Related: Why Pot is No Longer a Problem
When Pot is Again a Problem
Marijuana: From Maine to Mexico
I'm sorry, readers, what was I saying?
"Dismissed marijuana charge raises judge’s ire; US attorney gave blogger a reprieve" by Jonathan Saltzman, Globe Staff | September 12, 2009
Andrew M. Sullivan, the British author, editor, and political commentator, is one of the best-known figures in the new-media elite, and his blog, The Daily Dish, is among the most popular on the Web. But a federal judge says Sullivan did not deserve preferential treatment from prosecutors who dropped a marijuana possession charge after the journalist was recently caught smoking a joint on a federally owned beach on Cape Cod.
I'd have to recuse myself from jury selection.
In a strongly worded memorandum issued Thursday, US Magistrate Judge Robert B. Collings said the decision by Acting US Attorney Michael K. Loucks to dismiss a federal misdemeanor possession charge against Sullivan flouted a “cardinal principle of our legal system’’ - that all persons stand equal before the law.
Three other defendants charged with the same offense had to appear before Collings the same day as Sullivan, the judge noted. But Sullivan’s case was the only one prosecutors did not pursue, out of concern that the $125 fine carried by the relatively minor offense could derail his US immigration application.
Now WAIT a MINUTE!!!
So the OTHER GUYS he was SMOKING WITH had to face the music, but Sully didn't because the government was concerned about his immigration application?
So now the Feds and newspaper have decided that POT SMOKING is a MINOR OFFENSE as the SHUT DOWN MEDICAL MARIJUANA DISPENSARIES, bring patients to court, and KICK DOWN DOORS in "no-knock" DRUG RAIDS!
After the NEWSPAPER and AUTHORITIES RAILED against us voters with the FEAR-MONGERING CAMPAIGN?
WTF is WRONG with THIS PICTURE, huh?
“It is quite apparent that Mr. Sullivan is being treated differently from others who have been charged with the same crime in similar circumstances,’’ Collings wrote in the 11-page memorandum, adding that prosecutors’ rationale for the dismissal was inadequate.
Yeah, WHO and WHAT CAUSES is this government REALLY SERVING, America!?
Collings added with obvious irritation that he had no power to order prosecutors to pursue the case, and granted their motion to dismiss it....
The memorandum was first reported Thursday on a Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly news blog....
Like MOST THINGS these days, Glob!!!!
Sullivan, 46, declined to comment in an e-mail. A self-described libertarian conservative, Sullivan is well known for his idiosyncratic views.
Are you sure he is not "quixotic," you PoS excuse for a newspaper?
Catholic and openly gay, he is a strong proponent of same-sex marriage and has denounced restrictions on medical marijuana in his Daily Dish blog on The Atlantic Online....
Hey, ONE out of ONE ain't bad!
See: Giving It Up For the Gays
And I can see why he likes our state!!!
Collings’s ruling stems from an otherwise unremarkable event on the Cape Cod National Seashore on July 13.
Sullivan, who lives in Washington but owns a home in Provincetown, was stopped by a park ranger for smoking marijuana on the beach shortly before 3:45 p.m.
But he's not one of THEM, is he?
When the ranger asked Sullivan if he had any other joints, the writer fished one out of his wallet and said, “I thought small amounts of marijuana were legal to have in Massachusetts,’’ according to court records. Massachusetts voters approved a referendum in November that decriminalized small amounts of marijuana, but the change does not apply to federal property.
Related: I Forgot About Question Two
You Can Smoke Pot in Public in Massachusetts
Yeah, and the AUTHORITIES and NEWSPAPER that CARES SO MUCH about YOU, kids, wanted JUST an ARREST (no charges or conviction needed) to STAY ON YOUR RECORD -- thereby DENYING YOU FINANCIAL AID for college!!!
Maybe you would STILL be ELIGIBLE for MILITARY SERVICE'eh?
Nice crowd, huh?
Of course, it is OKAY if THEY SMOKED POT when they were YOUR AGE, kids!!!!
That is why KIDS NO LONGER READ NEWSPAPERS or listen to lying government.
You don't think the KIDS can SMELL the LYING HYPOCRISY?
The ranger gave Sullivan a violation notice, which required him to either appear before Collings in US District Court in Hyannis on Sept. 2 or, in essence, pay a $125 fine. But on Aug. 26 one of Loucks’s prosecutors, James F. Lang, filed a two-sentence letter seeking to dismiss the ticket, saying only that “further prosecution of the violation would not be in the interests of justice.’’
Oh, I AGREE!!
So LEGALIZE the CRAP, will ya?
I mean, we DID IT for GAY MARRIAGE!
Be a TRAILBLAZER AGAIN, Massachushit.... awww, what's the use?
This state stinks worse than a college kid's dorm room.
***************************
In his memorandum, Collings said he was not concerned about whether possession of small amounts of marijuana should be legal. He also acknowledged that Loucks’s office can decline to prosecute such offenses. What vexed him, he wrote, was that Loucks’s prosecutors routinely pursue such offenders but were making an exception for Sullivan....
One can only wonder why, right?
