Posted: November 20th, 2011 by Militant Libertarian

by Aaron Turpen, CannaCentral

The Occupy protests, whether you agree with them or not, whether you support them or not, have done one thing: they’ve shown the great disparity between the law, the law enforcers, and the people. Time and again, from Oakland to New York, it’s been shown that in most areas of the country, the law and its enforcers are not interested in the people.

“We don’t make the law, we just enforce it” is the mantra of the cop, the prosecutor, and the judge. Yet they’ve shown that the law is, in fact, what they say it is. Which proves their justifications wrong.

Want proof? It’s right in front of anyone who’s a medical marijuana or legalization supporter.

The Santa Barbara Superior Court refused to allow MMJ dispensary owners from using California’s medical marijuana law as a defense. The same happened in Colorado to grower Chris Bartkowicz.

Just a few days ago, residents of the city of Tacoma, Washington voted to make marijuana arrests and enforcement the lowest priority for their police force. The press conference response from their Public Safety Chief Jeff Hadley was:

“I certainly respect the democratic process,” Hadley said. “It certainly gives you an insight to what some of the voters are thinking in terms of their views on marijuana. However, it really has little to no impact on how we operate at Public Safety.”

In other words: “Ya ya, the voters wanted it, but it doesn’t jibe with our wants, so F them.” He’s using aconvoluted technical legal reasoning for his sudden promotion to lawmaker.

Then we turn to Washington, D.C. or rather, we look at it while actually turning to California. In the backyard of the DEA, 24 new dispensaries and grow shops are about to be approved to open their doors. Yet the DEA continues their attention on the other side of the country, kicking in the doors of California medical marijuana facilities instead.

Then, looking to a Michigan judge, if you get arrested (even if it results in no charges or conviction), yourmedical marijuana is forfeit to police. Why? Because the judge believes that if they hand it back to you, they are “trafficking” and could face federal charges.. No, really. Your property is not your property if the feds deem it to be “illegal” – state law or no.

Back to California, the decision of one court has given Albany City the cojones to assume that this means bans on dispensaries (including existing ones) are okay. The council even went so far as to call an emergency ordinance to do it.

Going to Michigan again, we have their new Attorney General, Bill Schuette, who is obviously grandstanding on marijuana as a means towards higher public office. Despite a large majority of Michigan voters coming together to vote in the state’s medical marijuana initiative, Schuette seems hell bent on making sure it gets repealed or gutted.

Then, to look at the cops themselves (the front line enforcers), we see more “the law is what we say it is” attitude. They get caught on tape fabricating an entire arrest and bust, start to finish. Then they totally ignore state and local laws in favor of federal laws whenever raids, arrests, and (most importantly) forfeitures are involved.

That’s just the beginning, folks. There’s a lot of money in marijuana remaining illegal. Law enforcement from top to bottom is completely sold out to it. I’ve pointed this out before, in depth.

It truly is The People vs The Police. The only way to win is to stop legitimizing their actions. Non-compliance, civil disobedience (Whitman style), protesting them directly (right at the front door of their precincts and offices), and demanding their resignations and firing when they ignore your (legitimate) law in favor of that of federal bureaucracies and intimidation.. these are the things that must be done. The Nuremburg defense didn’t work then and it shouldn’t work now.

Cops, prosecutors, judges, and lawmakers should all be held accountable for what they’re doing.

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