Busted!

[CarolKing]

Probably joining an activist group like NORMAL is the best way or groups like that in your area to get that activism out. Joining a newspaper that's dedicated to spreading the good cannabis word. Like in Seattle they have the Toke of the Town newspaper dedicated to cannabis news. A person could write an article or two for them. @samantabha it looks like you like to write and have a flair for it. You wouldn't even have to use your real name if you didn't want to. You could have your writer's name.

Hopefully all of this nonsense will boil down to a fine with nothing on your record.

I am paranoid type of person, I'm a worrier. For years cannabis was illegal (most of the U.S it still is) in Washington state. If cannabis wasn't legal I wouldn't post pics of the herb or equipment that I use, I am that paranoid. I would freak out years ago,when I would go pick up my product from my long time friend (weedfriend) and there would be a sheriff behind me. I still feel that way after I leave the dispensary, it's just habit. FOR CRIST SAKE IT'S LEGAL.

I have to pinch myself sometimes. I can go to a medical dispensary or I can buy cannabis at a store. I haven't gone into a rec store yet. The mmj Farmers Market has too good of prices.

At anytime all that could be taken away. It's in the Federal Government's hands to decimalization cannabis. The Feds could decide to start arresting store owners and distributors in WA and CO. You never know who will get into office next as President. Vote for people that are running for office that are pro legalization or at least to decimalize it.

 

[Gunky]

There are a lot of things that can be done on local and state level. Decriminalizing or making possession punishable by a small ticket can be done on a local or state level. Oakland has its Measure Z, which directs local police to place cannabis as the lowest policing priority. It's very cost-effective when you consider all the resources that go into the drug war.

Of course nationally getting your state to legalize will help push it over. Also electing candidates who express support to federal office.

 

[aesthyrian]

"FYI: For anyone in Wisconsin or vicinity: http://www.examiner.com/article/44t...rijuana-harvest-festival-this-weekend-madison"

The sniffer dogs will certainly be out in force for that event, unfortunately

What?! Where in the article does it say that? What are the dogs sniffing for? Bombs?

I have attended that event for the past 3 years, no problems at all. Very chill crowd, very chill police. Just good vibes and plenty of cannabis consumption in public.

Madison's cannabis laws are pretty lax. You can get a ticket for possession of less than 25 grams and the ticket can only be $109 max if I'm correct. I fail to see why after 40+ years of this event, this city of Madison would "crack down". They could just not issue the permit for the event if they wanted to.

I hate to say it, but in this instance I feel you are simply fear-baiting.

If anyone isn't too scared to enjoy a day in lovely Madison getting very stoned and then marching stoned to the capital steps, then come out and have a fucking blast! You know I'll be there!

Like I said, I have been there for the past 3 years. I have done it all, dabbing(yes torch and rig), solo, mflb, even a few joints during the march(yep... civil disobedience called).

So I'm going to throw myself out there again and recall publicly those last parting moments as the officer wrote me the ticket and I pleaded with him. "If you just make it legal you won't have to go through all this trouble". "But" he smiled "what would happen to my dog? He'd be out of job." I turned around to face Zeke. His black eyes shone through the bars and I noticed his tongue hanging out, the dog-nature sign of being pleased.
Seriously, how does a person argue with that?

Out of a job? What's the dog's SS#? How much does he/she get paid? What about benefits? Did they do a background check and drug test?

What a crock. The dog is just manipulated and used, since dogs are easy to do that with. Employee my ass...

 

[samantabha]

Thanks again everyone for all of the concern expressed for me here. I just woke up and am trying to acclimate myself to the day and to the many messages on this thread. Honestly, I don't know if I deserve such concern. I'm a peon in the universal flow of things. However, if anyone would like to PM me with offers of help with cash on the ticket payment.... (kinda kidding! )

@CarolKing, NORML may be holding a Milwaukee chapter meeting tonight. In which case I'll go. The billboard I recently saw on Hwy 94 in Milw., was put out by national NORML I just found out. Great stuff. I can't wait for my own case to be finished (next week or Nov) so I can be the TOTAL Bull in the China Shop (who mentioned that here?) that I'm destined to be.

