Burbank's Overzealous Drug Warriors Back Down

Jacob Sullum | September 27, 2005

Last week the city of Burbank dropped a misdemeanor marijuana charge against Valerie Corral, co-founder of the Santa Cruz-based Wo/Men's Alliance for Medical Marijuana. Corral was arrested at Bob Hope Airport in July with about five grams of marijuana even though she was carrying a card issued by Santa Cruz County that identified her as a patient legally authorized to possess the drug under California's Compassionate Use Act. The city decided not to pursue the case, which was scheduled for trial this week, after the American Civil Liberties Union promised to "challenge Burbank's illegal policy of pursuing prosecutions against medical marijuana patients known to be innocent."

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James Anderson Merritt|9.27.05 @ 11:27AM|#

Initially, I didn't like the idea of "Pot Cards," when the City Council first proposed them. It sounded like an open invitation for governmental abuse: "first, let's round up all the registered potheads." But if med-mj patient registration in Santa Cruz enabled Valerie Corral to escape spurious prosecution in Beautiful Downtown Burbank, then it has accomplished something good. In my opinion, in view of Prop. 215, California state and local law enforcement should never assist the Federal government to apprehend or prosecute medical mj cases, and should indeed do everything within the law to resist such enforcement and prevent the corresponding cases from going forward. That a California municipality would initiate a local prosecution, and drag their feet even this before dropping the case, is shameful.

-James Merritt
Santa Cruz CA

Warren|9.27.05 @ 11:41AM|#

They decided not to prosecute someone they know to be innocent when it might attract attention. That's nice.

Barkeep, I'll have another.

|9.27.05 @ 11:45AM|#

What's a "Wo/man"???

fyodor|9.27.05 @ 11:53AM|#

Overzealous Drug Warriors

Today's redundancy?

|9.27.05 @ 11:54AM|#

B:

See the lyrics to Ton Loc's "Funky Cold Medina" for an example...

"So I took her to my crib, and everything went well as planned. But when she got undressed, it was a big old mess, Sheena was a WO/man."

"Initially, I didn't like the idea of "Pot Cards," when the City Council first proposed them. It sounded like an open invitation for governmental abuse: "first, let's round up all the registered potheads."

Merritt:

that doesn't make much sense, really. Fool people into registering, then arresting them. Not that I'd put it past, say the federal government, but, a local gubmint in cali? Plus, once word got out, people would stop registering anyway.

|9.27.05 @ 11:58AM|#

Evan,

IIRC, the DC govt did something similar with registering shotguns back in the 70s. When all firearms were banned a few years later, they knew who to check up on...

SteveInClearwater|9.27.05 @ 12:00PM|#

Another factor could be that the feds told Burbank to back off because Corral has little or no seizable assets.

The feds are clearly pressuring local California jurisdictions to proceed on MMJ patients and providers, but the main motivator is a reminder that the city/county can share in seized property and $$ assets.

When it becomes obvious that Corral did not have such assets, there's a reduced motivation to cooperate with the feds.

|9.27.05 @ 12:09PM|#

I suspect that not cooperating (in all its various forms) is the long term answer to this insane "war".

If juries would simply refuse to convict, prosecutors -- who care about their conviction rates -- would stop making themselves look the fool by not pursuing simple possession/distribution cases. And there would be more "backing down" of the sort we've just seen.

The Anti-Puritan|9.27.05 @ 12:14PM|#

B:
What's a "Wo/man"???

And how do you pronounce that word? Oh, the toll that political correctness has taken on our language.

The Anti-Puritan|9.27.05 @ 12:26PM|#

Saturday Night Live's Pat gets his/her medical marijuana from the Wo/Men's Alliance for Medical Marijuana.

|9.27.05 @ 12:31PM|#

Simon9 - If, then. The structure of a conditional phrase. Logic, so soft, warm and supple. I can smell it burnig in the fields.

Good sentence structure, kid, but you used all the wrong nouns, verbs, adjectives, what have you. Try this on for size.

"If juries would simply refuse to convict, which they won't, then prosecutors would have to amp-up the propaganda, prosecute jurors who fail to do as they're told and demand that congress get even tougher on the drug preditors preying on our children."

Feel free to print that out and frame it. And oh yeah, it ain't never gonna be legal in our lifetimes. Logic died an agonizing death a long, long time ago.

|9.27.05 @ 12:43PM|#

test

|9.27.05 @ 12:48PM|#

I don't get why medical users would be prosecuted under state law? State law specifically exempts them. Seems to me like the best way to respect both state and federal law is a prosecution in federal court.

