Word: marijuana
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Colombian mafia. Within hours of his death, Colombian police, army and security forces launched the most extensive crackdown on the narcotics trade in the country's history, one that promises to help the U.S. in its uphill struggle to stem the ever rising tide of Colombian cocaine and marijuana. The U.S. has backed the Colombian government's antinarcotics efforts with $7 million in aid since 1983, and the State Department has requested an additional $10.3 million for next year...
...should the line be drawn? Is it "unreasonable" when 15 to 25 armed agents of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service descend on a factory without warning, seal off the exits and systematically interrogate employees? Or when police ignore fences and no-trespassing signs to search private land for marijuana plants without a warrant? In recent years the Supreme Court has appeared to push the boundaries in the direction of the Government, and last week, in cases involving factory searches and open fields, it did so again...
...marijuana cases, the high court relied primarily on a 60-year-old decision by Oliver Wendell Holmes that involved a South Carolina moonshiner who dumped illegal liquor in a field near his home. Holding that revenue officers could testify about the liquor, Holmes said that "the special protection accorded by the Fourth Amendment to the people in their 'persons, houses, papers and effects' is not extended to the open fields," even when the land is the suspect's own property. The Burger court, by a 6-to-3 vote, found that the same principle applied...
...increase in arrests appears to be due less to a boost in police zeal than to the all too noticeable proliferation of pot smoking. The Drug Enforcement Administration estimates that some 30 million lbs. of marijuana were imported or grown in the U.S. last year, up from some 26 million five years ago. Even in states where budget cuts have reduced police manpower, drug busts are way up-often inadvertently. Patrolmen discover marijuana seeds in a car stopped for speeding or, as in hapless Miller's case, while responding to a burglary report...
...Jersey narcotics bureau, answers, "We do not distinguish among drugs. We do our jobs." Indeed, many narcotics officers in states that do differentiate between hard and soft drugs wish the law did not. Sergeant Eugene Rudolph of the Los Angeles County sheriffs office complains that in his jurisdiction, marijuana is "almost as accepted as alcohol," and believes that "marijuana should be dealt with more harshly." He can take heart in a new movement to "recriminalize" marijuana in California. Currently, the fine for possessing an ounce of marijuana is $100, payable by mail. A nine-member state commission appointed by state...