Actually, as I'm thinking about it...I'm the perfect person for the Fighting Fool Role: I'm white. I'm Irish (we love words and a good fight), As of now, I'm a well educated, professional woman and mom with means who has a perfect record and doesn't use (no grow, no bud, no product, no paraphenalia). The movement DOES need people like me.

 

[Mr. Gweilo 420]

Send you cash??? Seriously???

 

[samantabha]

Well, you seem very concerned for my welfare

 

[Snappo]

Well, you seem very concerned for my welfare

Yes we are (concerned for your welfare)! And you seem to have the fire in you to do great things! Please keep us posted on your travels and conquests!

 

[samantabha]

Thanks @Snappo ! I'm overwhelmed, actually, at the level of support here on this site (and especially this thread). Everyone has been so kind and helpful. I do a lot of wrong things and am not always a good person myself, but I know I can look around and find a treasure in every single person I meet. Even the police officers in Nebraska weren't bad; they just believed they were doing the right thing, or felt pressured to meet quotas or whatever conditioning they were subjected to. We had a nice conversation after the handcuffs were off (oops, that's giving away part 3....). I'm glad I'm alive!!!
Oh and @Mr. Gweilo 420: I apologize for messing with you. It really was tongue-in-cheek. I wouldn't take cash from anyone here or anywhere else for something like this. It's my own doing and I have to deal with it myself.

Let's change the system to make it BETTER for everyone

POWER TO THE PEOPLE!!!!

 

[gangababa]

@samantabha

I touch your feet. You are a leader. I read you and remember words Ram Das (Richard Alpert) wrote.

 

[u bwade wunner]

@samantabha

Well done & great to see You coming out of this one even stronger.It sucks what You had to go through for the revenue machine and those who serve it.
I feel sorry for them tbh.

A wish to You .... for abundant energy!....Maith an Cailin..You Go Girl

 

[Nesta]

Well my girlfriend & I drove from Kansas into Nebraska yesterday & I was curious about what we were going to encounter. Nothing out of the ordinary.

We didn't see any checkpoints or any police activity but we weren't on the interstate, just small highways. And our rental car happened to have Nebraska plates.

 

[samantabha]

Well my girlfriend & I drove from Kansas into Nebraska yesterday & I was curious about what we were going to encounter. Nothing out of the ordinary.

We didn't see any checkpoints or any police activity but we weren't on the interstate, just small highways. And our rental car happened to have Nebraska plates.

I'm glad that was your experience!! My boyfriend and I were discussing it again today and we think the stepped up activity was due to it being the end of the month. Our incident occurred on 9/29. Woe unto those who must travel the last weekend of the month!

 

[MinnBobber]

I'm glad that was your experience!! My boyfriend and I were discussing it again today and we think the stepped up activity was due to it being the end of the month. Our incident occurred on 9/29. Woe unto those who must travel the last weekend of the month!

I wonder why end of the month would have more activity, quota for the month needs a few more victims?

 

[samantabha]

I wonder why end of the month would have more activity, quota for the month needs a few more victims?

I've learned through much of my life that pretty much everything "follows the money".

 

[poonman]

I'm just gonna throw it out there .
I think you were stopped , because of the ethnicity of your boyfriend .

 

[Magic9]

The movement DOES need people like me.

Probably one of the truest things ever typed.

I just power read all 5 pages, and still need to absorb it all, but am glad it's just a fine.

 

[LongIslandmom]

I'm glad that was your experience!! My boyfriend and I were discussing it again today and we think the stepped up activity was due to it being the end of the month. Our incident occurred on 9/29. Woe unto those who must travel the last weekend of the month!

Ok you know that's what I think personally. Arrests at the end of the month may very well be due to meeting a #'s quota. Maybe it was to get in a last shot at the end of the month for overtime pay.

driving to slow- how does that ticket even read. Did they give you a traffic ticket as well for this infraction.. Did this police officer even have a speed gun that clocked your speed?

Forgive me members when I get going my writing just explodes. It's the attorney in me.
Did I read you correctly that you don't even partake?

I can't help it. It just frustrates me that behavior perfectly legal In one state is illegal in another state.
For example, same sex marraige. What if you get married in a state that recognizes the union but one of you has to transfer for employment to a state that doesn't recognize your union. Opps sorry, that marriage didn't count? This is one big reason that there must be uniformity of laws from state to state.

