Pubdate: Thu, 04 Jul 2013
Source: Tucson Weekly (AZ)
Copyright: 2013 Tucson Weekly
Contact:  http://www.tucsonweekly.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/462
Author: J.M. Smith

WACKY RAIDS

A Police Action in Michigan Proves How Absurd the Dynamic Between Law 
Enforcement and Dispensaries Can Be

What is it about? Why did they close it? These guys have helped me a lot."

- -Bill Sowers, 57, a cannabis patient quoted by the Detroit Free 
Press. He showed up a few minutes after a raid last week at the 
Southwest Compassion Care Center in Springfield, Mich.

Police rudely interrupted patients at three central Michigan cannabis 
dispensaries last week, bursting through the door wearing black 
masks, pointing guns in innocent faces and grabbing a trove of 
plants, meds, computers, records and money-even cash from employees' 
pockets, according to one report.

This Mountain That Should Be a Molehill, much like a few that 
happened in Tucson last year, was carried out by a 
multijurisdictional SWAT team comprised of state police and po-po 
from a couple of nearby municipalities. The do-gooders also raided 
the homes of dispensary operators. There were no federal meddlers 
from the Holder Brigade, and no federal charges were filed. In fact, 
no one was arrested at all, initially. The cops just took "evidence," 
including a few apparently legal guns from at least one home and what 
one Fox News report called "IEDs." No weapons or "explosive devices" 
were found at the dispensaries.

These "explosive devices" were big ol' home-made fireworks bought for 
the Fourth of July, which would be funny if it weren't for the 
possibility of serious felony charges because of them. The brave 
defenders of evil brought in a bomb squad to dispose of something my 
dad would have simply lit and thrown in the backyard shortly before 
sending me to my room to sulk alone for a week, grounded. These folks 
could face prison time for having them.

Police vaguely claim-and lawyers for the dispensary operators 
dispute-that the dispensaries were operating outside the state 
cannabis laws, blah, blah, blah, blah, etc., etc., etc. It's an old 
story that is becoming a little too commonplace. But this story has 
an unlikely twist. The police also served a warrant on the city of Springfield.

Officers walked into City Hall flashing papers gleaned via the county 
prosecutor's office and grabbed a bunch of records concerning the 
dispensaries. These are public records that investigators could have 
gotten the same way I get public records-by asking. Instead the SWET 
(Southwest Enforcement Team) officers chose to intimidate local 
public officials by showing up at their office and snatching the 
records via a search warrant. Wtf? Really? Did they feel a need to 
wear masks and wave guns there, too?

A monthslong investigation showed cannabis exchanges at the 
dispensaries between improperly documented caregivers and patients, a 
SWET spokesman told the Free Press. Interesting wording that doesn't 
mention drug sales, but let's assume the worst-case scenario is true. 
Let's assume they caught a dispensary selling pot to a non-card 
holder. How exactly is that different from catching a 19-year-old 
Circle K clerk selling beer to his 18-year-old buddy? Do you need a 
SWAT squad to deal with that? No.

You don't storm into the store with guns drawn, empty the cash 
register, rip the security cameras off the wall and take the hot dogs 
off the rolling heater machine. You don't grab all the beer from the 
store, hoard it until things play out and destroy it. You don't go to 
the state Liquor Board office and snatch public records concerning 
that nefarious Circle K that sold liquor to minors.

You cite the Circle K owner, and he fires the kid who got him cited. 
End of story.

So I guess I would tell Bill Sowers, the cannabis patient at the 
start of this column, that it's about a couple things, really. It's 
about politics and perceived morality and fear and loathing. It's 
about change and the resistance to it. It's about inevitable clashes 
between the Man and mankind. But mostly it's about the people who 
suffer because of all those things. It's about you, Mr. Sowers. It's 
about you and me and us and them.

Sigh.
- ---
MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom