WILL SNOOP DOG BE STAYING IN AMERICA?

"I now have absolute proof that smoking even one marijuana cigarette is equal in brain damage to being on Bikini Island during an H-bomb blast"

~Ronald Reagan

"I never understood that line. The point was to inhale. That was the point."  When asked, "Unlike other presidents, did you inhale?'’

                   

                                                         ~ Barack Obama

As an update to the status of marijuana laws in the states that are playing a major role in the legal and tax implications of legalized marijuana (Denver, Washington and California), there is new information since my original post. Please note, as with all of my posts, I do not promote one lifestyle over another. I am simply providing information that I find socially, legally, and politically interesting while updating my blog posts, and which I firmly believe will soon have significant impact.

Denver at the Forefront

Denver has become a national model in how it regulates medical-marijuana dispensaries and grow facilities. Now, 207 dispensaries operate in the city — slightly more than the number of liquor stores. And as of April 30, more than half of the 107,262 Colorado patients who possess a valid registry ID card for medical marijuana live in the Denver area with 17,969 or 17 percent living in Denver County.

In 2012 there were $130 million in gross sales of medical marijuana that generated $4.6 million in sales tax revenue for Denver, up from $1.8 million in 2010.

City leaders have been waiting since November for the state to craft its rules so they can begin building a municipal framework for how sales will be regulated in Denver.

Gov. John Hickenlooper signed into law six bills for how the state will regulate and tax recreational marijuana.

Jeremy P. Meyer, The Denver Post

Washington, Major Taxes to be Collected

The state of Washington estimates it will generate as much as $1.9 billion in additional revenue in five years due to the legalization of marijuana.

The federal legalization of marijuana would offer a large new revenue stream, according to research from the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank.

"We don’t know the size of the marijuana market right now, and we certainly don’t know what would happen to the price and the demand for marijuana under different levels of legalization," Carl Davis, senior analyst at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy told The Huffington Post. "But we do know that legalization would lead to a positive revenue impact on the income and sales tax side."

According to a 2010 study from Cato, legalizing marijuana would generate $8.7 billion in federal and state tax revenue annually.

Caroline Fairchild, The Huffington Post

California Losing its Buzz?

In a unanimous decision last week, the California Supreme Court ruled that cities and counties can prohibit medical marijuana dispensaries... The state's highest court found that two state laws, the Compassionate Use Act and the Medical Marijuana Program, do not preempt the ability of localities to use zoning laws to ban pot shops. The Compassionate Use Act was enacted via the ballot initiative process in 1996. The Medical Marijuana Program is a companion piece of legislation passed by the legislature in 2003.

The court ruled that the California Constitution gives localities so-called "police powers" under which they can legislate for the health, safety, and welfare of their jurisdictions. The court found that under those powers, localities have the authority to prohibit pot shops because the state statutes did not explicitly or implicitly prevent localities from imposing those prohibitions.

Jessica Levinson, Ballot Brief

Conclusion

In conclusion, although I do not espouse one position over another as stated above, I did find out some information that is food for thought and a good starting point for those who have interest in doing their own research.

Inmates incarcerated on marijuana-related charges cost U.S. prisons $1 billion annually according to a 2007 study;

Enforcing marijuana prohibitions costs taxpayers 41.8 billion per year;

Marijuana is California’s most valuable cash crop;

Illegal marijuana is a 36 billion dollar industry;

One-third of Americans think that legalizing marijuana would boost the economy;

Economists estimated in 2010 that legal marijuana could be a 45 to 100 billion

Dollar industry;

More than 60 percent of states agree with taxing marijuana to generate revenues;

As of July 2011, the city of Denver had more marijuana dispensaries than Starbuck’s franchises.

Jeffrey Miron and Katherine Waldock, The Huffington Post

Based on the foregoing, let’s see how our federal law enforcement agencies decide to deal with the fact that state laws permitting the sale and taxation of recreational marijuana are in direct conflict with Federal drug laws? Given the potential billions of tax revenues, I have a feeling that Tommy Chong is not going to have to move to Amsterdam anytime soon.

~Leonardo G. Renaud

LIVING BY THE FEUD IN THE LAND OF ELVIS

 “We do not have to visit the madhouse to find disordered minds; our planet is the mental institution of the universe.”

~Johann von Goethe

Recently, there have been arrests made regarding poison laced letters that were sent to the President, a Judge, and a Senator. These letters contained a substance called ricin. Ricin is poisonous if inhaled, injected, or ingested.

The castor bean plant from which ricin is derived is a common plant and can be grown at home without any special care. The major reason ricin is a public health threat is that it is so easy to obtain.  Ricin, Wikipedia

Ricin, made from castor beans, is, in its powdered form, 6,000 times more poisonous than cyanide and a dose the size of two grains of salt can kill. Associated Press, April 30, 2013

A massive manhunt ensued after the letters were received, and a man named Paul Kevin Curtis was immediately arrested.  As a bit of background regarding Curtis, it is alleged that he is quite eccentric and maybe a bit mentally unstable. He has a propensity to come up with very big conspiracy theories. The most significant conspiracy that he has come up with to date is that a mortuary where he worked as a janitor was involved in a black market scheme of selling body parts.  It turns out that his story, to date, has not been proven to be true. Time will tell.

