436 lines
16 KiB
Plaintext
436 lines
16 KiB
Plaintext
|
|
|
|
*=-- --=*
|
|
{ the }
|
|
-=*/> Buzzz Bros. <\*=-
|
|
|
|
present
|
|
---------
|
|
High-Witness News
|
|
May '91 No.189
|
|
|
|
Green Merchant: The First 18 Months
|
|
|
|
by Peter Gorman
|
|
|
|
Transcription By Havoc
|
|
|
|
Originally appearing in HIGH TIMES, May 1991
|
|
{ }
|
|
*=-- --=*
|
|
|
|
|
|
When Operation Green Merchant first broke 18 months ago, no one was
|
|
sure of where it was going or what the extent of it would be. Now we know that
|
|
its ostensible aim was to shut down this country's burgeoning indoor
|
|
marijuana-cultivation industry; that during its execution the government
|
|
decimated several of the freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution; that one
|
|
magazine was put out of business and another thrown into financial straits;
|
|
that several garden-supply stores and businesses were seized by the government
|
|
without their owners being charged with criminal activity; and that more than
|
|
100,000 American citizens -- whose only connection with the operation was the
|
|
purchase of gardening equipment -- came under federal investigation.
|
|
|
|
Green Merchant was designed to link the sources of information
|
|
regarding indoor marijuana cultivation -- HIGH TIMES and 'Sinsemilla Tips --
|
|
with indoor growers in a criminal conspiracy. The connection of the two was
|
|
thought to be that the gardening centers advertised in both magazines.
|
|
|
|
The logistics of the operation were these: during a two-year period
|
|
beginning in late '87, the DEA sent agents to 81 stores and mail-order houses
|
|
specializing in indoor-gardening supplies, asking for information regarding the
|
|
growing of marijuana. While most of the store owners refused to have anything
|
|
to do with the agents once they made their blatently illegal requests, a
|
|
handful responded positively , and a few of those apparently even provided
|
|
seeds to the undercover agents.
|
|
|
|
Those few positive responses provided the DEA with the legal leverage
|
|
it needed to subpeona UPS shipping records from a number of those stores. An
|
|
investigation of a portion of the names provided by those records turned up a
|
|
number of illegal indoor-marijuana growers.
|
|
|
|
For the DEA, the link had been made: They now had proof that some of
|
|
the consumers who purchased indoor-gardening supplies from the stores and
|
|
mail-order houses which advertised in HIGH TIMES and 'Sinsemilla Tips' were
|
|
indeed using gardening equiptment to illegally produce marijuana. The stage
|
|
was set for the Operation to go public.
|
|
|
|
|
|
-=*/> Main Objectives <\*=-
|
|
|
|
The government succeeded in shutting down 'Sinsemilla Tips'. Tom
|
|
Alexander, whose Full Moon garden-supply store was seized during the early
|
|
stages of Green Merchant -- without him being charged of anything -- was unable
|
|
to continue publishing after all his advertisers either went out of business or
|
|
were threatened with charges if they continued advertising with him.
|
|
|
|
HIGH TIMES continues to publish despite the loss of revenue from those
|
|
same advertisers. But once it became apparent that HT would not fold, and in
|
|
fact sales were increasing, a federal investigation was launched in New Orleans
|
|
which attempted to make HT a co-conspirator with both the Seed Bank and the
|
|
indoor growers. That investigation was dropped some months ago when the
|
|
government failed to get an indictment.
|
|
|
|
On June 24, 1990, Nevil Schoenmakers, who legally operated the Seed
|
|
Bank (another HIGH TIMES advertiser) in Holland, was arrested by the Australian
|
|
authorities at the behest of the US government while visiting family in Perth.
|
|
A 44-count indictment was lodged in New Orleans, charging him with the sale of
|
|
marijuana seeds to undercover agents and indoor growers in the New Orleans area
|
|
in 1989. He has been detained awaiting the results of an extradition hearing
|
|
-- while not charged with anything -- in Australia since June.
