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Miami New Times: Rakontur Wants to Declare 420 on Miami Beach |
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Written by Francisco Alvarado
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Wednesday, 16 June 2010 |
The makers of Cocaine Cowboys and The U are teaming up
with a leading pro-marijuana activist to get Miami Beach Police to issue
tickets to people caught with a small amount of marijuana in lieu of
sending them to jail.
During an interview at the documentary
company's new HQ off Arthur Godfrey Road, Rakontur honcho Alfred
Spellman and Committee for Sensible Marijuana Policy chairman Ford
Banister laid out their plans to make it somewhat legal to smoke cheeba
in the land Carl Fisher built.
The committee will mount a
petition drive to amend the Miami Beach city charter to allow
police to issue a $100 civil fine for individuals caught with less than
20
grams of marijuana instead of criminal misdemeanor charges. Rakontur is
helping with logistics and the lay of the land. In order to put the
initiative on the November ballot, 4,240 signed petitions from
Miami Beach residents must be collected by the end of August.
"If
it succeeds, Miami Beach would be the first city in the south to
decriminalize marijuana," Banister says. "This is the way to do it."
I'm not going to regurgitate the many
reasons the prohibition against pot is so dumb. The American public is
beginning to come around, as evidenced by the upcoming vote to make
recreational marijuana use completely legal in California and recent
ballot initiatives in Michigan and New Jersey that opened the door for
medical weed use.
I've always argued that if the New Testament
contained passages of Jesus Christ turning a shrub into a bushel of some
mad O.G. Hollywood Kush, then marijuana would be absolutely legal in
America. But we can thank the right-wing elements and those God-fearing
politicians beholden to the pharmaceutical industry for keeping people
from growing and smoking the fine herb without fear of police
harrassment.
It won't be easy for the committee and Rakontur. As
Banister noted, $1.9 billion a year is spent on drug law enforcement in
Florida. You can bet a sizable chunk comes from efforts to eradicate
marijuana grow houses in Miami-Dade County, which ranks number one in
pot labs in the state. So I wouldn't be surprised if the police unions
mount an aggressive counter-campaign.
The petition drive begins
tonight after a 7 p.m. news conference in front of Miami Beach City
Hall.
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