Pubdate: Fri, 20 Dec 2002 Source: Charleston Gazette (WV) Copyright: 2002 Charleston Gazette Contact: http://www.wvgazette.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/77 Author: Christopher Tritto, Staff Writer Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/pot.htm (Cannabis) STATE POLICE SUED FOR DRUG SEARCH Barbour Sheriff's Dept. Also Sued For Stopping 2 Men On Way To Pot Rally The American Civil Liberties Union sued the State Police and Barbour County Sheriff's Department on Thursday for establishing a drug checkpoint last year near a rally organized by marijuana-law reform advocates. ACLU attorneys Allan Karlin and Jason Huber filed the lawsuit on behalf of Thomas Thacker and Brett Gasper. The men said police violated their constitutional rights in July 2001 when they stopped and searched them for drugs on the way to a Barbour County event held by the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, or NORML. Police violated Thacker and Gasper's rights to assemble and to due process of law when they used specially trained dogs to search them without their consent and without lawful justification on their way to the political rally, according to the lawsuit. "I was asked if my car could be searched, and when I said no, the drug dogs were brought on the scene to pressure me to waive my constitutional rights," Gasper said in an ACLU media release. "I don't like drugs, and I especially don't like big German shepherds in my face, or dirty looks from policemen or insinuating remarks from the same." The officers ran the checkpoint "in a manner that singled out and discriminated against NORML members, supporters and other festival attendees," according to the lawsuit. "Members of law enforcement shouldn't have to violate the law to enforce the law," said state ACLU Director Andrew Schneider. Neither Thacker nor Gasper was charged as a result of the search, Schneider said. The lawsuit says that drug roadblocks are set up to investigate criminal activity and therefore require individualized suspicion. Thacker and Gasper are seeking compensation and punitive damages and an injunction that would forbid State Police or the sheriff's department from establishing similar checkpoints. Earlier this week, the ACLU settled a separate lawsuit against Mildred Mitchell-Bateman Hospital, a state-owned psychiatric hospital in Huntington. The lawsuit challenged a state policy that prohibited hospital employees from talking to reporters without an administrator's permission. Monday's deal calls for the policy to be rewritten. Employees will not be disciplined or face retaliation for providing the media with nonconfidential information, as long as they do not imply that they are speaking on behalf of the hospital, Schneider said. U.S. District Judge Robert C. Chambers approved the settlement. "The First Amendment is based upon the belief that, in a free and democratic society, the public has a right to know how its institutions are being conducted, and our plaintiffs have a right to tell the public what it has a right to know," Schneider said in a media release. - --- MAP posted-by: Jackl