Pubdate: Sun, 04 Sep 2005
Source: Minneapolis Star-Tribune (MN)
Copyright: 2005 Star Tribune
Contact:  http://www.startribune.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/266
Author: David Chanen
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/pot.htm (Cannabis)

MARIJUANA IS MAKING A COMEBACK IN MINNEAPOLIS

Marijuana Is Now The Drug Of Choice For Dealers In Minneapolis

In the past year, police said, they've begun finding startling amounts
of cannabis on the streets, probably because of its profitability,
lighter jail sentences for violations and its social acceptance.

Police have no doubt the resurgence of marijuana is one of the reasons
serious reported crime in the city has increased 7.5 percent compared
with this time last year. Many gangs, some of whom don't hesitate to
use guns to settle turf issues, have switched exclusively to selling
the drug.

The violence killed a 35-year-old man from Albuquerque, N.M., who was
searching for crack cocaine to buy one June afternoon. But he was shot
to death in his truck on a north Minneapolis street when he refused to
buy marijuana from the two dealers and they robbed him, police said.

The demand for marijuana has refocused the enforcement efforts of a
local drug task force, resulting in three seizures of more than 1,000
pounds apiece since early 2004. Each bust had a value easily exceeding
$1 million.

Minneapolis has become a destination point for such large amounts to
satisfy a growing demand here, and that has created new markets in the
inner city and has kept police scrambling to get peddlers off the streets.

This is a contrast to St. Paul and other parts of the state. St. Paul
police seized about a hundred pounds of BC Bud, a highly potent
marijuana grown in Canada, in the past few months, but methamphetamine
is having the biggest adverse impact in the city, said St. Paul police
Cmdr. Todd Axtell. Methamphetamine continues to grow in the suburbs
and outstate, but it hasn't been a large problem in Minneapolis,
police said.

Crack was the prevalent drug in the late 1980s through the 1990s in
Minneapolis, but a growing Latino population made it easier for
marijuana dealers to get a direct source from Mexico, Minneapolis
police Capt. Mike Martin said.

Ninety percent of the marijuana comes from Mexico, said Sgt. Jeff
Miller of the narcotics unit. The rest is usually BC Bud. All forms of
the drug are more potent now, and more users are being seen at
hospital emergency rooms suffering from emotional problems, he said.

Hanging on the corner, a dealer is a constant nuisance who can bring
violence into the lives of innocent residents.

"Kids have to walk through these folks when they are going to the bus
stop. Parents have to worry about gunfire when the kids come home from
school or play outside," said Carrie Day-Aspinwall, who has been
working since 1997 with the Weed and Seed federal crime prevention
program in the Phillips neighborhood in south Minneapolis. "It really
chips away at the quality of life."

"Unlike crack or heroin, selling marijuana isn't limited to a specific
part of the city," Martin said.

Minneapolis police have worked their large marijuana cases in
partnership with a Hennepin County and U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency
(DEA) task force. The cases usually start with a drug seizure at the
Mexican border, followed by a strategy to attack an entire
organization and not just individual dealers, said Kent Bailey, who
supervises the DEA task force that mostly focuses on Twin Cities
activity. He previously worked in Los Angeles, where 64 percent of the
city's homicides in a recent year involved marijuana.

10,000 pounds

Bailey said "tons" of marijuana are coming into Minneapolis. In the
three cases involving thousand-pound seizures, two of the dealers
admitted bringing in more than 10,000 pounds a year before they were
caught, he said. If dealers are convicted of selling amounts near a
thousand pounds, the federal penalty is a minimum of five years in
prison.

The first of these large cases started in November 2003 and involved
cookie shipments that were actually bricks of marijuana. Most of the
drugs were seized in an apartment near Lake Calhoun.

In the second case, 1,200 pounds of marijuana were seized in a case
that led investigators to Columbia Heights late last year. Twelve
defendants were charged, including a man who was later charged with
seriously injuring a University of Minnesota student in a fight
outside a downtown Minneapolis bar.

The last case ended with two busts in May and June at residences in
south Minneapolis that netted authorities 1,000 pounds.

Taking pot off streets

While the task force is going after large supplies before they hit the
streets, the Police Department is using a number of strategies to
address the smaller amounts already on the streets.

. Beat officers identify dealers and devise plans for the best way to
get them off the streets for the longest amount of time, Martin said.

. Officers from community response teams in each precinct, who often
deal with all street-level drugs, use informants to buy marijuana. In
turn, the officers will try to trace the source of the drugs to see if
they can find a dealer further up the chain.

. The STOP unit formed this spring saturates areas that have become
heavy marijuana markets.

. To nail buyers, officers have gone undercover or had informants pose
as dealers. This often shows how many customers live in the suburbs
and not nearby neighborhoods, Martin said.

But it is difficult to send street dealers to jail because they often
carry small amounts of marijuana. A person can have up to 1 1/2 ounces
of marijuana and receive a petty misdemeanor and a fine. If an officer
can prove the person was selling the drug, it becomes a felony.

Dealers who violate their probation, sell near a school, park or
daycare or have a gun can all get longer sentences. Being in
possession of a gun during an arrest has become more common among
marijuana peddlers than crack cocaine dealers, Martin said.

Day-Aspinwall said residents get worn down by dealers who keep popping
back up on corners after they're arrested. She watched some of these
dealers grow up and get captured into the drug or gang lifestyle.

The continuing crime problems are causing business owners to pull up
stakes, she said.

Residents will have to find their own comfort level in how they want
to react to dealers plaguing their street, Day-Aspinwall said. Some
look away and stay safe inside houses. Or they might tell the dealers
to get off the corner, which isn't always safe.

And sometime the dealers win because "you just move away," she said.
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MAP posted-by: Larry Seguin