Why should anyone be penalized for living in a state that doesn't recognize a particular circumstance that many other states do.
The average citizen can't pick up and move. They have careers, homes, kids in school.

It 2014 not 1914. A hundred years ago men had the right to vote; all you women - not so fast.
A young woman finds herself in trouble with an unwanted pregnancy in Mississippi. Ok - now drive 100's of miles to a state that allows it because Miss doesn't recognize a constitutionally protected right. I'm not saying whether her actions are right or wrong. I could never abort a child. But whose right is for an entire state to tell that young woman what to do with her own body.

If tobacco and alcohol are legal and you would never get arrested for buying a case of beer that's in the backseat of your car, how hypocritical is it for you to get busted for pot.

I'm getting myself all worked up. Too many days of not talking and not being able to relax in my regular fashion. Forgive me I had to get that out somehow

That's why I love this site. I will ask everyone in advance to forgive my ranting and they will. Gotta love that.

Crazy in Long Island

 

[samantabha]

Probably one of the truest things ever typed.

I just power read all 5 pages, and still need to absorb it all, but am glad it's just a fine.

Hi magic9! Missed you. You didn't get to read my Nebraska story part 1 yet probably. I deleted that huge collection of words in the interest of not blabbing more than I already have prior to settling of ticket. Not easy for me. I'm too natural a blabber. TRYING to change. So many nice people here are advising me. So......later. Tonight at work I'll "write for the desk drawer" as those poor Russian writers in the early part of the last century were forced to do (or suffer labor in Siberia).
After all, I live in America, the Land of the Fraid (oh, Free I mean)

 

[Gunky]

 

[samantabha]

You rock @Gunky! Nice cartoon.

LOL. Do you notice the upset in the old ladies? The Bull wrecks the Tea Party.....

@LongIslandmom:
Forgive me members when I get going my writing just explodes. It's the attorney in me.
Did I read you correctly that you don't even partake?
I can't help it. It just frustrates me that behavior perfectly legal In one state is illegal in another state.
For example, same sex marraige. What if you get married in a state that recognizes the union but one of you has to transfer for employment to a state that doesn't recognize your union. Opps sorry, that marriage didn't count? This is one big reason that there must be uniformity of laws from state to state.
Why should anyone be penalized for living in a state that doesn't recognize a particular circumstance that many other states do.
The average citizen can't pick up and move. They have careers, homes, kids in school.
It 2014 not 1914. A hundred years ago men had the right to vote; all you women - not so fast.
A young woman finds herself in trouble with an unwanted pregnancy in Mississippi. Ok - now drive 100's of miles to a state that allows it because Miss doesn't recognize a constitutionally protected right. I'm not saying whether her actions are right or wrong. I could never abort a child. But whose right is for an entire state to tell that young woman what to do with her own body.
If tobacco and alcohol are legal and you would never get arrested for buying a case of beer that's in the backseat of your car, how hypocritical is it for you to get busted for pot.
I'm getting myself all worked up. Too many days of not talking and not being able to relax in my regular fashion. Forgive me I had to get that out somehow
That's why I love this site. I will ask everyone in advance to forgive my ranting and they will. Gotta love that.
Crazy in Long Island

