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 OneMoreRobot3021
punky jewster
Registered: 06/06/03
Posts: 55,474
Loc: new york shitty
Last seen: 2 minutes, 36 seconds
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 Judge Rejects Lawsuit Over Pot [CA]
#7165383 - 07/12/07 10:06 AM (1 year, 1 month ago) |
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http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/california/la-me-marijuana11jul11,1,3107008.story?coll=la-headlines-pe-california&ctrack=1&cset=true
Judge rejects lawsuit over pot
Santa Barbara loses its fight against a statute that makes the private use of marijuana by adults the city's lowest crime-fighting priority.
By Steve Chawkins, Times Staff Writer
July 11, 2007
A Santa Barbara judge has upheld a city ordinance requiring police to make enforcement of marijuana laws their lowest crime-fighting priority.
Although Measure P, which was approved by 65% of the city's voters last November, does not decriminalize marijuana, it will further reduce the already infrequent arrests of adults possessing small amounts of marijuana.
The ordinance requires officers to fill out extra paperwork on marijuana offenses and establishes a seven-member commission to monitor the department's compliance with the law.
The law is similar to those passed in at least 10 other cities in the U.S., including Oakland, San Francisco, Santa Cruz, Santa Monica and West Hollywood.
After Measure P passed, the city of Santa Barbara sued one of its chief proponents, local activist Heather Poet, claiming that the measure she backed was unconstitutional. But on Tuesday, Superior Court Judge Thomas P. Anderle threw out the city's suit, ruling that Poet had done nothing wrong and that the measure was "a proper legislative enactment."
Santa Barbara City Atty. Stephen Wiley said he was uncertain whether the City Council would appeal the ruling. Some city officials and the Santa Barbara Police Department opposed Measure P, saying it was a burden on officers and created a needless layer of city bureaucracy.
The city's lawsuit was the first substantive legal challenge to such laws, according to Adam Wolf, an ACLU attorney who represented Poet.
"It's a resounding victory for free speech and the democratic process," Wolf said. "It affirms the fact that communities across America can tell their local police departments that they should be focusing on serious crime, not on low-level drug offenses."
The judge rejected the city's claim that state and federal drug laws made the local measure invalid. "Police officers can still arrest those who violate drug possession laws in their presence," Anderle wrote in his ruling. "The voters have simply instructed them that they have higher priority work to do."
After Poet was sued, she countersued, citing a state law intended to quash litigation known as strategic lawsuits against public participation, or SLAPPs. The law is intended to stop large organizations from silencing critics by filing lawsuits of questionable merit.
Poet was within her rights, the judge wrote in his ruling.
"All that the city has alleged and all it appears that defendant has done is engage in the initiative process," Anderle wrote.
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The Drug Policy Alliance  Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies
"The psychedelic experience - it has a tremendous force to revivify the spirit, particularly because it is not an ideology. It is not something someone 'figured out.' It is an EXPERIENCE. And this is important to bear in mind." - McKenna.
"We're not mad, we're just doing what we want. You rigid thinkers can't recognize the healthy sanity of that." - Harlan Ellison, "Crackpots"
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 CptnGarden
Tabaquero
Registered: 05/13/04
Posts: 8,346
Loc: the microbial layer
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its still running strong in santa cruz.
the kids at the schools get searched, and if they have no pot they give the pipes back and all. my friend got caught lighting up at the park, they just told him not to smoke in public and left him alone...
its bullshit that santa barbara didnt pass.
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The empty-handed painter from your streets
Is drawing crazy patterns on your sheets.
This sky, too, is folding over you
And it's all over now, Baby Blue.
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OneMoreRobot3021
punky jewster
Registered: 06/06/03
Posts: 55,474
Loc: new york shitty
Last seen: 2 minutes, 36 seconds
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Re: Judge Rejects Lawsuit Over Pot [CA] [Re: CptnGarden]
#7165437 - 07/12/07 10:24 AM (1 year, 1 month ago) |
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Perhaps you didn't read the article correctly? The judge *upheld* the ruling that pot is the lowest-priority criminal offense in the county.
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The Drug Policy Alliance Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies
"The psychedelic experience - it has a tremendous force to revivify the spirit, particularly because it is not an ideology. It is not something someone 'figured out.' It is an EXPERIENCE. And this is important to bear in mind." - McKenna.
"We're not mad, we're just doing what we want. You rigid thinkers can't recognize the healthy sanity of that." - Harlan Ellison, "Crackpots"
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 new2grow
Dust
Registered: 05/14/06
Posts: 861
Loc: North Florida
Last seen: 13 hours, 24 minutes
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yeah my friend got caught smoking in the park once, and the cop just told him not to exhale.
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"You think that was cheesey? Well its about to get Gouda."
"And He said, 'I give this herb as your meat."
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JackthaTripper
Researcher
Registered: 01/29/07
Posts: 791
Loc: Mycoutopia
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Re: Judge Rejects Lawsuit Over Pot [CA] [Re: new2grow]
#7166139 - 07/12/07 01:19 PM (1 year, 1 month ago) |
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Quote:
new2grow said:
yeah my friend got caught smoking in the park once, and the cop just told him not to exhale.
Don't exhale? How does that work?
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Becoming Dreams
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toastandjam
Tastes Great, Less Filling
Registered: 05/07/06
Posts: 683
Last seen: 6 days, 13 hours
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Re: Judge Rejects Lawsuit Over Pot [CA] [Re: JackthaTripper]
#7166677 - 07/12/07 03:19 PM (1 year, 1 month ago) |
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Quote:
JackthaTripper said:
Quote:
new2grow said:
yeah my friend got caught smoking in the park once, and the cop just told him not to exhale.
Don't exhale? How does that work?
It means "You're not worth the bother but I still want you to die."
Maybe.
I'm thrilled to see things like this happening in places. If it could just be somewhere besides {sarcastic voice}California{/voice} that's be even better. And why might a city protest what the citizens have officially and legally endorsed? Now they have to cut costs or come up with that money from someplace else! That's why...
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Q: We wanted to see if you had the ability to expand your mind and your horizons... and for one brief moment, you did.
PICARD: When I realized the paradox...
Q: Exactly. For that one fraction of a second, you were open to options you'd never considered. That's the exploration that awaits you...not mapping stars and studying nebulae... but charting the unknowable possibilities of existence.
To carry yourself forward and experience myriad things is delusion. That myriad things come forth and experience themselves is awakening. -Dogen Zenji
Edited by toastandjam (07/12/07 03:21 PM)
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