Spokane7
62°
October 16, 2009 in City
Spokane police seize 40 pounds of pot, $70,000
About 40 pounds of marijuana, $70,000 and a a grow room were found at a home in Stevens County on Oct. 16 in an investigation Spokane police say was triggered by the suspicions of an officer who died of cancer Oct. 5.
(Full-size photo)(All photos)
A huge marijuana bust this morning uncovered an international operation that shipped duffel bags of pot down the Kettle River, according to the Spokane Police Department.
About 40 pounds of marijuana, $70,000 and a grow room were found at a home in Stevens County in an investigation police say was triggered by the suspicions of an officer who died of cancer Oct. 5.
Officer Aaron Douglas suspected there was more to a case of a man found with 10 pounds of marijuana a few months ago.
The investigation involved people selling the drug “using the cover of selling medical marijuana,” according to a news release.
The case was about to close, but Douglas’s suspicions led investigators to search a home this morning.
David Raugust, 28, and Greg Breken, 52, were arrested on charges of manufacturing a controlled substance and possession of a controlled substance with intent to deliver.
“Seized ledgers indicated transactions of over $100,000 were being conducted,” according to the news release.
Spokane police Officer Devin Presta said the operation apparently involved B.C bud being imported to the United States by backpack and river rafts.
Sex trafficking suspects released as probe continues 
Rifleman__Dodd on October 16 at 4:11 p.m.
There is rumor…. that they cut logs open, hollow them out, put dope and GPS in them. Seal them up and toss them down the river. A day later in the U.S. they locate the log, and presto.. Dope on the River… Fire in the Skies.
SniperCraig on October 16 at 6:05 p.m.
Inept reporting is running rampant! There is not even a link to more information about the officer’s medical issues! If you are not going to report it then please do not mention it.
lewis8457 on October 16 at 8:39 p.m.
the spd can murder rape lie and steal someone should raid the spd every time i see them making someone else toe the line while they get away with crimes of death makes me sick.
empyrius on October 16 at 11:09 p.m.
The 20th century “war on marijuana”, that began in the 1930s as a way to deal with unneeded Mexican workers and to secure trees as the means of publishing, transformed itself into a government campaign of outright deceitful propaganda that brainwashed our grandparents and parents into believing that “if you smoke a marijuana cigarette you will become a mass-murderer”, and that this is a grand communist plot to destroy America’s youth (http://www.newsweek.com/id/217942). Google “Dupont chemical”, “Hearst publishing”, “Harry Anslinger” . . .
The modern “war on marijuana” began when Nixon buried a report (http://www.newsweek.com//frameset.aspx/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.druglibrary.org%2FSchaffer%2FLibrary%2Fstudies%2Fnc%2Fncmenu.htm) he himself commissioned, b/c the recommendation, to decriminalize marijuana, did not concur with his medieval mindset. Nixon stated that “deviants”, the Jews, Negroes, and homosexuals, were behind the push to decriminalize marijuana because they wanted to destroy America.
Thus, on that open-minded note, began the modern war on marijuana. The modern war on marijuana was vigorously implemented by a felonious anti-Semite generally racist American president! Har har har har . . .
Incredible.
Then the convicted war criminal, Ronald Reagan, whose administration produced more (later Bush pardoned) felons than many drug-rings commonly produce, with its deadly “meddling” in the affairs of Iran, Nicaragua, Panama, Lebanon, Grenada, Afghanistan, Libya, took the “war on marijuana” to unparalleled heights as his administration started appropriating billions of dollars to its “war on drugs”. And once money like that is given to law enforcement agencies, the ability to have a reasonable discussion becomes an ever remote prospect. The most ironic facet of this entire travesty is that Reagan suffered terribly from Alzheimer’s in his last years, and of course we now know that marijuana has been scientifically proven to aggressively combat the effects of Alzheimer’s (http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/60-second-science/post.cfm?id=pot-joins-the-fight-against-alzheim-2008-11-19)!
continued … .
empyrius on October 16 at 11:10 p.m.
Another great article is here: “Prohibition Fighter”, http://www.newsweek.com/id/217570/page/2
Paul Armentano states , “Since beginning my tenure at NORML in the mid-1990s, I’ve observed the growth of the annual number of Americans arrested for minor marijuana violations from a low of 288,000 in 1991 to a record 830,000 in 2006. Yet despite this nearly 300 percent increase in minor pot busts (nearly 90 percent of all marijuana arrests are for possession offenses), mainstream media coverage of these skyrocketing arrest rates remains nominal”
http://www.projectcensored.org/top-stories/articles/20-marijuana-arrests-set-new-record/
“the U.S. is arresting more than 870,000 people a year on marijuana charges - 89% for simple possession alone”, “in 2008 [in NYC], arrests for possessing small amounts of marijuana have increased again to 40,300 people, most of them teenagers and young adults under 26. In the 12 years from 1997 to 2008, the NYPD made more than 10 times the number of pot possession arrests than in the previous 12 years”, “New York City’s marijuana arrests show stark racial disparities. In 2008, 87% of those charged with pot possession were black or Latino”
http://www.nydailynews.com/opinions/2009/08/25/2009-08-25_stop_the_war_on_pot_smokers.html
“Holcomb and the ACLU report more than 11,000 arrests for misdemeanor-marijuana possession in 2007 in Washington state. The courts entered 3,600 convictions and imposed over 16,000 days in jail. Police time, court time and jail time consumed approximately $7.6 million. Feel any safer?” http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opinion/2008763930_opina20lance.html
From Reagan implementing a billion dollar budget for the “war on drugs”, we now spend 44 billion dollars annually on the government’s “war on drugs”, and as I have previously indicated, when this kind of money becomes institutionalized in annual government spending, every public and private agency that gets a piece of this action will naturally resist reformation b/c their very livelihoods are dependent upon this government spending. So governmental agencies such as the DoJ, the DEA, and DSHS will of course vehemently fight the decriminalization of marijuana b/c substantial portions of their budgets would then disappear.
