Lawmen Breaking the Law to Advocate Against Lawful Pot

It's an election year, and once again we see the inevitable use of taxpayer money by officials to rally against or for something on the ballot.  Section 57 of the Michigan Campaign Finance Act, however, prohibits public bodies and anyone acting for a public body from using public resources to support or oppose a candidate or the qualification, defeat, or passage of a ballot proposal.

Thus, incautious school districts may tout a millage renewal by advocating for it in a newsletter, an incumbent city councilor may utilize their access to a city's copier to make campaign flyers, and a well-meaning county website may post reasons why you need to vote to create a new fund for historical preservation, but they would all be in violation of the law by using public resources to campaign for one side.

A public agency or official can still get their point across without using those resources, and many use the media to that effect by pushing propaganda pieces towards them, the local sheriff's office used that route quite effectively over the summer to get their point across in the road patrol millage.

This fall will see a state ballot initiative to make recreational use of marijuana legal in the state.  Almost universally, we see police, sheriffs, and prosecutors of all cities and counties of Michigan take a stand against passage of this initiative.  

At first glance, this seems counterintuitive, since there would be one less law to enforce, one that is rather ambiguous in the first place since state and federal law clash already as far as medical marijuana (MM) is concerned.  But in the ten years the MM law has been in effect, many inconsistencies in the law and its enforcements have sent a lot of ailing patients and conscientious health care providers to jail or prison.  In large part thanks to the actions of aggressive police agencies and prosecutors and judges sympathetic to those entities.  

This, more than anything, explains their opposition to legalization; it restricts the growth of the state's law enforcement industrial complex.

But, back to the point, police agencies across the state have been utilizing their public resources to campaign against Proposal 1, the legalization of marijuana for any use by adults.   On Thursday, the Livingston County Sheriff used his office, his uniform, and his website in order to educate the public on why they should vote against the proposal in making a video on Thursday.  The video has since been taken down, but was definitely against the measure:

Fortunately, the Luce County Sheriff shared it, so you can still review it until they are forced to take it down.  Both agencies are using their resources contrary to campaign law:

The Mackinac County Sheriff has a couple of posts put up during regular business hours explaining their position on marijuana legalization and why you need to vote no.


Norton Shores Police is more blunt, offering an 'education' on the bad effects of legalization would be, without exploring the good effects.  While they do not directly come out and say vote 'no' on the ballot, their position on the topic comes out in another posting:

Indirect, sneaky, advocacy seems to be the method most of these agencies use.  They will post one-sided factoids or videos showing why it would be a mistake to vote yes.  Both Antrim and Manistee County sheriffs use an anti-legalization video to tell you the full facts (against).


The Manistee County Sheriff lied to the public, as no further posts indicating the negative consequences of this proposal's passage has surfaced, perhaps they were reminded of the law.  In case you want to get a feel of what the "Chronic State" video is all about, you can see a trailer below or the full 50 minute video elsewhere.  

 

So, like me, you may feel that legalizing recreational marijuana will be bad for Michigan, but you may also feel that multitudes of Michigan police and sheriff departments unlawfully using their public resources to help you get to that conclusion is unseemly.  Which is worse:  to have marijuana  be legal to use, or to have police act against the law in order to preserve the current scenario where they entrap and imprison card-holding medical marijuana patients who cannot get their medicine due to the State's ten year fluster-cuck after the last initiative?  That choice is yours.

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Every single day 29 people die from DRUNK DRIVING! One person every 50 MINUTES! There is no true statistic like this with marijuana. But, then you see Michigan State  Trooper Sammy Seymour the DRUNK POSTER BOY get arrested and only given a ticket for Operating impaired on a Recreational Vehicle, when He was in fact Operating a Motor Vehicle Drunk. The fact is you can't kick someone's door down and seize everything they own over a can of beer. But, have a scent of marijuana and it's all over. Marijuana has been demonized for decades purely due to it's value to LE. The key to INCOME, new vehicles for undercover police, assets to be distributed to officers like Christmas presents,drugs for future entrapment cases, officers euphoric pleasure, money to buy militarized weapons for local authority, training exercises, vacations to tropical islands, and lots of money to continue the false narrative to keep their propaganda machine running. LE are nothing but THUGS operating under the guise of Heroes. Disgusting and Appalling! I hope everyone who Hates Marijuana will go VOTE YES on November 6th to end the Police State! It's time to end this war on the People. Especially, the one's who truly can benefit from marijuana. CBD in marijuana and in Hemp has been found to be the ONLY drug successful in removing plaque caused by OPIOIDS and triggering CBD1 and CBD2 receptors in our bodies to repair this damage through neuroregeneration. This plaque from Opioid use builds up in the brains synapse which kills neurons and causes addiction. If LE truly wanted to help in the Fight on Addiction, they would stand behind Marijuana and support future research to saves COUNTLESS LIVES!

Regardless of law enforcement's illegal use of tax payers funds to promote their agenda, the main issue to me is the lost revenue and taxes once Canada's marijuana legalization goes into effect which is in a few days.

Then we will have a situation much like when fireworks were prohibited in Michigan where people traveled out of state to buy what was illegal in Michigan.  The money flowed to neighboring states where it was legal. And so did the business opportunities to profit from this venture. 

Why shouldn't Michigan profit from neighboring states?

And as certain as I am that legalization will introduce new problems both expected and unrealized I can think of no reason why adults should be prohibited from using marijuana. 

Good points, shinblind, and I would point out that Ludington is effectively a 'border city' because of the SS Badger and any marijuana business in Ludington or nearby could really see a lot of business coming in from the Cheese State.  Although, industrious yoopers on the west side of the state could create quite a profit for themselves from Wisconsin and Minnesota business too.

Maybe the Badger can offer ''Spark One Up'' cruises this summer where they will take a bunch of Cheesers into Michigan waters to indulge while being legal.  The snack concessions alone should make this a profitable venture.

Wow!!!!! This is an extremely difficult thread to make posts to: really! I'm kinda split on the whole current situation because of all the changes Mike Murphy made clear with stats. and new updated facts, plus the trailer of the movie was also influential and informative for the current status of this subject. Another well done thread X, one to ponder and reflect on several days. But, if I had to vote yes or no right now, I'd vote NO! But two wrongs don't make a right either. If actual police funds back all this, and it's against the ballot laws now, that's not right either. But, the real truths need to be known, so if all this hype by authorities is true, we MUST heed the call of health, safety, and reasonableness for ALL our good. End.

I'd still like to take this opportunity to thank the posts of JDJ, Shinblind, and X for useful opinions that also weigh high (pun) on this subject of now, quite differing from the 60's-70's. Gotta spin a little levity on this stuff on the weekend, lol.

Aquaman, your conflicts are my conflicts with this proposal.  I would feel safe to vote yes for an initiative that would further protect the card-carrying users of medical marijuana from the 'justice system' and their perversion of the 2008 initiative.  Yet, while I fear the potential negative impact widespread use may have on Michigan society, I have a libertarian streak that suggests things will be fine after passage.  It may make some of our local police, prosecutors and judges less uptight.  I will make a final decision on election day.

As stated in another post, people will travel to get it. Back 55 years ago my teen friends smoked the weed, I never did smoke anything, I drank beer. Where have I heard that before?  Where they got it? don't know, never wanted to know. Looking now at those weed smokers in my early life I can clearly see that they did not turn out as well as I did , but thats just my opinion.  The Vote?  ban both , beer and the weed. I don't need them to make me a artificially happy guy.

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