|
|
|
|
|
|
-=*/> Incidental Casualties <\*=-
|
|
|
|
George Warren owned six Northern Lights garden centers in New York,
|
|
Ohio and Pennsylvania. On October 24, 1989, he was visited in his flagship
|
|
store by a man who asked about purchasing lights and hydroponic systems.
|
|
During the course of the conversation the man, who turned out to be a DEA
|
|
agent, inquired about acquiring marijuana seeds. Warren told the man he wasn't
|
|
in that business; the man persisted, and Warren told him there were probably
|
|
magazines he could look into for that kind of information, then excused himself
|
|
to answer a phone call in his office. The man followed him into the office and
|
|
passed him a note asking for 200 seeds. Warren asked the man to leave the
|
|
store.
|
|
|
|
The following day, the agent returned and made a small purchase, again
|
|
sought seeds and was again informed that he couldn't get them there.
|
|
|
|
The next day, nine DEA, Alcohol Tobacco & Firearms and local-authority
|
|
agents arrived at Warren's main store armed with a warrant for business
|
|
records, grow lights, hydroponic systems and other inventory that might be used
|
|
to grow marijuana. That same day, the process was repeated at each of Warren's
|
|
stores; by evening he'd lost inventory valued at nearly $200,000. Warren
|
|
himself, however, has never been arrested in connection with the seizures, and
|
|
continues to fight for the return of his inventory.
|
|
|
|
Reached recently at home, Warren was furious. "My feeling is that if
|
|
I've done anything wrong, arrest me. If not, give me back my merchandise.
|
|
There's nothing illegal about lights. What are they going to do with them
|
|
anyway?"
|
|
|
|
"Sell them at auction," he was told.
|
|
|
|
"Wait a minute," he replied. "You mean they confiscate my merchandise
|
|
because they think someone will grow pot with it, and then they sell it to
|
|
someone else?"
|
|
|
|
"That's how it works."
|
|
|
|
|
|
The owner of a large West Coast mail-order gardening-supply center
|
|
tells a similar story. On October 26, 1989, the DEA and state police arrived
|
|
at his warehouse with warrants for business records and computers. They
|
|
padlocked the warehouse and began forfeiture proceedings for the nearly $1
|
|
million worth of inventory, the warehouse itself and the property it was
|
|
located on.
|
|
|
|
The owner, who asked to remain anonymous, was also never arrested. Ten
|
|
months later, the prosecuter in the forfeiture case gave the owner's lawyer a
|
|
list of 20 misdemeanors, which he said he would prosecute if the man continued
|
|
to fight the forfeit. The choice was simple: Fight and lose thousands of
|
|
dollars in legal fees -- as well as risk one year in jail for each count he
|
|
might be convicted on -- or give up the fight and walk away. His lawyer
|
|
advised him to walk away, suggesting that of 20 counts it wasn't unlikely that
|
|
he could lose at least one of them, and conviction on even a single count would
|
|
mean losing the forfeiture case anyway. The man took his lawyer's advise and
|
|
walked.
|
|
|
|
While not all prosecutors are willing to go to such lengths to seize
|
|
property, the federal and civil laws regarding forfeiture certainly make it
|
|
appealing for them to do so in cases where the forfeited items are of value.
|
|
In federal cases, the agencies involved receive 75 percent of the monies
|
|
eventually generated through the auction of forfeited goods; the remaining 25
|
|
percent is divided between the prosecutor's office and any local agencies
|
|
involved in the seizure. Civil forfeiture cases divide ALL the monies between
|
|
the prosecutor's office and the local authorities involved.
|
|
|
|
Dan Viets, a defense attorney who has won a number of Green Merchant
|
|
cases, says that while "the idea of forfeiture is not new, the idea of giving
|
|
the money to the police and prosecutors is. Forfeiture is an abuse. A lot of
|
|
people don't really understand that it's going on."
|
|
|
|
Forfeiture doesn't just affect businesses. One of Viets' clients, a
|
|
former law-enforcement officer, stands to lose his whole farm because 37
|
|
marijuana plants were found growing on it. Another of his cases involved a
|
|
couple found with four pot plants, who have had their 11 acre farm forfeited as
|
|
a result. Viets is optimistic about both cases.
