The Long Arm of the Law (Or How I Learned to Forget About the First Amendment, Public Property, Equal Access, etc.)



Federal law enforcement and pro-cannabis protesters outside
Oaksterdam University in Oakland in April 2012.



It goes without saying that, as a photojournalist, I have many opportunities to meet and greet the fine men and women in blue while pursuing the stories that end up in products of [The Great Big Newspaper Chain]. For the most part, these meetings are unremarkable, at press conferences, the doings of government figures, the famous and near-famous, matters of public safety, or just in the random course of daily life.

The past two days' events have lent themselves to a different kind of interaction though, and I have to say that I'm distressed with the general state of law enforcement. Yesterday gave deafening validity to that old axiom that "when it rains, it pours," as Federal agents staged an early morning raid on three different marijuana-based businesses in Oakland, and even as that action was proceeding to riot police and arrests, elsewhere in our fair city, a troubled man decided that the best resolution to the problems of his personal life was to end the lives of seven other random souls.

First, from our Eliot Ness file, Federal agents from the Internal Revenue Service, the Drug Enforcement Agency and the U.S. Marshals staged a spectacular show of force at Oaksterdam University. Acting on the contents of a sealed warrant, about 50 agents broke into the marijuana cultivation school, and confiscated dozens of boxes of paper files, computer records and (naturally) marijuana plants, even as an angry crowd of about 100 demonstrators gathered on the street outside.

Do I have personal feelings about marijuana, the people who use it, and its legality? I most certainly do. Will I share them here? Not a chance. What I will say is that Oaksterdam has the blessing of Oakland city leaders to instruct its students in the propagation, for personal and medical use, of cannabis, and is affiliated with several medical marijuana dispensaries, which are regulated under California state law. According to the city, Oaksterdam paid more than $1.68 million in taxes last year, at a time when fiscally-challenged Oakland needs every centime it can get its grubby paws on.

The Feds, from all indications, came in unannounced to local authorities, and essentially put Oaksterdam out of business – however briefly – for reasons that agents on the scene refused to disclose. However you feel about marijuana and its effect on the community or the nation, this is a chilling development when the government can break into your home or place of business – without having to tell you why – and wreak havoc. Now, I'm no lawyer, but I seem to remember, vaguely, from high school civics class, that there was some obscure prohibition of "unreasonable search and seizure," somewhere in the U.S. legal code.

If you live here, you know that Oakland, and this country, have decidedly bigger problems than pot growers who are, at least at first glance, playing by the state's rules.