From: Scott.Maxwell@bbs.oit.unc.edu (Scott Maxwell)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.drugs
Subject: Details on that Maine town that voted to relegalize MJ (from AP)
Date: 11 Apr 92 10:28:31 GMT
Organization: Extended Bulletin Board Service

Reprinted without permission from The Associated Press.

----- cut here -----
4/7/92 6:17 Inches: 15.0 DAILY PM-Marijuana Activists, Bjt,0617
 
Anger at Police Tactics Spurs Movement to Legalize Marijuana
By JERRY HARKAVY
Associated Press Writer
	STARKS, Maine (AP) -- Carolyn Sours got plenty mad when a 
helicopter searching for marijuana flew in at treetop level and frightened 
her 500-pound pig so badly it charged through an electrified fence and into 
the woods.
	"You ever try to catch a pig in the woods?" Ms. Sours, who runs the 
Starks Country Store, asked as she recalled chasing the animal last 
summer.
	The experience spurred her and her husband to join the growing 
ranks of Maine residents fed up with what they see as overzealous drug 
agents.
	Homer Sours sided with the majority in a 45-42 vote at last month's 
town meeting to legalize marijuana in Starks, even though he doesn't 
smoke it himself.
	The vote -- which is symbolic only -- followed a spirited discussion 
about the health effects of marijuana, police tactics and concerns that a 
"yes" vote would make Starks known as "the drug capital of Maine."
	Other towns, including Solon, Chesterville, Anson and Searsmont, 
rejected similar resolutions. But activists hope to bring the issue to a vote in 
such larger towns as Madison, Bowdoinham and Richmond.
	The gesture has no effect on state or federal laws, but "it makes 
politicians stand up and take notice," said activist Michael Ezzy.
	The movement has taken root in the foothills of western Maine, a 
scenic but chronically depressed region of hardscrabble farms and wood-
products mills that has been hit hard by the recession.
	"It's anti-prohibition far more that pro-pot. People just want to be left 
alone," said David Wilkinson, a Chesterville businessman who heads 
Maine People for Hemp.
	Starks' 800 residents are a mix of families who have lived here for 
generations and "back-to-the-land" settlers "from away" who have been 
drawn over the past two decades by the area's affordable farmland.
	"The flatlanders seem to be more vocal than the locals," said Vincent 
Lovell Jr., who thinks the vote and the publicity that followed have given 
Starks a bad image.
	"It's just a sleepy little town and people have been smoking pot since 
I've been here. No big deal. But now they want to legalize it and grow it, and 
that's where I take exception."
	At the center ojpf the controversy is the Maine Bureau of 
Intergovernmental Drug Enforcement, the agency trying to destroy what it 
says has become Maine's No. 1 cash crop, outstripping apples, blueberries 
and even potatoes. The agency values the state's marijuana at more than 
$250 million.
	Last year, BIDE seized about 25,000 plants, which it estimates would 
bring at least $50 million on the street. Director Francis Amoroso said the 
agency finds a small percentage of what's out there.
	Since the federally funded crackdown began five years ago, residents 
have complained about low-flying helicopters and night raids.
	"The standard operating procedure is to come in with battering 
rams, weapons out and cocked, shouting profanities. They've patterned 
these raids after the ones at Brooklyn crack houses, and that's outraged a 
lot of people," Wilkinson said.
	Amoroso denied agents have terrorized families, saying complaints 
have been investigated and dismissed. He said the pilots are instructed not 
to fly lower than 400 or 500 feet.
	For Homer and Carolyn Sours, the issue isn't marijuana, but 
reining in the state's drug agency.
	"I moved up here three miles into the woods to have a little privacy, to 
get away from the nuts," said Sours, who came from New Jersey five years 
ago. "Now I see people tromping through the woods with camouflage 
clothing, backpacks and automatic weapons."
	 AP-NC-04-07-92 0609EDT
 
 

----- cut here -----

Note the interesting arithmetic in there. Maine's MJ is valued at $250
million or more; let's say the actual value is $300 million. Last year alone, 
they seized $50 million worth of it. That's one sixth of the total -- which
Amoroso says is a "small percentage." The "small" is debatable, but at that
rate they'll get rid of virtually all of Maine's MJ in 6 years -- a fairly 
respectable pace, one would think .....

Of course, law enforcement agencies do tend to overestimate (read "lie about")
the value of the drugs they sieze. Amoroso's comments ought to be taken as
further indication of that, as if any were needed.

--
Scott Maxwell (CSMAXWEL@ECUVM1.BITNET or Scott.Maxwell@bbs.oit.unc.edu)

Everything below this line is a vicious lie.

--
   The opinions expressed are not necessarily those of the University of
     North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the Campus Office for Information
        Technology, or the Experimental Bulletin Board Service.
           internet:  bbs.oit.unc.edu or 152.2.22.80