|
|
|
|
"A lot of people don't fight forfeiture because they don't think they
|
|
can win," he says. "But even though the burden of proof is not very high of
|
|
the state's part, they still have to prove that the forfeited items were at
|
|
least probably derived from the monies generated by illegal activity. And
|
|
that's not always easy."
|
|
|
|
The horror of the prosecution of Green Merchant case's wasn't limited
|
|
to forfeiture: One couple had their parental rights terminated for growing pot
|
|
at home; several school teachers and at least one nurse lost their state
|
|
licenses; others simply got caught up in the legal system, and found that
|
|
trying to extricate themselves nearly ruined them.
|
|
|
|
Tom and Sara Williams were visited because their names were on the one
|
|
of the confiscated store mailing-lists. When the DEA arrived they tore the
|
|
Williams' house apart, eventually finding seven plants. Though their case was
|
|
later reduced from felony possesion of an illegal substance to a guilty plea on
|
|
one misdemeanor, paraphernalia-possession (the warrant was faulty), the
|
|
Williamses hadto spend nearly $7,000 in bonds and legal fees.
|
|
|
|
The list goes on. There are hundreds of horror stories which came out
|
|
-- and are still coming out -- of Green Merchant: People whose lives were
|
|
disrupted or destroyed by the government in an attempt to shut down two
|
|
magazines and a seed house.
|
|
|
|
|
|
-=*/> Repercussions <\*=-
|
|
|
|
While the obvious targets of the Operation were HIGH TIMES, 'Sinsemilla
|
|
Tips' the Seed Bank, store owners, small-time growers and the thousands of
|
|
people who were investigated, the real victim of Green Merchant has been the
|
|
Bill of Rights.
|
|
|
|
The right of free speech is a cornerstone of our republic. History is
|
|
full of people that spoke out advocating illegal positions in an effort to
|
|
change the laws governing them -- from Thoreau's 'Civil Disobediance' to 'The
|
|
Abolition Papers', from Freedom Marches to abortion rights. What 'Sinsemilla
|
|
Tips' did, and what HIGH TIMES does -- advocate the legalization of marijuana
|
|
-- is no different than what others have done throughout American history. The
|
|
right to print what we choose to print is supposed to be inviolate.
|
|
|
|
The right to privacy is supposed to be protected as well. Yet the
|
|
investigation of thousands of people -- based solely on their having purchased
|
|
legal equipment from legal businesses which just happened to advertise, amoung
|
|
other places, in pro-marijuana magazines -- has been continually defended by
|
|
the Justice Department as necessary to their effort in the War on Drugs,
|
|
despite its obvious constitutional infringment.
|
|
|
|
The rights to privacy were further comprimised by the thousands of
|
|
warrantless searches made in that investigation. While many people allowed
|
|
those consent searches to be performed, others were intimidated into them. To
|
|
date, dozens of government cases have been dropped as a result of those
|
|
unlawful entries.
|
|
|
|
Perhaps the rights most abused in the execution of Operation Green
|
|
Merchant involve personal property and the right to be innocent until proven
|
|
guilty. The use of forfeiture during the government's prosecution of the
|
|
Operation has absolutely shredded these basic rights. That store owners could
|
|
have their businesses seized by federal agents, without there being enough
|
|
evidence to charge those owners with any criminal activity whatsoever; is a
|
|
terrifying concept; that people found to be growing marijuana in the privacy of
|
|
their homes could have those homes seized by government agents before they were
|
|
ever brought to trial is unconscionable. And yet this was one of the recurring
|
|
themes of Green Merchant: confiscate property; threaten charges which would
|
|
bankrupt the defendant to defend; and then make an offer to withdraw the
|
|
charges if they agree not to fight the forfeiture.
|
|
|
|
|
|
-=*/> Net Results <\*=-
|
|
|
|
The government not only denies ever trying to put either HIGH TIMES or
|
|
'Sinsemilla Tips' out of business by gutting their advertising, it has defended
|
|
the actions of the federal, state and local authorities in every phase of Green
|
|
Merchant as integral to the success of the War on Drugs. Terrance W. Burke,
|
|
the Acting Deputy Administrator of the DEA, suggests that "there is no such
|
|
thing as a casual or innocent drug user of illegal substances. Users are a
|
|
major factor in the drug-trafficking problem, and they are going to be held
|
|
accountable."
