California, Berkeley

[Midnight toker]

The Daily Californian

Twelve Hospitalized Following Co-Op Party

BY Will Kane
Contribution Writer
Friday, September 8, 2006


Three people were arrested yesterday on felony drug charges after 12 UC Berkeley students were hospitalized after consuming what police think were marijuana-laced cookies at a co-op party Wednesday night.
Most of the hospitalized students had been released early yesterday morning, hospital officials said. Police say two UC Berkeley students and one recent graduate are suspected of supplying the drugs to the partygoers at the Cloyne Court.

UC Berkeley sophomore Carmen Anderson, senior Michael Tobias and 2005 graduate Christopher Portka were taken into custody yesterday at about 7 a.m. by UC police, said UCPD Assistant Chief Mitch Celaya.

Both Anderson and Portka were arrested on suspicion of 12 counts of furnishing marijuana and one count each of possession of more than one ounce of marijuana, possession of drug paraphernalia, possession of psilocybin, or hallucinogenic mushrooms, and possession of a synthetic drug, Celaya said.

Tobias was arrested on suspicion of one count of furnishing and one count of possessing marijuana, police said.

Tobias and Anderson also face possible disciplinary action from the university, according to a statement by the university.

At about 8 p.m. on Wednesday, the UCPD and Berkeley Fire Department responded to a 911 call from a female partygoer complaining of "extreme anxiety, numbness in her hands and feet, hallucinations and a shortness of breath," Celaya said.

When fire department officials arrived on the scene they found other partygoers exhibiting similar symptoms and called for backup from the fire department and the UCPD, Celaya said.

Paramedics treated approximately 16 partygoers, transporting 12 to local hospitals for evaluation and observation.

"Most of them were just high," Celaya said.

Many of the partygoers brought to the hospital were quickly discharged and sent home, said Carolyn Kemp, spokesperson for Alta Bates Summit Medical Center.

As of 2 p.m. yesterday, two partygoers were still under observation, she said.

UCPD entered the house after interviewing partygoers and determining that all of the affected people "ate some cookies that contained some sort of a controlled substance," Celaya said.

"At this point we believe that (Anderson and Portka) made the cookies and Tobias furnished the marijuana," Celaya said.

Only Anderson is a resident of the Cloyne Court co-op, which is one of the largest on campus, with 149 residents.

"What happened last night is an isolated incident where adults didn't know their limits," said Nathan Danielsen, the student house manager of the co-op. "We don't condone any of their actions."

Several other members of the co-op would not comment on the arrests or hospitalizations.

"Something of this magnitude is really rare," Celaya said. "I've been here for 23 years and this is the first time we've had to respond to something like this."


Contact Will Kane at wkane@dailycal.org.

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Posted on Sat, Sep. 16, 2006

Man found dead at UC co-op

By Eric Kurhi
CONTRA COSTA TIMES

A man found dead Friday evening in a UC Berkeley co-op has been identified as Fre Hindeya, 26, of Richmond.

Police were summoned to the scene at 5:51 p.m. when a woman reported that a companion was lying unconscious and nonresponsive in a bed at the housing facility.

"She got up to get a drink of water, returned and noticed he hadn't moved," said UC Berkeley police Capt. Guillermo Beckford. "At this point there's no evidence of foul play."

Ambulances were summoned to the same co-op at 2600 Ridge Road earlier this month when students sought medical treatment after eating marijuana cookies.

Emergency crews monitored 30 people at the scene, and 12 were treated and released from a local hospitals.

All have since recovered, and three people were arrested on suspicion of felony possession of marijuana and hallucinogenic mushrooms.

Police said they do not consider the cases connected, but were treating the room Hindeya was found in as a crime scene and were obtaining a search warrant.

Cloyne Court, which houses about 150 students, is the largest co-op affiliated with UC Berkeley.

Hindeya is a former Cloyne Court resident who graduated from Cal with a degree in statistics in 2002.

The Alameda County Coroner's Office has not yet determined a cause of death.

<hr class=postrule>
Eric Kurhi can be reached at 510-763-8045 or e-mail ekurhi@cctimes.com.

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The San Francisco Chronicle

Judge voids results of Berkeley measure on medical pot
Henry K. Lee, Chronicle Staff Writer

Friday, September 28, 2007



An Alameda County judge has voided election results for a failed 2004 Berkeley medical marijuana measure, ordering it returned to the ballot next year because county election officials failed to hand over data from voting machines, attorneys in the case said Thursday.

