[microgood]

I am glad they are doing this. They busted a guy named Charlie Lynch who was operating one of these with the full knowledge and approval of the town he lived in, except the Sheriff, who talked the DEA into shutting it down.

But the bad part was when they tried him in Federal court, he was not able to put up any kind of defense. The jurors did not even know he had an approved clinic, and the prosecutors said he walked around with a backpack selling his weed on the streets. They lied their asses off.

He was convicted in a trial that reminds me of the one they had in the Soviet Union when our U2 pilot was shot down. It was totally a showtrial with not even a remote connection to justice.

That is when I realized there was a reason our Founding Fathers did not want the federalization of crime, mainly because there is absolutely no accountability at the Federal level for the actions of the Justice Department.

[BlueDragon]

Yep, Lynch had a store in town, alright. There was even a photo of the City Council & some of the local Chamber of Commerce in attendance at the grand opening of Lynch's store.

I never went in there, myself, but used to park on that side street that the pot dispensary was on. Once a local policeman gave me a hard time, telling me something like "we know you're hanging around in there", which tells me they had a hard-on for the joint (no pun intended).

Once I calmly explained to the heavy breathing, badge heavy local yokel why I was parked there frequently (at the time I was associated with a small business around the corner, and half-way up the next street) he backed off a bit. Luckily enough for me, there are still quite a few of the local police who know me (it's a small town) and they put the word out for me to some of the newer ones, "hey, he's one of the good guys".

That town has a bit of turnover in the P.D., and has for at least a couple of generations. It's like a training ground of sorts. Many police start there, then transfer to where the action is at, and some come from big cities to de-compress. I can't blame the latter much for that. It's a nice sleepy little town.

It wasn't just the Sherriff who helped bring in the feds. the local P.D. Chief was in on it too. Not that he's ever admit that, command & control power-tripper that he is...
That P.D. currently is slowly backsliding into it's old badge heavy ways. I'm not the only one who misses the last Chief. More than a few of the senior officers do too, for much the same reasons I do, but even more so, and for one of them, even to the point of thinking of taking early retirement. (I hope I was able to talk that one out of doing that)