|
|
|
|
Steve Hager, HT's Editor-in-Chief finds fault with that argument. "The
|
|
whole reason we told people to grow their own pot was to get rid of the
|
|
criminal element. We said, if you want this -- to eat it, to smoke it,
|
|
whatever -- that's your God-given right, and we'll tell you how to grow it.
|
|
Don't give your money to the narcotic traffickers. Don't support the criminal
|
|
drug trade."
|
|
|
|
Marijuana is illegal today not because it's unsafe to drive while high,
|
|
or because some religious and temperance groups think it's the devil's weed;
|
|
it's still illegal only because the big boys haven't yet seen their way clear
|
|
to corner the market once it does become legal. But you can bet they are
|
|
working on that; both marijuana for smoking and hemp for its thousands of
|
|
commercial uses -- from plastics to pulp, paper to pesticides, from food to
|
|
fuel, fiber to pharmaceuticals -- are just too valuable to be kept of the
|
|
market forever. It's just a question of working out the details -- amoung
|
|
which is ridding the marketplace of as many independant growers and as much
|
|
information as possible. That part of the plan went into effect on Black
|
|
Thursday -- October 26, 1989.
|
|
|
|
In the final analysis, Operation Green Merchant has done nothing but
|
|
ruin the lives of thousands, destroy the Bill of Rights, obfuscate the
|
|
potential commercial and medical uses of hemp/marijuana by continuing to
|
|
demonize it, raise the price of pot and invite the criminals to take charge of
|
|
its production.
|
|
|
|
Way to go boys.
|
|
|
|
|
|
-=*/> The Numbers <\*=-
|
|
|
|
During a two-week period beginning on October 26, 1989, the DEA raided
|
|
gardening centers and private homes in 46 states. The results of that first
|
|
phase of Green Merchant -- released on November 9, 1989 -- were:
|
|
|
|
o 377 arrests of private citizens for marijuana cultivation;
|
|
|
|
o 42,677 marijuana plants seized (the Justice Department counts
|
|
unsprouted seeds in soil as marijuana plants);
|
|
|
|
o 875 pounds of packaged marijuana seized;
|
|
|
|
o 2.5 pounds of methamphetamine seized;
|
|
|
|
o 5 pounds of mushrooms seized;
|
|
|
|
o 280 indoor grow-sites seized;
|
|
|
|
o 19 stores and warehouses seized;
|
|
|
|
o 11 store owners arrested (8 store owners had their businesses
|
|
seized without being charged of any criminal activity);
|
|
|
|
o $7,318,000 in total assets seized.
|
|
|
|
|
|
--------------
|
|
|
|
o 19 stores closed down: 7 stores forfeited, 11 currently under
|
|
forfeiture litigation, 1 store no explantion;
|
|
|
|
o 16 store owners arrested;
|
|
|
|
o $9,208,928 in total assets seized.
|
|
|
|
(No new statistics on either quantities of packaged marijuana or
|
|
other illegal substances seized.)
|
|
|
|
|
|
The Operation was far from over. During the past 18 months the DEA
|
|
has continued its Green Merchant investigations. The most recent figures --
|
|
released by the Justice Department on February 1, 1991 -- are:
|
|
|
|
o 443 arrests of private citizens for marijuana cultivation;
|
|
|
|
o 50,794 marijuana plants seized (including unsprouted seeds in soil);
|
|
|
|
o 358 indoor grow-sites seized;
|
|
|
|
|
|
Of all the arrests made in Green Merchant thus far, only two people had
|
|
illegal substances other than marijuana in their homes; one man with 2.5 pounds
|
|
of methamphetamine, and another with 5 pounds of mushrooms. Indeed indoor
|
|
pot-growers don't appear to be supporting the criminal drug trade.
|
|
|
|
___________________________
|
|
|
|
-=*/> Buzzz Bros. <\*=-
|
|
(c) MCMXCI
|
|
___________________________
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|