I feel the same way you do. The injustice of it all burns inside of me. In fact, I have, as a result of this incident, become so committed to trying to understand it and fight it, that I no longer have any interest in "partaking" myself. The mj helps my MS symptoms (they are minor but a little annoying - like digestive difficulties and some neuropathy) but primarily I have enjoyed it for creative purposes. Descriptive experience just flows with it. Now I don't care about the little annoyances or even whether or not I connect with the universe, I just want this unfairness to STOP! I know that as one individual I don't have that much power. I mean, yes, I have real power. I have the power of my own ability and influence. But that's not the same as the power of the group. As in the Madison event that's been going on for 44 years strong, a whole lot of people asserting their rights and lighting up is something the system backs off on. If everyone just admitted it and did it, far more of this crumbling edifice of wrongful laws would already be fallen on the ground. I think of my own party days and the furtive way we passed joints around. I wrote that little poem above because of my experience. We were ok with taking our pleasure while doing nothing about trying to change the conditions, or even aknowledging the suffering and the efforts of people before us and of those who brought it to the market. I think that's a big part of the reason why so little, comparatively, has happened over the past how many decades; the real base of users was not challenging the status quo. Maybe we even preferred the exotic status of being underground. It made all of us "cool".
Maybe, as I think Gunky here said, this ship is already sinking and none of us should bother to become 'victims' by saying or doing anything further about it (at least like me, while I'm in the midst of a possible court case - and I can't really argue with him there). I feel that on one side, but the other side is unconvinced. We've gone forward in the past, only to go backwards again. And what about the backlash that progress in legalization has also unleashed? Traffic stops, tickets and arrests for mj possession are at an all time high. This is impacting in a big way, ordinary people like me. Now Nebraska lawmakers are talking about making their laws tougher. WTF is going on? And do we just sit back and wait until it all blows over? Will it just blow over? Are we becoming a deeply divided America, where one state becomes wholly progressive and another one tightens the screws? It's so confusing right now.

 

[samantabha]

Another day. Just watching videos and reading articles about civil forfeiture and other egregious acts of the paramilitary state. Wow, my story is like a snowflake in a blizzard. It collapses and dies next to the stuff that other people have experienced. I'm still blinking my eyes. People being stopped for a minor traffic violation and having thousands of dollars siezed by police? People accused of money laundering for drug trafficking because their twenty dollar bills are contaminated with cocaine (upwards of 90% of them are)? Cars impounded, homes taken away. Crazy. In many of the scenarios the cops claim drugs are involved. But in some of them that isn't even the case!
Really depressing that this is going on. I need my vape and now it's gone......(the medicine is good for me and this self-imposed quarantine won't last forever - I'm giving it about two weeks).

Oh, found this good article in commondreams.org about people getting back to their roots in civic action, as real agents of change:

http://www.commondreams.org/views/2014/10/07/put-people-power-back-center-citizen-action

And how the War on Drugs is really the War on People (I know everyone knows this here, but there always seems to be a fresh example)

http://www.commondreams.org/views/2...illed-we-end-militarization-our-police-forces

In May, the police shot and killed a man in his home during a raid to search for some marijuana. The man had reported that he was fearful of being burglarized and the police told him: "If anyone breaks into this house, grab your gun and shoot to kill." When he followed their instructions, they killed him.

In July, a St. Paul SWAT team raided a home and killed the family dogs in front of two young children. All they found was some marijuana.

Earlier this month, the Georgia State Patrol sent a helicopter and a K-9 Unit to a man's home in search of what they thought was marijuana. It turned out to be okra.

As we pointed out in our report, War Comes Home: The Excessive Militarization of American Policing police militarization is real. And it can be deadly. America watched in horror as law enforcement responded to the peaceful protests in Ferguson, Missouri, as though they were an invading army. They threatened to kill peaceful protesters. They pointed assault rifles at people exercising their right to peaceably assemble. They jailed journalists.

Isn't it all a pretext for....control of the population? I do notice that NONE of the cases described in this article involved people who had in any way provoked the police.

Although tyranny, because it needs no consent, may successfully rule over foreign peoples, it can stay in power only if it destroys first of all the national institutions of its own people."
(Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 1951)

"[The ruling elites] know who their enemies are, and their enemies are the people, the people at home and the people abroad. Their enemies are anybody who wants more social justice, anybody who wants to use the surplus value of society for social needs rather than for individual class greed, that's their enemy."
(Dr. Michael Parenti)

"When the powerful begin to act irresponsibly, it's the responsibility of the rest of us to take their power away from them."
(Barbara Ehrenreich)

 

[grokit]

That second article was excellent

 

[samantabha]

@grokit, have you seen the John Oliver segment on this?

 

[MinnBobber]

It's a serious problem and abuse of power but John Oliver was really funny.
samantabha-- the Nebraska Hwy Bull breakroom thanks you for your copy of High Times. They might even search out more issues to confiscate.......

 

[grokit]

@grokit, have you seen the John Oliver segment on this?

Yes thanks, I think there's actually a thread on it. He's sure good at nailing the yanks