Superior Court Judge Winifred Smith also said county officials should pay attorneys' fees and reimburse a medical marijuana group more than $22,000 for the costs it incurred during a disputed recount shortly after the November 2004 election.

In her ruling Tuesday, Smith said county officials had failed to retrieve backup data from electronic voting machines, logs of activity on the machines and other records as she had specifically ordered.

Instead, the county ignored the request and returned the devices to their manufacturer, Diebold Election Systems, after the measure's advocates had sued the county seeking access to the data, the judge said.

"Why the county did so is anybody's guess," the judge wrote. "But the result is absolutely certain: The information on those machines is lost completely."

Smith ordered the Berkeley measure returned to the ballot in November 2008 but said she first wanted to review the exact text of it. By Oct. 19, city officials must provide the court with any minor changes to the measure.

"Local election officials have been trying to reassure the public that their own oversight will protect the integrity of the ballot," said Gregory Luke, an attorney for Americans for Safe Access, a medical marijuana advocacy group that sued the county shortly after the election.

"Now we see that not only are the machines vulnerable, but some election officials cannot be counted on to protect the vote."

Richard Winnie, Alameda County counsel, said the mistakes had been made during a turbulent period in which "the method of handling electronic voting data was very much undecided."

"We've learned a lot in four years," Winnie said, including "what data should be used in a recount. Our practices are much different today."

In April, the judge ruled that the county had violated the state Constitution and election law in rejecting the plaintiffs' request for the data. The country registrar has argued in court papers that the data weren't relevant.

The plaintiffs were backers of Measure R, which would have allowed medical marijuana clubs to move into retail areas in Berkeley without public hearings and would have erased limits on the amount of cannabis that patients could have.

According to the county's certified results, the measure lost, 25,167 to 24,976. The initiative lost again in a recount.

Earlier this year, the plaintiffs visited a warehouse in Plano, Texas, to examine the Diebold machines that the county had returned to the company in the middle of litigation without preserving the data inside them.

Only 20 of the 482 machines used in the election still contained the data being sought, and copies of the votes from 96 percent of the machines had been destroyed, the judge said.

<hr class=postrule><center><small>E-mail Henry K. Lee at hlee@sfchronicle.com.

This article appeared on page B - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle</small></center>

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Berkeley Election Nullified Based on Misconduct by Officials

Bay City News Service
September 27th, 2007

<span class=postbigbold>A judge has nullified the results of a Berkeley medical marijuana ballot measure in 2004 because of what she said was misconduct by Alameda County election officials. </span>


In an order issued on Wednesday that incorporates most of a tentative ruling she issued on July 12, Alameda County Superior Court Judge Winifred Smith said Berkeley's Measure R should be placed back on the ballot for a re-vote at the next general municipal election, which will be in November of 2008.

Smith also ordered that the county refund $22,000 that Americans for Safe Access had to pay for a recount of the election results as well as some legal fees for the group's lawyers.

Smith said the Alameda County Registrar of Voters office engaged in a pattern of withholding relevant evidence and failed to preserve evidence necessary to conduct a recount of the election measure.

Smith said the evidence was irretrievable due to the county's mishandling of the voting machines it used.

Americans for Safe Access backed Berkeley's Measure R, which would have made it mandatory for the city to issue permits to organizations qualifying as medical marijuana dispensaries regardless of zoning.

It also would have established a peer review committee in order to certify new medical marijuana dispensaries and raised the amount of growing and processed marijuana that would legally be in the possession of medical marijuana users and cannabis clubs in Berkeley.

The measure, which needed approval by a simple majority of voters, lost by 191 votes in the Nov. 2, 2004, election.

Americans for Safe Access asked to see the copies of votes redundantly stored in the voting units, the audit logs from those machines, the results of logic and accuracy system tests and chain-of-custody records for system components.

The group says those records would have shown any discrepancies in tests of the voting machines before the election, any breakdowns on election day, any software changes made during or after the voting and any discrepancies in the handling of the PC cards used as electronic ballot boxes.

Americans for Safe Access then filed suit asking that the county be compelled to follow the law and produce materials it believes are necessary to confirm the accuracy of votes and detect potential fraud or error.

At a hearing July 13, Gregory Luke, the group's attorney, said the county should be sanctioned for surrendering custody of the voting machines used in the 2004 election back to Diebold Elections Systems Inc., the maker of the machines, without first preserving the copies of the votes and the audit logs stored inside.

Luke said it's "election administration 101" to preserve all records when a challenge is filed to an election.

