and here.

There is an outpouring in Tallahassee from Rachael’s friends and family to try to heal, and then to organize against both the recruitment of young girls by police to be wired confidential informants and the general prohibition of cannabis.

In Margie’s view, her daughter would be alive today, going into a Mother’s Day weekend, but for a country that does not tax and control cannabis.

Ms. Hoffman is hardly the first young person induced by police to set up other possible illicit drug users who has been killed because they’d hoped their cooperation with police was going to lead to some modicum of deferential treatment from the prosecutor’s office.

PBS’ Frontline examined the disturbing and increased use of confidential informants by federal and local law enforcement in the award-winning SNITCH. But, unfortunately from my biased viewpoint, few in the mainstream media have cast light on police tactics in their daily and futile efforts to enforce prohibition laws (an exception here is the reporting of Reason Foundation fellow and Cato Institute researcher Radley Balko).

Health and Self-Preservation Tip: If law enforcement ever approach you (or a loved one) regarding a cannabis-related offense, and then seek to recruit you to became a confidential informant or a snitch, ‘just say no’ as your life (or that of a loved one) may be in danger.