Just in case you thought he might have changed since we last saw him, uh no.
Pueblo County Sheriff Kirk Taylor says voters have been “put to sleep” on the issue of marijuana but he, along with the County Sheriffs of Colorado, is strongly opposed to Amendment 64 on the November ballot, which would essentially legalize and regulate marijuana similar to alcohol and drinking.
Taylor told The Pueblo Chieftain editorial board Friday that allowing people to legally buy and use even small amounts of marijuana would worsen all of the societal problems that are associated with other drugs, including alcohol.
That bounty money for drug busts is really paying off in buying support for the drug war.
The Sheriff may not be totally happy when he hears about this development:
The Belknap County Attorney’s Office, evidently eager to get rid of a case that involved just 15 plants and no distribution, offered Darrell a series of increasingly lenient plea deals, culminating in an offer that entailed a misdemeanor guilty plea with no jail time or fine. Darrell turned all the offers down, Sisti said, because “he didn’t think he was guilty of anything; it’s a sacrament in his religion.” Instead he went to trial on a charge of manufacturing a controlled drug, a Class B felony that carries a penalty of three and a half to seven years in prison. Darrell’s first trial ended in a mistrial last November due to prosecutorial error. His second trial ended in yesterday’s acquittal.
http://reason.com/blog/2012/09/14/new-hampshire-jury-acquits-pot-growing-r:
and on the good side of the news:
New Hampshire Jury Nullifies its First Felony Marijuana Case
http://tinyurl.com/9h265ff
The Free State Project scores a major victory for jury nullification with the acquittal of 15 felony marijuana charges – and it’s all thanks to a “straight-laced little old lady†juror
Doug Darrell beat the odds and walked home from his trial as a free man on Friday, a major win for the state’s new jury nullification law and the Free State Project. Facing 15 counts of felony drug possession for growing marijuana plants behind his house, the 59-year-old Rastafarian saw all of the charges against him dropped after jurors in his trial successfully convinced their peers to nullify the case on the grounds that Darrell was simply trying to obey the customs of his religion.
Too sweet!!!!!!!
Op-ed from New Jersey promoting jury nullification:
Don’t like marijuana – or other – laws? Change them.
god bless Ed Forchion… rrr… NJ Weedman
I’m middle aged but have never been requested to do jury duty even though I qualify for it as a Canadian citizen and landowner. No idea why I’ve not been chosen but I would love to serve on a jury if there was a chance to nullify a cannabis charge. One joint or ten boat loads ..it wouldn’t matter. LOL a great story to tell my grandchildren.
Contest a traffic ticket. I don’t know how it works there, but here, every time I have contested a traffic infraction, it was followed three months later by jury duty. Still never been picked, though. They take one look at my education and they call “NEXT!”
An Interesting snippet indeed.
Strange dc, now that I think abouat it, the only time I ever received a summons for jury duty was about 3 months after I contested a no-seatbelt infraction. I faithfully went every day for the month but was never chosen for a jury, I guess they had read all my letters to the editor and did’t want anyone on any jury with my political (Constitutional) views, tho one case I was excused from it was because one of the charging officers was a friend of mine and I suspect the defending attorneys thought I’d give more weight to her testimony (it was an animal abuse case and she was the animal control officer, so in this instance I probably would have done just as they expected even tho I think I would have tried very hard to be fair to both sides).
Works every time, Windy. Contest again, get a summons.
The sheriff is just another little piggy at the drug war trough trying to protect his abundant federal drug war slop. Little piggies like him must be exposed for the liars that they really are. He’s not serving the people, he’s just serving himself by continuing to lie & dish out this crap to an unknowing public to protect his little piggy trough & keep it full.
This is why I say the office of sheriff is the most important office for which we vote. Here is what I wrote on facebook the other day about voting for your county sheriff:
Vet your candidates for Sheriff, thoroughly, make certain they back your unalienable rights, know their power and understand the Constitution. Vote ONLY for the one who meets all three of those criteria.
The following is quoted from a comment on a blog post, I don’t recall which blog or what day, but I’ve known this information for years, it’s time everyone knew it and facebook is one good way to spread the information:
“Did you know the Sheriff is the highest legal enforcement authority of his county, higher than even the President of the United States? Did you know the Sheriff can command Federal agents to leave his county, and they must obey or they can be put in jail? Did you know the Sheriff can refuse to enforce Federal and State laws he or she deems unconstitutional?
“For those who haven’t already, I’d like to suggest we look to the office of the Sheriff as one of the most achievable and powerful steps we can take in our defense against unconstitutional government.”
Kirk Taylor reacts to drug use via his moral emotions, which in this case are affected by an ignorance of science, and perhaps also by a religious background that condemns science, rationality and intellectualism as a means of determining the truth about anything.
Sheriff Taylor is living proof that science education needs to start in kindergarten, and that politicians and law enforcement people would benefit immensely from at least one year of college chemistry, thereby enabling them to make sharp distinctions between marijuana, hemp, alcohol and other drugs.
I think that the amount of understanding any politician and law enforcement officer has about the harms caused by prohibition is directly linked to how much money prohibition puts in their pockets,,no amount of education will override that money,,besides,,most the politicians and law enforcement I have met are educated beyond their intelligence anyway.
yeah… I think they call that the Pecker Principle. Something along the lines of “rising to the level of their own incontinence”… or is that “incognizance”? Well… whichever… it fits Sheriff Kirk to a “t”
The Peter Principle.
really…
are you saying I flunked out of humor class? Damn. I want my $19.99 back… must be what my dad meant when he said “not that kind of funny.”