And he said it's "law school 101" to save all documents after a lawsuit is filed against you.

Jimmie Johnson, an attorney for Alameda County officials, said the loss of records was "a mistake and wasn't intentional."

But Smith questioned the competence and sincerity of Alameda County officials at the hearing in July.

Smith said if former Registrar of Voters Bradley Clark, who handled the 2004 election, wasn't aware of all the records contained in the county's voting machines, "he didn't educate himself" and "it sounds like a willful violation to me" not to turn over all the records that were requested.

As for being knowledgeable about the voting machines, Smith asked, "Isn't that his (Clark's) job?"

Smith added, "It's a scary thought that they were using machines and didn't know what they were doing."

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Judge Orders Sanctions, New Election in Measure R Case

The Daily Planet
September 30, 2007
By J. Douglas Allen-Taylor


In what would appear to be the most stinging rebuke possible to the conduct of the Alameda County Registrar of Voters Office in the November 2004 Berkeley Measure R Medical Marijuana initiative election, a California Superior Court judge has ordered that a new Measure R election be held in November of next year, and that Measure R proponents be reimbursed for litigation and recount costs.

“Respondents County of Alameda and [Registrar of Voters] Dave MacDonald have engaged in a pattern of withholding relevant evidence and failing to preserve evidence central to the allegations of this case,” Judge Winifred Y. Smith wrote in her Sept. 25 order. “That evidence has now been determined to be irretrievable due to respondents’ mishandling of the DRE (direct electronic recording) machines.”

“This case demonstrates the importance of strong judicial oversight of elections,” said Gregory G. Luke of Strumwasser & Woocher, attorneys for the plaintiffs in a prepared statement. “Government has naively embraced electronic voting technology, accepting soothing pronouncements by Diebold and others that their technology is foolproof. As it has been revealed that the technology is dangerously vulnerable, local election officials have been trying to reassure the public that their own oversight will protect the integrity of the ballot. Now we see that not only are the machines vulnerable, but some election officials cannot be counted on to protect the vote.”

The Measure R sponsoring committee, Americans for Safe Access, was the plaintiff in the case, as well as three Berkeley residents who co-sponsored the measure, James Blair, Michael L. Goodbar, and Donald Tolbert. Defendants included Alameda County, former Registrar of Voters Bradley Clark, and the City of Berkeley.

Smith’s order grew out of the hotly contested November 2004 election in which a group called Americans for Safe Access put a measure on the Berkeley ballot after the Berkeley City Council voted to impose limits on pot dispensaries in the city. Measure R proposed eliminating limits on the amount of medical marijuana that could be possessed by patients or caregivers. In addition, it would have allowed existing dispensaries to move anywhere within the city’s retail zones.

In the vote, which was held using Alameda County’s old Diebold touchscreen electronic voting machines, the measure lost by 191 votes, 25,167 to 24,976.

Measure R proponents requested a recount in December 2004, asking that the new count be done using the internal counting mechanisms and tally logs of the individual Diebold machines used in the elections. Instead, the county registrars office only allowed a recount of the tally printouts. Critics of DRE voting machines have said that if a miscount or improper count is the result of internal problems within the machines, that miscount will be printed out on the tally sheets, and simply recounting the tally sheets themselves will not reveal the internal errors.

The Superior Court ruled that after the Measure R proponents filed their lawsuit, county election officials should have preserved the Diebold machines in case the court ordered an internal recount.

However, when Alameda County ceased using the Diebold DRE machines and switched to a different system, county election officials sold the machines used in the 2004 election back to Diebold. According to Smith’s order, county officials “apparently returned the DRE units to … Diebold … without taking any precautions to preserve the data on the machines. The County acknowledged in discovery responses that the individual DRE units had generated and stored audit logs and redundant vote data, and that such data was on the individual DRE units at the time of the recount and thereafter. The County also admitted in discovery that it did not copy, upload or transmit the data from the individual machines to any data storage medium or location before transferring the machines to Diebold.”

While Judge Smith has ordered the Measure R election be held again, the text of the measure when it appears on the ballot in November of next year may differ from the text of the original November 2004 measure. Because so much time has passed since the original election, and the medical marijuana situation may have changed in Berkeley, the court ordered the City of Berkeley to provide it with any proposed modifications to the measure by October 19. The court noted, pointedly, however, that “substantive changes to the text of the measure are not appropriate and should not be suggested.”

