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Quick Hits (page 3)

Medicinal Marijuana a hot potato for police

By: Henry K. Lee, Chronicle Staff Writer

The conflict between state and federal law over medicinal marijuana is forcing the courts to sort out an unexpected problem for police -- whether officers could be prosecuted if they return pot seized from users who beat criminal charges.

Proposition 215, approved by California voters in 1996, legalized growing and using marijuana for medical purposes, with a doctor's recommendation. But under federal law, marijuana used for any purpose is illegal.

In at least three cases in Northern California, police have balked at returning marijuana to people who successfully pleaded that they shouldn't be prosecuted because their pot use is covered under Proposition 215. Giving back the pot, police argue, could leave them liable to prosecution under federal law against distributing illegal drugs.

"There is no legal answer to this conundrum," said Rory Little, a professor at the University of California's Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco and a former federal prosecutor. "It's all about strategy, not law."

Catch-22 in Sheriff's Eyes

In Yuba County, Sheriff Virginia Black defied an order by a judge last week to return 37 medicinal marijuana plants to Doyle and Belinda Satterfield, who were arrested in August but later had marijuana charges against them dismissed.

"If I deliver marijuana to the Satterfields, technically I place myself in violation of federal law, and I'm not inclined to do that," Black said. "So I find myself in a Catch-22."

Jesse Choper, a constitutional law professor at UC Berkeley's Boalt Hall School of Law, agreed with the sheriff. "I think it's pretty clear to me that they could be charged under federal law," Choper said. "It's unlikely, but technically it's possible."

That leaves the Satterfields wondering whether they'll get their marijuana back. Doyle Satterfield, 52, said he uses marijuana for insomnia and arthritis, and his wife has used it for chemotherapy treatments for breast cancer.

Belinda Satterfield, 51, said of the sheriff, "I think she's thinking she's got more power than anybody else, that she's beyond the judge."

Doyle Satterfield's attorney, Justin Scott of Yuba City, said, "I think part of the issue is that this hasn't come up around here before. I think the sheriff is dead wrong."

Under state law, controlled substances are usually destroyed after trial, or if charges are dismissed, unless they were found to be "lawfully possessed" by the defendant.

That supports the return of medicinal marijuana. And in fact, onetime defendants in Ventura, Placer, San Bernardino, Sonoma, Mendocino and San Joaquin counties have all gotten their pot back, Scott said.

Police Protected by Law

Defense attorneys say police are protected from prosecution by a section under federal law. It says state and federal law-enforcement officials are exempt from any civil or criminal liability if they are "lawfully engaged in the enforcement of any law or municipal ordinance relating to controlled substances."

Attorney Gerald Uelmen, a Santa Clara University law professor who is defending local medical- marijuana clubs, said that under that section, law enforcement has "complete immunity."

Uelmen said of police fears, "Absolute bull--."

Hollister attorney Gregory LaForge agreed, saying, "I don't think that law enforcement has anything to be scared of. They're using the fact that they can be prosecuted as an excuse."

On April 22, San Benito County Sheriff Curtis Hill returned 11 grams of medicinal marijuana to LaForge's client Jack Campo, just hours before a possible contempt ruling by a judge.

"Based on current state and federal law, police fears are unfounded," LaForge said. "If the court makes an order, everybody -- including you and me and law enforcement -- has to abide by that court order."

One thing is clear, though, about the seized marijuana, Little said. "Cops don't want this stuff. They just don't want to give it back without protection. It's 'better safe than sorry.' "

So what constitutes protection?

Choper said, "I don't think a judge can immunize an unlawful act under federal law."

Judges Could Play Role

Little said one solution could be for the police to hand over the seized pot to a judge and let the court decide whether to release it to onetime criminal defendants.

But leaving it up to the judge can also lead to plenty of legal hand-wringing.

Last week, San Francisco Superior Court Judge Wallace Douglass agreed with police that officers would be forced to violate federal law if authorities returned marijuana and hash oil to a man from whom it had been seized in a December traffic stop.

Douglass reversed his own ruling in making the decision. When the attorney for the drugs' owner, Babu Lal, argued that police were unlikely to be prosecuted, the judge asked, "It's all right for me to order the Police Department to violate the law as long as they are immune from prosecution?"

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Growin' Our Own (page 3)

Big Sur Camping

By: Pistolero

Big Sur Camping For any one who has never been to Big Sur, California its an absolutely beautiful area. Pacific ocean on your right and the coast range mountains on your left. Or vice versa if your coming up the coast. We used to go there to party and camp out during the summers. Big Sur was always full of hippies and tourists. The trip down the coast from Monterey was one of the most scenic drives you could take. You could always score in Monterey or Big Sur if needed so we were always pretty stoned on our campouts. This is about one of those campouts and the freaky things that used to happen to us.