Curtis is an Elvis impersonator who lives in Elvis’ birthplace of Tupelo, Mississippi. He also does Conway Twitty, Prince, Alan Jackson, and Randy Travis impersonations. One of Curtis’ lawyers said his client broke into a spontaneous Randy Travis song when the lawyer saw him for the first time since being released from federal lockup.  Winston Ross, April 25 2013.

 The second accused person in this strange story had once planned to co-write a book with Curtis about the body parts conspiracy before the two had a fall out years ago.  Their feud continued and escalated throughout the years on Facebook, Youtube, and other social media outlets.

Curtis was immediately deemed to be a suspect because the ricin letters contained the initials “KC.”  The letters also contained a similar phrase that Curtis frequently uses in blogposts, letters, and various web commentaries. This phrase is “I am KC and I approve this message.” Investigators would soon find that the initials on the ricin letters were there for a more sinister purpose than Curtis identifying himself as the sender.

            After being interrogated by numerous law enforcement agencies, and having his home searched, Curtis was eventually freed. However, Curtis was kept  in custody for a week. He was interrogated while he was chained to a chair and his house was turned upside down (he is now seeking compensation for the extensive damage to his home). Even though investigators were holding Curtis, according to an FBI affidavit, they began collecting physical evidence against a second suspect.

Instead of setting Curtis free, court records show, federal officials sought to keep him in custody. First, three days after the arrest, prosecutors asked for a psychiatric evaluation — a request usually made by defense lawyers. That could have extended his stay in federal prison by several months and allowed investigators to continue to question him. Then, after a judge denied the request, federal prosecutors filed a motion seeking to postpone a court hearing at which they would be required to reveal the evidence they had against Curtis. That was also turned down. “They wanted to keep Mr. Curtis in custody while they built a case,” said Hal Neilson, a former FBI agent who is one of Curtis’ attorneys. “They knew early on he wasn’t the right guy, but they fought to hold onto him anyway.” Kimberly Kindy, Washington Post

 Curtis stated that it was immediately assumed that he that he was the wrongdoer and commented that he was heavily pressured into confessing that he sent the letters.  One could only imagine how disturbing it would be to be accused and kept in custody based on barely circumstantial and not any physical evidence. It appears that his immediate arrest and treatment by law enforcement was a very quick jump to a wrong conclusion.

“The letters and his mental state would not likely add up to probable cause, which you need to make an arrest,” said Andrew Scott, a retired Boca Raton, Fla., police chief, expert court witness on police procedure, and a graduate of the FBI National Academy. “The evidence came from publicly available social media sites. And the last time I checked, psychological profiling is not an element of probable cause. Without further investigating, it can lead to the kind of fiasco we are seeing here.”

The story becomes even more bizarre.

Why is it that some people cannot just let things go? James Everett Dutschke is such a man.  As it stands now, he faces life in prison on federal charges of developing and delivering a toxin for use as a weapon.  What led him down the road to ruin?

During the period of time that Curtis was interrogated, and ultimately freed, Curtis provided a list to law enforcement officials of people who may have had a reason to hurt Curtis.  Dutschke’s name came up.

 It is not fully understood why Dutschke allegedly sent the ricin letters, but it is theorized that he made a bad, and not very well thought out, choice to try and frame Curtis as a result of their feud.

Dutschke, like Curtis, is a peculiar sort.  He is reported to be an ex-martial arts teacher, insurance salesman, blues singer, and claimed Mensa member. He was recently arrested for two child molestation charges and is appealing a conviction on a charge of indecent exposure.  He also unsuccessfully ran in a Mississippi state representative race.

By his own description on his MySpace page, Dutschke once wanted to specialize in psychiatric nursing, but wound up in radio and then the insurance business. He’s in a rock band called Dusty and the RoboDrum that, according to its Facebook page, includes “tons of lasers.” Winston Ross, April 25 2013

It is theorized that all of Dutschke’s acts were motivated by feuds. He had an ongoing dispute with Curtis due to the animosity between them. Dutschke also apparently had a grudge against the Judge whom he allegedly attempted to poison because she scolded him at a political event for his scathing personal attacks of her son (who was running for the same position).

Regarding the President and the Senator, it is believed that the obvious purpose of these letters was to get Curtis locked up for a—very--long time.

This tale of feuds and lawbreaking was best summarized by Curtis’ attorney, “We are relieved and saddened. This crime is nothing short of diabolical. I have seen a lot of meanness in the past two decades, but this stops me in my tracks.”

Maybe turning the other cheek is good advice after all.

~Leonardo G. Renaud

UPDATE: NEWS REGARDING TEXAS KILLINGS

Former justice of the peace Eric Williams has been charged with capital murder for allegedly killing three people in Kaufman County, Texas, earlier this year. Williams's wife confessed, implicating both herself and her husband in the murder of an Assistant District Attorney, a District Attorney, and his wife.

While it seems unlikely that Williams’ wife would have been physically able to commit the crimes, given her health condition, it is believed that she may have encouraged or participated in them in some way. She confessed to the police that her husband was the one who actually shot the three victims, quoting Bennett, Eric Williams Charged with Murder of District Attorneys, The Atlantic Wire, April 18, 2013.

It remains to be seen whether Williams’ wife will testify against him to try and avoid the death penalty. Given the savagery of the murders, and Texas’ active stance in favor of executions, it would appear that the Texas prosecutors will most certainly seek the death penalty.  It is a sad tale that Williams went from a sentence of probation for theft to a potential sentence of execution due to his act of revenge.

 ~Leonardo G. Renaud