Let 'em make a federal case out of it, and see what the PR result is.

The Lonewacko Blog|9.27.05 @ 1:02PM|#

"And how do you pronounce that word?"

You pronounce the slash with a full glottal stop, like in Arabic: Wo'man. For you anti-bourgeois, Burbank is a special place. (Still working for free because of the nofollow tags. ;) )

|9.27.05 @ 1:04PM|#

Lonewacko-

Well, as long as a native-born like you is providing free labor for Reason, we can rest assured that they'll never need to hire cheap illegals.

:->

Akira MacKenzie|9.27.05 @ 1:05PM|#

What's a "Wo/man"???

Why not just call it the "Alliance for Medical Mariruna" and forget the hermaphrodite reference?

|9.27.05 @ 1:35PM|#

well akira, it is california.

|9.27.05 @ 1:42PM|#

saw-whet:

I'm glad you noted the conditional structure of my post. While I think that it's nonsense that prosecutors would jail jurors for voting their conscience, I agree that logic has largely vanished among the voters and jurors of this country on this and many other issues. Although jurors could make a difference, they won't. And the lovely status quo will likely continue.

|9.27.05 @ 2:09PM|#

SteveinClearwater:

Great to see you back!

|9.27.05 @ 2:29PM|#

When a wo/maaa-haaann loves a wo/maaaaannnnnnnnnn...

|9.27.05 @ 3:38PM|#

The term 'Wo/Man' seems weird, and it seems to draw attention to the fact that 'woman' contains 'man'. Isn't that exactly the opposite of its intended effect, though? Help me out here. 'Womyn', which I have also seen, seems to make more sense as it removes 'man' from 'woman'.
What these touchups ACTUALLY accomplish I don't know.

|9.27.05 @ 3:58PM|#

Saw-whet
Unless you can prove the jurors lied during jury selection, you can't prosecute them. They are free to vote anyway they wish with no repercusions.

Of course, if jury nulification started becoming common I can imagine the goverment would take steps to outlaw it at which point we would enter the next phase of finding out how far they can push before we push back. Then again, most Americans don't understand what their rights are and thus cannot tell when they are being violated.

|9.27.05 @ 4:15PM|#

The term 'Wo/Man' seems weird

Mind, it is concise, similar to "s/he" when one is too pedantic to use the plural pronoun "they", doesn't want to use "he", and the old standby "one" doesn't fit.

As for how to say it, I'd say "Wo Man" with a slight but audible pause between the syllables.

...So I like good neologisms...

The Lonewacko Blog|9.27.05 @ 4:46PM|#

What the Gramscian idiots don't know is that "woman" was originally "wife-man", as in "female person".

The Anti-Puritan|9.27.05 @ 5:05PM|#

Simon9:
…I agree that logic has largely vanished among the voters and jurors of this country on this and many other issues.

Thank you, thank you, thank you for blaming the people rather than "The Politicians." Unjust laws are generally the product of mass delusions rather than ?te conspiracies. If only more Americans understood this, free speech would not be threatened by jokes like the McCain-Feingold law.

|9.27.05 @ 5:13PM|#

What the Gramscian idiots don't know is that "woman" was originally "wife-man", as in "female person".

I heard it was from "womb-man".

The Anti-Puritan|9.27.05 @ 5:21PM|#

In my last comment, ?te was supposed to be elite. I tried to put an acute accent over the e, as the French do, but Reason's server couldn't handle it.

|9.27.05 @ 5:38PM|#

Couldn't they simply have called it the People's Alliance for Medical Marijauna?

The Lonewacko Blog|9.27.05 @ 5:41PM|#

What the Gramscian idiots don't know is that "woman" was originally "wife-man", as in "female person".

|9.27.05 @ 6:05PM|#

I don't see what the big deal with the words is in the first place. Man is spelled whith an "e" and woman is spelled with a "shwa".

The Anti-Puritan|9.27.05 @ 6:31PM|#

I've long thought that it's an insult to our intelligence to claim that words like mankind are sexist. Since when can a word have no more than one meaning? But in a world where so many people believe that porn causes men to rape, that song lyrics can drive someone to suicide, or that advertising makes people buy things they wouldn't otherwise want, our intelligence is constantly being insulted.