Conflict of Interest How to Get Busted for Pot After I-75
posted by on August 16 at 15:10 PM
According to the Ballard News Tribune…
Reports of a suspicious male hanging around a downtown Ballard building were made to 911 at 8:20 p.m. on a Saturday night. Police contacted the suspect who told them he rented a studio in the building and that he had the keys. Officers smelled the odor of marijuana coming from his studio. They did a routine check on his identity and found a warrant in his name. Subsequent to his arrest, the suspect agreed to let police search his studio and they found two bags of marijuana. He spent the evening in jail.
Listen, folks with warrants, if you get caught for breaking one law and take police officers to your apartment with pot inside – and give them permission to search it – they will charge you with marijuana possession, too. Everyone else: If you’re gonna smoke pot, do it discreetly and bathe daily.
Since voters passed Initiative 75 in 2003, marijuana possession has been the City’s lowest law enforcement priority. (Full disclosure, I coordinated the campaign.) Charges for marijuana possession have dropped. But City Attorney Tom Carr, who opposed the initiative, says the decline in pot cases is unrelated to I-75. Are the fewer pot filings just coincidence? Is the decrease significant? Did the city save money? Did more people start getting high? The eleven-member Marijuana Policy Review Panel, which includes Carr and me, will hold what is ostensibly its final meeting this evening at 5:30 p.m. in room 370 at City Hall to answer those questions and iron out the final wording of a report to the City Council on the measure’s impacts.
To Dom:
Do you think the panel is going to recommend that the city continue the lowest law-enforcement priority for pot?
To everyone else: The majority of the time, when a person is charged w/ pot possession, that person was caught doing something else (in this case loitering w/ a warrant out) and also happened to have pot on them. In other words, if you're already breaking the law, I-75 won't help you.
Bathe daily? What a waste of water, man.
can't wait to see the report! people should definitely not agree to a search, that way if they do search and find something, they still potentially have a legal out. and as nafun pointed out and jeffrey steinborn always says, only break 1 law at a time! hopefully in the near future something stupid like enjoying a relaxing cannabis plant in your residence as opposed to getting drunk will not get you arrested. come to seattle hempfest this weekend and show your support for legalizing this nonfatal, mellow form of recreation!
NaFun @1, I think the panel will recommend that marijuana possession remain the city's lowest enforcement priority. But we'll probably vote to ease the reporting requirements for the City Attorney's Office and disband the panel. It served its function, but, now that the report is almost finished, there's no need to keep a city board to sit around and squabble.
I'm thinking maybe I should start a similar initative here...
So how did the panel meeting go? I hope well.
Re the warrant guy, it makes me think of something Viv said on stage at Hempfest last year. Break only "one law at a time." It's some of the best advice I've ever heard. Definitely a good way to stay out of trouble.
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