Posted on 08/21/2006 5:54:00 PM PDT by Know your rights
Former Seattle police Chief Norm Stamper doesn't have dreadlocks, a Zig-Zag T-shirt or a single Phish album. He just sounds like it. "It's laughable when people say we are winning the drug war," said Stamper, who had just finished a main-stage speech to the crowd gathered Sunday at the Seattle Hempfest in Myrtle Edwards Park. "The people who are prosecuting the drug war are invested psychically and financially. It's a holy war for them.
"We should legalize all drugs."
While the comments might be unusual for most law enforcement careerists, they are nothing new for Stamper, who was Seattle's top cop from 1994 to 2000. That is why organizers brought him in for the popular two-day, pro-pot festival.
Organizers estimated 150,000 people flowed into the waterfront park, which for the weekend turned into a dense village of food booths, stages, arts-and-crafts sellers, hemp product manufacturers, leafleteers, hackysack circles and picnickers.
Now in its 15th year, Hempfest is at its core all about decriminalizing marijuana. So is Stamper, especially after years of witnessing firsthand what he sees as the futility of the federal drug war.
The drugs are winning, he said. It's time to change tactics.
"Police should be focused on violent crime," he told the crowd.
Stamper, a member of pro-legalization Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, said many of his peers agree with him but will only say so privately. He told a story about a recent chat with a police chief in a "major American city" who had read Stamper's 2005 book, "Breaking Rank."
In it, Stamper advocates legalizing and regulating drugs as a way to reduce collateral problems such as addiction, violence and property crime.
"He came up to me after a talk and said he agreed with the chapter on drugs," Stamper said. "I asked, 'Can I quote you publicly?'
"He said, 'What have you been smoking?' "
Stamper saw similar reticence Sunday, as he preached to the choir in the sunny, 90-degree heat.
Waiting for hand-dipped ice-cream bars in the festival's munchie midway, Seattleites Tony Witherspoon, 31, and Neil Toland, 28, said they don't see pot as a rip in society's fabric.
"I wouldn't think a little weed is going to hurt anybody," Witherspoon said.
Added Toland, "There needs to be a little space for (pot)."
Creating that political space is what the festival is all about, chief organizer Dominic Holden said.
Hempfest has matured over the decade and a half it's existed, he said. Initially, it went unnoticed by local police. Then, Holden recalled, it became tense and even adversarial between organizers and police in the late 1990s -- at a time when Stamper was chief.
"For a while there, it seemed like it would go downhill," Holden said. "They were doing backstage raids looking for pot. They didn't find any."
Since then, the political landscape has changed, Holden said.
First, state voters approved medical marijuana. Subsequently, Seattle residents said they are not worried about pot as a law enforcement issue.
Now, he said, the relationship is much more mellow.
"We all want it to be a safe festival," Holden said. "The police have been great. Very collaborative.
"This might be our biggest festival ever."
It's misleading because you know the actual, posted results of the survey, yet choose to present those results differently. The fact that you continue to do this tells me that you realize how weak your argument is.
Are you claiming that Zogby posted the results you cite ... or that nobody has posted the summary I cite?
Congress is appropriating state police powers under the guise of regulating commerce. There is no objective of regulting commerce.
I am claiming that you know the actual Zogby poll rsults (if for no other reason than I told you), and that you are misleading others by choosing to present those results differently. It's immaterial whether you summarized the results or saw them somewhere else -- repeating anothers misstatement is no excuse.
Are you saying that Congress has the power to regulate interstate commerce but no power to enforce those regulations?
No, I'm not, but you have to try and make it look that way to keep your sophistic house of cards propped up.
Blatant nonsense. If I know the distance between the soles of my feet and my navel, and the distance between my navel and the top of my head, is it "misleading others" by simply telling them I'm six feet tall?
It's immaterial whether you summarized the results or saw them somewhere else -- repeating anothers misstatement is no excuse.
An accurate statement is certainly not a "misstatement."
If those two separate distances are disproportionate to the general population (in other words, you are misshapen), then you are indeed misleading others by solely telling them your overall height.
That happens to be the case with this survey. You know the results are skewed, yet you present them in a way to hide that fact. That's called "misleading".
It can be an accurate but a misleading statement.
I have no desire nor intention whatsoever in controlling your behavior.
473 posted on 08/16/2006 4:49:11 AM PDT by robertpaulsen
That happens to be the case with this survey. You know the results are skewed
Really? What is the strongly/somewhat distribution for a 'typical' survey? Supply proof.
Irrelevant. The results in this survey are significantly skewed.
You glossed it over. You're misrepresenting the facts as you know them. You are attempting to mislead others on this forum. You are dishonest.
And every time I catch you being dishonest on this forum, I will expose your antics to the public.
You are free to do whatever your little heart desires. I cannot nor will not stop you from exercising your free will.
I, however, along with others in society can certainly set up consequences, leaving you free to choose your course of action. That is a right I retain.
I have no desire nor intention whatsoever in controlling your behavior.
473 posted on 08/16/2006 4:49:11 AM PDT by robertpaulsen
Not misleading at all.
You've advocated, many times, that 'majority rule' law can prohibit & control behavior.
You are free to do whatever your little heart desires. I cannot nor will not stop you from exercising your free will.
I, however, along with others in society can certainly set up consequences,
There you go again, admitting you want to control behavior by 'setting up consequences' -- by making prohibitory laws..
leaving you free to choose your course of action. That is a right I retain.
You and your fellow socialists "retain" no right to ignore our Constitution in enacting prohibitions.
Irrelevant. The results in this survey are significantly skewed.
By what standard? The robertpaulsen-says-so rule?
Your dissembling is proof enough.
This is one for the robertpaulsen Hall of Fame.
No, the fact is that you've been dissembling because the actual results are skewed against the argument you're trying to make.
You can't support your old unsupported claims with new unsupported claims. (But you can amuse me by trying.)
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