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Bridgeburner
Not spiritual at all.




Registered: 09/16/06
Posts: 20,010
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Pro-pot activist criticizes police
#9123273 - 10/23/08 08:02 PM (15 years, 4 months ago) |
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http://morningsentinel.mainetoday.com/news/local/5530250.html
The organizer of a pro-marijuana festival held in Harmony this past weekend said he objects to police and drug enforcement agents coming onto his property without a warrant.
Donald Christen, founder of Maine Vocals, which has sponsored pro-hemp festivals for many years in Starks and now, in Harmony, said Maine State Police and members of the Maine Drug Enforce-ment Agency also patrolled Route 150 in Athens, just south of Harmony, turning the village into a "blue-light special."
"They must have stopped 200-300 people out there this weekend and they had a much bigger presence than what they're letting on," Christen said. "They also had more people on site than just one who were operating on our property without a warrant.
"Police activities on private property are unjustified without a warrant. It's not public property, it's private property. They need a warrant. It's illegal."
Not so, says Roy McKinney, director of the Maine Drug Enforcement Agency and Lt. Don Pomelow, commander of the Maine State Police troop in Skowhegan.
"You do not need a warrant," McKinney said Wednesday. "There is no expectation of privacy and that is the benchmark by which the courts look at issues in regard to search warrants -- is there an expectation of privacy.
"Inviting the public into a section of land -- where's the privacy?"
McKinney said the rule would not go so far as to allow searches of bedrooms in a private home or personal searches of individuals at a gathering without a search warrant. In such cases, he said, there would be the expectation of privacy.
Pomelow agreed with McKinney, saying an event in which the public is invited is open to all visitors, even police, without a warrant.
"It's a public venue -- we were on that property because of complaints -- we were on that property because of noise complaints," he said.
Christen said he was told that residents of Athens, where state police pulled over motorists from late Thursday into Monday, were unhappy with all the police presence.
"The whole town of Athens was kind of in an uproar about what police did because the whole town turned into nothing but a blue-light special for three days," he said. "They could have done it in a more rural area, not right in the town.
"They stopped everybody that they could right in the center of Athens. Obviously it was a targeted area. They were fishing and it was good fishing."
Christen, who purchased the land on Carson Hill in Harmony just last year, said he is glad police are weeding out the hard drug users and discouraging drug dealers from coming to rural Maine.
"We're not really opposed to them getting hard drugs; we don't want them on our festival site anyway," he said. "We're not interested in having that at all -- this is a marijuana movement, not a drug movement -- we don't want it there, we don't promote it."
McKinney said MDEA seized eight pounds of marijuana, 50 hits of LSD and some suspected liquid LSD, 1/8 of an ounce of cocaine, 22 MDMA (Ecstasy) tablets, 26 20-mg OxyContin tablets, 47 5-mg. Oxycodone tablets, 1/8 of an ounce of hashish, one pound of psilocybin mushrooms and $10,574.00 in U.S. currency.
A 21-foot motor home also was seized on Route 150 after it left the festival Monday morning.
At least seven people were arrested and taken to jail, but McKinney and Pomelow said they still are compiling the numbers from the Harmony festival and from the Starks festival last month.
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Nature Boy
Stranger than most



Registered: 07/09/07
Posts: 8,246
Loc: Samsara
Last seen: 2 days, 12 hours
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Re: Pro-pot activist criticizes police [Re: Bridgeburner]
#9125250 - 10/24/08 05:37 AM (15 years, 4 months ago) |
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Quote:
b0red5tiff said: http://morningsentinel.mainetoday.com/news/local/5530250.html
"Police activities on private property are unjustified without a warrant. It's not public property, it's private property. They need a warrant. It's illegal."
Not so, says Roy McKinney, director of the Maine Drug Enforcement Agency and Lt. Don Pomelow, commander of the Maine State Police troop in Skowhegan.
"You do not need a warrant," McKinney said Wednesday. "There is no expectation of privacy and that is the benchmark by which the courts look at issues in regard to search warrants -- is there an expectation of privacy.
"Inviting the public into a section of land -- where's the privacy?"
Oh, great. Now they're trying to shift the burden of proof as to when to expect privacy onto the average citizen/defendant???
It should be the POLICE who bear the burden of proof that their actions were constitutional and therefore justifiable. This is bullshit.
N.B.
-------------------- All submitted posts under this user name are works of pure fiction or outright lies. Any information, statement, or assertion contained therein should be considered pure unadulterated bullshit. Note well: Sorry, but I do not answer PM's unless you are a long-time trusted friend. If you have a question, ask it in the appropriate thread.
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filthee
DWWP


Registered: 10/17/08
Posts: 4,257
Loc: australia
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Re: Pro-pot activist criticizes police [Re: Nature Boy]
#9125279 - 10/24/08 05:59 AM (15 years, 4 months ago) |
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where mainstream go the pigs will follow
true tho its a weed fest not a fest
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clover606
Stranger

Registered: 08/13/07
Posts: 656
Last seen: 10 years, 5 months
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Re: Pro-pot activist criticizes police [Re: filthee]
#9125735 - 10/24/08 09:43 AM (15 years, 4 months ago) |
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Quote:
McKinney said MDEA seized eight pounds of marijuana, 50 hits of LSD and some suspected liquid LSD, 1/8 of an ounce of cocaine, 22 MDMA (Ecstasy) tablets, 26 20-mg OxyContin tablets, 47 5-mg. Oxycodone tablets, 1/8 of an ounce of hashish, one pound of psilocybin mushrooms and $10,574.00 in U.S. currency.
estimated impact on the drug trade - 0 tax dollars wasted - all of them
-------------------- grassman said: I remember being in DARE when i was much younger and some of the stories they would tell you are not only ridiculous, but completely untrue. One story was that a woman was on LSD and thought her infant was a turkey so she baked it in the oven. Now I look back and think thats hilarious, but at the time I guess it scared me.
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yeahbuddyyyyyyyy
Stranger


Registered: 08/17/08
Posts: 154
Last seen: 14 years, 9 months
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Re: Pro-pot activist criticizes police [Re: clover606]
#9126120 - 10/24/08 10:51 AM (15 years, 4 months ago) |
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I'm glad I didn't go to that one. That guy has a festival every other week during the summer.
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