Let's go Camping

We always had a habit of doing things on the spur of the moment. Myself, 2 brothers in law and a friend decided on a Friday morning to go to Big Sur for a weekend campout. The night before I had been turned on to an ounce of Panama Red. Great pot, I've always missed it. Also had a little hash for the trip. Seems like we always had black Afghani hash, it was always available in our area. We packed everything we needed...food and drinks and our stashes and headed out. It was a 2 hour drive from our home below San Jose Calif. It was always a leisurely trip to Big Sur. It was about 45 minutes to Monterey and then at least an hour to Big Sur from there. Well, we screwed around a little on the way down and stopped a couple of places to see friends or just park at one of our favorite places to smoke a few bowls. By the time we got to the campground at Big Sur it was getting dark. We drove towards the back of the campgrounds to get away from the regular people - LOL. We found a nice spot, but it was pitch black by then. We took some of our things out of the car then realized you had to buy firewood at the store - they wouldn't let you burn the wood in the park. Then I noticed we had left the damned lantern at home. Everyone piled back into the car to go to the store, but I stayed to watch our stuff.

The Attack

Here I am sitting on a picnic table in the pitch black...I couldn't see my hand in front of my face. Well, I start to hear a rustling of the leaves on the ground. I'm trying like hell to look into the dark but I cant see a damned thing. The rustling noise is getting closer and louder. Now I'm standing on the table freaking out.....lots of rustling of leaves and little sounds I cant make out. So here I am standing on the table turning around trying to see what in the hell is happening. This goes on for about 15 minutes until my buddies come around the corner in the car and the headlights flood the area and me on the table. Holy shit!! There's about 500 raccoons that have me encircled. I'm totally surrounded! They're only about 5 feet from me. When the headlights hit them all I could see were hundreds and hundreds of yellow eyeballs staring at me. The car pulls up and my buddies jump out of the car yelling 'what the fuck, man' and laughing so hard I wanted to kill 'em all. Guess I was a hell of sight standing on top of the table surrounded by all those evil little critters. Imagine a 6'3" 250 pound guy with flaming red hair down to his ass freaking out on top of a picnic table in the pitch black. Guess I would have been laughing, too, if I had seen that. Needless to say as soon as the lights hit them and they all looked around they were gone. Little bastards ran off into the darkness. That was so freaky.....what the hell did those little evil critters have in store for me? After a hell of laugh at my expense we put the camp together and lit a big fire....didn't want those bastards coming back. In the next 30 minutes or so 2 more cars came into the back where we were and setup camp. Didn't take long to find out they were hippies like us. I rolled a few PR joints and we went over for a visit. We started partying with them for awhile. I think they had come up from LA and it was their first trip to Big Sur.

Freaky Things

After about an hour my brother in law and I go back to our camp and were sitting there smoking a joint when all of a sudden....crash - boom - bang something is coming down the steep hill right behind our camp! And then, in a dust and leaf storm, a guy hits the ground at the bottom about 6 feet from us. He jumps up and at first I thought it was a stick or weeds sticking out of his mouth.....after a closer look it was joint he had fallen down the hill with in his mouth and was still smoking. My brother in law and I look at each other and then look back at this guy and he says as he's pulling the joint out of his mouth and handing it to me "Acapulco Gold man....best there is".....and then starts climbing back up the hill and disappears. We never said a word during the whole thing. We look at each other...what the fuck just happened here? We laughed for about 10 minutes and then we started smoking the joint he had handed me. We were pretty well messed up on the PR but you could sure tell the different high from the gold. Damn it was some super good AG. We were ripped so we go back over to the other camp and tell everyone what happened, they thought we were nuts or tripping LOL. Yeah, well, I still had a big roach of the AG and we fired it back up. About midnight we decided it's time to eat. We were all pretty well starved by this time. I fired up the Coleman stove and got a big pot. We dumped about 5 boxes of Kraft Macaroni and Cheese dinners in to the pot. After the macaroni was done and the water drained we put the cheese and 4 big cans of chili into the pot. Yep, macaroni and cheese and chili. We loved the stuff when we were camping. Easy to make, and filling. You just didn't want to be down wind of us in the morning. It could be a deadly experience. Next morning in the daylight we couldn't figure out how the guy that tumbled down the hill had lived. It was damn near straight up and about 50 feet high with rocks and branches and all kinds of shit to fuck you up on the way down.