Well, seeing as how you’re completely mischaracterizing the alcohol vs. cannabis argument, I’d have to agree with you: you don’t understand it. The argument is not that we should legalize cannabis because it’s “just like” alcohol. Non-toxic, non-addicting, non-violence-promoting cannabis is infinitely safer than alcohol by every objective measure. It’s thus hypocritical and counterproductive to punish Americans who make the rational, safer choice to use cannabis instead of alcohol. Of course, that’s only one of many arguments that can be made in support of reform. Some other examples are the constitutional argument, the liberty and self-ownership argument, the economic benefit argument, and the unintended consequences of prohibition argument. My guess is you don’t understand those either. Maybe you should try and do so before sharing your opinion.
.
.
I think it’s a violation of our natural born right to equal protection under the law which is protected by the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution. I do believe that could be consistent if we make drinking alcohol illegal. But as long as people have the choice to use a significantly more dangerous substance
I jumped the gun by a day or two when I complained that I hadn’t heard anything about Montana’s veto referendum of SB-423. Subsequent to that posting I’ve seen at least 10 articles that have mentioned it. Polls show it to be a dead heat between yes and no with more than 1 of 5 likely Montana voters undecided. Which of course means that its prospects of winning aren’t very good.
Gazette opinion: Trying marijuana in court of public opinion (again)
I think somebody should be keeping track of all the doomsday predictions people are making about the consequences of legalization. I’d love to be able to come back and review them a few years down the line after legalization, and see which of them has come true. And which of the prognosticators turn out to be raving loonies. Much like stock market analysts, prohibitionists can make all kinds of crazy predictions for the sole purpose of spreading fear without having to worry if their predictions ever come true. We should be able to go back and call them on it. Anybody want to set up a data base?
.
.
What, you mean like the “gateway” twaddle that has people believing that the number of people needing “treatment” for “addiction” will skyrocket, and how it didn’t happen in California? California residents in treatment for opioids and cocaine have fallen almost 50% since 1996 and the total number of Californians in “treatment” for anything is down almost 15% from 1996 through 2011 while the population has increased by almost 20%?
http://wwwdasis.samhsa.gov/webt/quicklink/ca96.htm
http://wwwdasis.samhsa.gov/webt/quicklink/ca11.htm
Let’s not forget about Prop 36 passed in 2000 which mandates “treatment” instead of jail for 1st and second offenders. I’d think that law would have made the numbers increase substantially.
No, it’s not consistent with nationwide trends either. If you do look at the nationwide numbers remember that California has just over 12% of the US population which make the nationwide numbers look better. Discounting California’s results in the nationwide totals will make the contrast even more stark than it appears at first glance. The California decrease in those in “treatment” for cocaine addiction are consistent with nationwide trends though still marginally better.
http://wwwdasis.samhsa.gov/webt/quicklink/us10.htm
For 1996 replace 10 with 96 in the URL directly above.
You can factor in that 70% of the reported addiction for marijuana cases were because of judicial,employment or family initiated and not because they are addicted at all.
.
.
…or perhaps you mean the nonsense predictions of carnage and mayhem on our highways post re-legalization? That completely ignores the experience in Alaska after their State Court of Appeals tossed out the law created by a 1990 ballot initiative which re-criminalized cannabis. Just by happenstance SAMHSA decided to do a study on the incidence of “drugged” driving and the study period started in the very same 2002 in which the Alaska law was struck down. Between 2002 and 2009 Alaska registered a statistically significant reduction in the incidence of “drugged” driving.
Not as compelling but still not consistence with the hysterical rhetoric California also registered a statistically significant decrease in the incidence of “drugged” driving despite an estimated increase from ~50,000 to at least 750,000 in the number of State residents claiming the protection of the Compassionate Use Act of 1996 and the Medical Marijuana Program Act of 2003. It was the MMP which promoted the significant increase in patients.
Also, there wasn’t a single State which registered a statistically significant increase in the incidence of “drugged” driving in any State, including all of the States which implemented a medicinal cannabis patient protection law during the study period.
http://oas.samhsa.gov/2k10/205/DruggedDriving.htm
.
.
Perhaps you mean the hysterical prediction concerning workplace safety going to hell in a handbasket?
Oregon’s workplaces safest ever, despite 40,000 medical marijuana patients
Who really gives a flying fuck what he is opposed to ?
I bow…
Amazing how completely unaware he is of the insulting nature of his remark about how the voters have been ‘put to sleep’.
This is the exact same insult leveled by public servants at their paymasters, the public, by those who opposed Props 200 and 215 respectively. Even the Feds got into it, with McCaffery, Shalala and Reno showing the depth of their contempt for the public with a truly asinine ‘presser’ after their passing, where they even thought they could threaten doctor’s licenses for recommending cannabis. They got their asses handed to them in a court case for their arrogant overreach.
The implication is that his knowledge base is superior when in fact it’s inferior, based upon false information that never gets challenged because it’s never been held up as false in court. When that happens, this arrogant drivel will stop.
This sheriff is clueless about real marijuana users. He should visit http://www.thingsididwhilehighonpot.com to get a more accurate picture.