The following excerpt, which is simply a rough draft, from my emancipation proclamation (like that one!!!) follows:
empyrius on October 16 at 11:14 p.m.
Approximately 5% of the total population drinks heavily and 15% of the population engages in binge drinking, 12,201 people died of alcoholic liver disease specifically, among the 76,000 deaths attributed to alcohol in 2001 , neither annual “average” having since diminished; in fact, from 2001 to 2005, the annual deaths attributable to excessive alcohol use is 79,000 . In another startlingly horrific “constant” of continuing alcohol abuse 16,919 people died in alcohol related traffic accidents in 2004, and the yearly average since is well over fifteen thousand fatalities. Each year, a staggering 440,000 people die in the US from tobacco use . Nearly 1 of every 5 deaths is related to smoking. Cigarettes kill more Americans than alcohol, car accidents, suicide, AIDS, homicide, and illegal drugs combined. How is marijuana theoretically defined deadlier than the two in fact quite deadly “noble exemptions”, tobacco and alcohol, in American “drug laws”? There simply is no comparison between 520,000 yearly American deaths due to alcohol and tobacco usage, and, “An additional concern includes the potential for dependence on marijuana, which has been assessed to be rare among the general population but more common among adolescents with conduct disorder and individuals with psychiatric disorders. Although a distinctive marijuana withdrawal syndrome has been identified, it is mild and short-lived.”, (pg. 20050 DEA petition denial [H 9]).
In spite of alleged substantiation of clinically identified “mild and short-lived marijuana withdrawal syndrome”, found in populations of chronic marijuana smokers unsurprisingly, that delinquent teenagers or mentally handicapped persons may abuse marijuana is not at all surprising. In fact, one would expect deviant behavior, i.e., self-abuse, alcohol abuse, tobacco abuse, sexual abuse, criminal activity, etc., to exist in higher numbers in these notably vulnerable population segments, i.e., at risk youth and non-institutionalized/poorly supervised mentally impaired persons. This unfortunate fact has been vividly demonstrated in larger, and even not so large, cities throughout America throughout our entire modern age. So why would we want to criminally persecute those most in need of society’s assistance and protection?
empyrius on October 16 at 11:15 p.m.
In practice thus far, citing the number of our children who have unfortunately experimented with marijuana, listing some potential health threats, and linking marijuana to criminal activity (which is not hard since pot is illegal, and the government studies themselves do not suggest marijuana causes criminal activity, they simply use pot possession convictions as the “criminal activity”, which leads the government to avow that since marijuana users are willing to break the law to consume marijuana that proves how dangerous marijuana is, a nice bit of “logical” reasoning that could not sustain alcohol prohibition), has been enough to sustain and enlarge our “war on marijuana” - but these tiresome claims, while not of the hyperbolically disingenuous nature of fifty years ago, have perpetuated this “war” for a century now - it is time to re-evaluate our goals, and our means, of achieving them. We want our communities to be safe, we want to protect our individual liberty, and we want to protect at risk populations, i.e., troubled children, psychosomatically challenged persons, and such: decriminalizing marijuana would promote all three of the aforementioned ends. Individual safety is promoted by taking the illegal element out of marijuana consumerism, while of course individual liberty is preserved, and our communities are safer places because now law enforcement can focus on eliminating illicit use of dangerous and unnatural drugs like methamphetamine, LSD, “cracked” coca, oxycontin, and other such lethal substances; and most importantly, our at risk sub-populations who happen to abuse marijuana are not thrust into the criminal justice system, the last place we would want our most vulnerable fellow Americans to be, and we could instead implement services more apt to aid these most vulnerable members of society.
To be continued . . .
mommae on October 19 at 10:58 p.m.
i would like to see them donate it to medical marijuana patients. They can not sell it to us because that is illegal but they could be good people and donate it . There would be nothing wrong with that. Play the good citizen to patients who need it, say they are fighting cancer and it help the sickness as well as cronic pain patients,disabled patients with long term illnesses. see you could be a hero to more of a variety,than what you are already, you do a great job now however you could do more . why not be a hero to keep someone from throwing up or some to be able to walk just a few feet with out over the top pain., someone from just plain Hurting . There is a thought