If the yachters had 4 pot seeds, they were in violation of the law. Who gets to chose which laws should be enforced. If someone raped your mom, would you just call it recreational sex for the rapist and let him go? How about if a drunk killed my daughters. So, he just had a dozen recreational beers, let him go, no prob.
I do not agree with the wholesale confiscation of law-abidingcitizens guns, though. It is an ugly precedent.
The Constitution is quite clear that people are not to be deprived of property without due process.
I do not agree with the wholesale confiscation of law-abidingcitizens guns, though. It is an ugly precedent.
The principles of the Bill of Rights is a package deal. You are free or not. You have the right to own property or not.
The Coast Guard has broad powers granted to it. It is the only military Branch granted those powers since Posse Comitas. The right to safety inspections is being abused and what in fact is taking place is not "safety inspections" wink wink. That is a travesty.
The fact that private Americans vessels were seized as part of an organized campaign through the early and mid 80's under zero tolerance and not a single senior Coast Guard official raised a peep, disgusts me in the extreme.
People here raise a hue and cry over the Kelo decision where a judge is involved and yet here are hundreds of Americans being deprived of their property without so much as a trial. Later when people were granted hearings after years of outcry the presumption of guilt was placed on the individual who's property was seized.
It is theft under the color of authority plain and simple. Many who had their fishing boats, yatchs etc seized were not drug smugglers.
I once had a crew member who brought some pot aboard, without bothering to tell me about it. After he was caught, fired and beached, I found that the guy had tried pouring the pot down a sink which drained overboard. I don't doubt that there was a seed or two lodged somewhere in the drain hose. Which would have made me in "violation of the law." Guilty only of the fact that a "crime" took place on my boat.
The point being that under a zero tolerance law, my boat could have been confiscated for something that took place without my knowledge or consent, that I did my best to rectify as soon as I found out about it.
I will say that shrimpers hire some pretty questionable characters, you'd think that under zero tolerance, most of the shrimp boats could be mothballed for good.
Yes, the USCG is a fine organization, the zero tolerance policy wasn't. I think it probably wasn't their idea, though.