Search Results: agents (399)

Photo: Cannabis Defense Coalition
Activist Phil Mocek of the Cannabis Defense Coalition was assaulted and detained by private security guards and turned over to federal Homeland Security agents, who charged him with obstructing justice.

​Rent-A-Cops Tackle Two Activists And Turn Them Over To The Feds
The United States federal government on Monday arrested two Seattle activists who were attempting to serve a cease and desist order on the Department of Justice in the wake of federal raids on medical cannabis dispensaries last week.
Medical cannabis activists had staged a protest at the federal building in downtown Seattle Monday afternoon. Private security guards indicated that it was a crime to take photographs near the federal building. Phil Mocek, a board member with the Cannabis Defense Coalition, asked for clarification of the policy, and was arrested by federal building security guards, who contacted Homeland Security agents for backup.

Photo: LA Weekly
More than 5,000 plants were reportedly seized from hydroponic grow operations in the San Fernando Valley on Wednesday.

​Federal agents reportedly raided several medical marijuana operations in the San Fernando Valley on Wednesday. Agents from multiple federal agencies including the Drug Enforcement Administration, assisted by the Los Angeles Police Department, uncovered pot growing warehouses, according to spokesperson Laura Eimiller.

“Multiple search warrants were executed,” Eimiller said. “It involved multiple agencies including the FBI, DEA, LAPD and the ATF and ICE.”
One law enforcement source told Dennis Romero at LA Weekly that more than 5,000 plants were seized, along with “luxury cars” and at least $200,000 in cash. The raided locations were said to all be indoor hydroponic growing operations.


Graphic: Citizen Alert

​​Washington drug agents have illegally seized signed petitions for marijuana legalization, according to organizers of ballot initiative I-1068.

Marijuana advocacy group Sensible Washington says it has learned that a dozen signed copies of  the marijuana legalization initiative for Washington State of which it is the sponsor, were seized last week by the federally-funded WestNET drug task force.

Advocates say that the drug agents who seized the petitions are interfering with a constitutionally-protected legislative procedure.
“Our estimate is that 2009 signatures are sitting in WestNET’s offices in Port Orchard, apparently seized as ‘evidence’ during a series of raids against the North End Club 420 in Tacoma,” said Sensible Washington campaign director and initiative co-author Philip Dawdy.

Photo: Friends of Cannabis
Prince of Pot Marc Emery could be extradited to the United States at any time with four hours’ notice

​A U.S. undercover agent posing as a marijuana seed buyer worked in Canada to get American criminal charges against Marc Emery, Vancouver’s self-anointed “Prince of Pot.”

The information was revealed Monday, the same day Emery’s bail expires, and when he is supposed to either turn himself in to authorities or face extradition to the United States — or to be released, if the justice minister refuses the extradition, reports The Canadian Press.
The undercover operation by U.S. agents is outlined in a briefing memo to Justice Minister Rob Nicholson dated February 10, 2010, and describes the case against Emery.
Numerous mail order purchases were made by U.S. undercover agents between March 2004 and March 2005, and then Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) agent Tracy Mendez was sent to Vancouver, according to the memo.

Photo: Roger Christie’s MySpace

​At least six and as many as a dozen homes were raided Wednesday during a federal drug sweep on Hawaii’s Big Island, reports John Burnett at the Hawaii Tribune-Herald.

“I know of about six others who were raided,” said Roger Christie, founder and director of The Hawaii Cannabis Ministry, whose downtown Hilo sanctuary and Wainaku residence were searched by federal agents, assisted by local police.
Wednesday’s police log showed 12 report numbers indicating police assistance to federal agents between 4 a.m. and just past 3 p.m. Five incidents occurred in Puna, four in South Hilo, and one each in North Hilo, Hamakua and Ka’u.

Claudia didn’t think anything was wrong when United States Customs and Border Protection agents flagged her for an in-depth security screening after the early-morning flight from her native Chile landed at Los Angeles International Airport early on October 8, 2015. “It’s normal,” she says. “Sometimes the officers review people.” Besides, Claudia had never been in trouble in her life.

Agents directed her into a big, open room, where Claudia was told to place her luggage on a table for examination. Officer Torres, a Customs agent with a dark mustache, asked about her planned one-week visit to San Francisco and made friendly small talk as he went through her suitcase and purse. When he noticed her copy of Game of Thrones, he asked about her favorite character. When the 27-year-old said, “Jon Snow,” he smiled and replied, “You know nothing.”

Legalization troubles some cops.

Excerpted from the newsletter WeedWeek. Get your free and confidential subscription at WeedWeek.net.

LA Weekly asked cops why they oppose the Adult Use Marijuana Act (AUMA) California’s REC ballot initiative. “This is not a law-enforcement jihad or Reefer Madness,” Ken Corney, Ventura’s police chief and president of the California Police Chiefs Association said. “Proposition 64 isn’t about green, leafy marijuana that people smoke at home or pass across the aisle at a concert. It’s a for-profit play to bring the commercialization of marijuana to California.”

The piece continues: “[Corney] subscribes to the theory, so far unproven, that the proposition’s biggest financial backer, Holmby Hills tech billionaire Sean Parker, is in it to open the door to Big Marijuana profits for rich folks like himself.”

The group Law Enforcement Against Prohibition endorsed AUMA.

Three Santa Ana, Calif. cops who were caught on video last year snacking and mocking an amputee (“I was about to kick her in her fucking nub”) during a dispensary raid are no longer with the department. The Orange County District Attorney’s Office has filed petty theft charges against the three officers.

The three had argued that they believed police had already disabled all of the cameras and therefore “had a reasonable expectation that their conversations and actions were no longer being recorded.”

Art Way, Colorado state director for Drug Policy Alliance writes:

Those with vested interest in the devaluation of black life and the criminalization of black                            communities need the drug war for political cover. Those who want to end state sanctioned                        murders should consider joining forces to end the drug war. 

This is a war waged to keep the black, brown and poor disenfranchised all while using their bodies as commodities for a prison industrial complex similar to the human commodification witnessed during slavery. ( H/T Word on the Tree )

A small but growing number of Canadian RCMP officers (the equivalent of FBI agents) are getting their MED reimbursed by the government.

In the Philippines, imprisoned drug lords have raised a $21 million reward for whoever kills the country’s new president Rodrigo Duterte. For his part, Duterte offers bounties of $1 million for drug lords killed and $600,000 for drug lords captured. According to his administration, 75 percent of the drugs in the country were manufactured inside its largest prison.

Industry hub Pueblo, Colo. has seen quite a few drug busts.

A Pennsylvania man has been charged with abuse of a corpse after blending weed with brain embalming fluid.

San Diego Police Department
Evidence photo from an October 15th raid on Market Greens marijuana dispensary in San Diego, CA


Another week means another horrible round of cannabis-related headlines coming out of sunny San Diego, California. In an attempt to turn America’s Finest City into the nation’s Ground Zero in the War on Weed, San Diego city officials, backed by a militant branch of the DEA and weed-hating local law enforcement, have almost totally shut down any idea of safe access to medical marijuana.
San Diego’s scene has been slashed from over 300 storefront medical marijuana dispensaries in 2011, to less than 40 in operation today – and not one of those 40 is operating with the consent of the city.

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