Saturday

After breakfast we cleaned the camp up a little and headed for the Big Sur general store. Time for a few beers and girl watching. The store was a good place to meet people. Seemed like everyone around would show up there sometime during the day. We would go to hippie camps setup on the Big Sur river and get stoned all day. There was always some kind of excitement going on. It was so easy to hitch hike around the valley from one end to the other, so sometimes one or two of us would just hitch down the road to one of the camps or just to fuck around. My brother in law and I are standing along side the road hitching our way back to the store and our car when a guy in convertible cruises by with a really fine looking babe about half undressed in the front seat. Leave it to my brother in law to open his big mouth with some crude statement about the girl......brakes screeching to a halt...burnt rubber in the air and the guy slams it in reverse and backs up to where we are, stands up in the front seat and he's got the biggest fucking pistol you ever seen....dirty harry mother fucker. He looks at my brother in law and says "what the fuck did you say asshole". Well I take about 3 steps to the side in case the guy is a bad shot. My brother in law turns as white as sheet and says "nothing man...I didn't say nothing". The guy lowers the pistol and says "that's what I thought you said" sits down and drives off. Well thank you asshole again for nearly getting me killed I told him....I said next time the guy can watch as I kill you myself. He was always opening his mouth at the wrong time. My other brother in law had did some kind of trade while we were gone for some acid so we were set for the night. After spending most the day at the camps and the store we went back to our camp. A couple of more cars had come in and set up camp. Lucky for us it looked like only hippie types were coming to the back. More people to party with later. We all sat at the table drinking beer and passing joints for the rest of the afternoon. We made another great dinner of macaroni cheese and chili. The guys next to us turned up there radio and opened the doors and trunk of their car. They had a great stereo and speakers, Jimi Hendrix was floating down the canyon "All Along the Watchtower".....man, couldn't get any better than this. About 8 that evening we all got together with the new people and the ones we had already met and had a hell of a party. We pulled the acid out and divided it up so every one got high. I think it was chocolate chip acid. You could half one and get pretty fucked up. We were all tripping pretty good when I remember a park ranger coming into camp and asking if we would keep it down a little. He was a pretty nice guy didn't say anything about all the pot being smoked so we cooled it a little. He never came back so I guess we did ok LOL. We kept the Stones and Grateful Dead cooled down for the rest of the evening.

Going Home

Time always seems to fly when you're having fun......next day was time for us to head back to the S.J. area. I remember the trip home - we were all wasted and burned out. I had saved a little piece of hash and decided since I was driving I needed it the most LOL....every one else was sleeping and I was the pilot. Man that hit the spot, I felt a hell of a lot better after that. Its a good thing we were pretty close to home because by the time I pulled up in the driveway I was ready to pass out. I think I slept for about 15 hours afterwards. Damn, you know partying is hard on the body LOL!

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Pipeline (page 3)

Tyranny of the Pinheads

By: Steve Kubby

Mr. Steve Kubby Albert Einstein was a patient man, but he had little tolerance for those who acted as if they have a pin for a head:

"He who joyfully marches in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would suffice."

These days, Americans find their government increasingly concerned with limiting not just their freedom, but their very thoughts. A new culture of punishment and authoritarianism has turned society upside down with mindless pinheads on top and society's brightest and most intellectually gifted, on the bottom, under virtual house arrest.

Everywhere we look, we see swarms of retarded pinheads micro-managing our lives to the lowest and most banal level, unfettered by ambiguous notions like due process or constitutional rights. Self-righteous pinheads are constantly telling us how we should live, what we should think, and how important their parasitic, non-productive, bureaucratic activities are to our well-being. At every level of government, pompous pinheads wallow at the public trough, ever more arrogant, resentful and ignorant of the people they pretend to serve.

Just look at how the Democrats and Republicans have abandoned their traditional values, in favor of political pinheads who believe every social issue is ultimately reducible to more laws, more prisons and more wars. As a result, the Congress of the United States has become overwhelmingly populated by professional pinheads, who only know how to spend or arrest their way out of problems.

Indeed, everywhere we look, the small-minded pinheads of the world are telling us, the non-violent, unorthodox, independent and creative people of society, how to live our lives and raise our children.

Some may argue that I am out-of-line to criticize pinheads, but that's exactly what they've been doing for years to any of us who march to the beat of our own drummer. Under the Talaban-like rule of the pinheads, independent thought and action is bad, while conforming and endless athletic rituals are good. Under the rule of the pinheads, physically gifted jocks are heroes, while intellectually gifted students are nerds. As a result, any pinhead jock with a high school diploma can earn $60,000 working as a prison guard or DARE officer, while a college graduate working as a teacher earns half that amount.

Pinheads have a simple solution for everything, and when it comes to dealing with those who threaten pinhead culture and puritanical values, the pinheads have a simple four-step plan:

--IDENTIFICATION: Arrest and fingerprint anyone who deviates from pinhead rules and values. Use victimless crimes, secret police and predatory prosecutors to expose non-conformists.

--SEGREGATION: Pass laws that criminalize home schoolers, medical marijuana patients, gun owners, tax resisters and countless other law-abiding groups for loss of civil rights and restrictions on travel. Whether it is to deny student loans for pot use, or evicting seniors from public housing because a relative was busted for drugs, the purpose is to single out politically incorrect groups from society.

--CONCENTRATION: Jail, parole and probation for those who deviate from the state, followed by loss of voting and travel as a convicted felon.

--EXTERMINATION: Jail fathers, break up families, seize homes, just for growing plants. Refuse to allow sick and dying patients access to medical marijuana. Exterminate cannabis plants, people and culture.

We really have no one to blame but ourselves. We're the ones who voted the pinheads into office, helped them become pinhead judges, pinhead prosecutors and pinhead Congress-critters. We're the ones who didn't object when the pinhead politicians gave all the other pinheads badges and guns. We voted for pinheads who were "the lesser of two evils," and we stood by as the pinheads emptied the universities and filled the prisons. More jobs for pinheads -- more taxes, fines, court appearances, IRS audits, and home invasions by SWAT police, for the rest of us.

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