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Berkeley pot bill put on 2008 ballot after judge nullifies results

<span class=postbigbold>ALAMEDA COUNTY: Officials faulted for mishandling recounts of measure from 2004 election</span>

by Chris Metinko, Contra Costa Times
September 29th, 2007


An Alameda County Superior Court judge has nullified the results of a hotly contested 2004 election because of mishandling of a recount by Alameda County election officials, and she ordered Berkeley's Measure R -- a citizen-sponsored medical marijuana initiative -- back on the ballot for a re-vote in 2008.

Judge Winifred Smith upheld a tentative decision from July, when she sided with an organization of medical marijuana advocates who sought to contest the narrow defeat of the marijuana dispensary initiative that year. The initiative failed by 191 votes, or less than half a percent of the ballots cast.

It is only the second time in California legal history that a new election has been ordered without clear evidence of ballot tampering or substantial tabulation errors by elections officials.

"It is something that's very uncommon now, but I think it will become very common," said Bev Harris founder of Black Box Voting, a nonprofit voting watchdog group of Smith's decision. "We, as a society, got sold a bill of goods with equipment that did not work properly."

Smith found that the medical marijuana group never could exercise its right to contest the election because county officials barred access to electronic voting machine records needed to show whether the ballots were recorded accurately.

Within days after voters went to the polls and voted on Measure R, Alameda County's then-Registrar of Voters Bradley Clark charged Americans for Safe Access a little more than $22,600 to recount electronic ballots on the county's touch-screen voting machines, made by Diebold Election Systems Inc.

State elections law says that petitioners for an election recount get to see more, including all ballots plus "all other relevant materials."

But Clark denied the group's requests for the machines' internal audit logs, which could have showed malfunctions or changes in the machines' operation on Election Day, plus internal backup copies of the electronic ballots and chain-of-custody records showing who had access to the machines.

Yet Alameda County attorneys did not settle the lawsuit that Americans for Safe Access filed, and county elections officials continued to deny release of the records well after Clark left for a state job and then retirement in Hawaii.

"I think this shows county officials that procedures are put in place for a reason," Harris said. "It's important to follow those procedures."

Smith ruled Tuesday that Alameda County officials have engaged in "a pattern of withholding relevant evidence and failing to preserve evidence" necessary to conduct a recount of the hotly contested measure, evidence the judge found "to be irretrievable due to (the county's) mishandling" of the Diebold voting machines.

Alameda County counsel Richard Winnie said the county does have the right to file an appeal, but would not say if one was forthcoming. Alameda County officials have stated in the past it will conduct any re-vote at no expense to the city of Berkeley.

<hr class=postrule><center><small>Reach Chris Metinko at 510-763-5418 or cmetinko@bayareanewsgroup.com.</small></center>

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October 4, 2007

Election Results Tossed in E-Voting Case

internetnews.com
By Catherine Pickavet


Electronic voting has promised security, accuracy, expediency and fairness since its advent. But amid continued controversy, a new ruling in California may add yet another mark in the tally against it.

In California last week, Alameda County Superior Court Judge Winifred Y. Smith threw out the results of a November 2004 referendum, citing concerns over e-voting. As a result, Measure R, a medical marijuana referendum that at the time had been voted down, will be placed on the ballot again in November 2008.

And e-voting was supposed to expedite the democratic process.

The drama began in December 2004, when Measure R's co-sponsors, which included the Americans for Safe Access medical marijuana advocacy group, approached Alameda County officials seeking a recount of the votes cast during the referendum.

That request proved problematic. According to last week's ruling, the county's Registrar of Voters denied the request, instead returning the e-voting machines used in the vote to their manufacturer, Diebold -- despite being legally required to turn over the machines' data for a recount.

In her ruling, Smith wrote that the county violated the Elections Code of California by failing to retain the election data collected by and stored on Diebold's e-voting machines. The Code requires that records from e-voting machines, technically called direct recording electronic (DRE) voting units, to be retained for 22 months following an election.

The county eventually admitted in court documents that it made no effort to preserve the data before returning the machines to Diebold.

Worsening matters, efforts to get the data from the returned machines ultimately proved unsuccessful. In April of this year, the court ordered Alameda County to go to Diebold's Plano, Texas, headquarters, to join Measure R supporters in observing the retrieval of any data that Diebold was able to uncover from the returned machines. In the end, however, 462 of the 482 DRE machines had no recoverable data.

"The [recount] request was clear and specific," Smith wrote. "The county ignored the request and proceeded to turn over control of the DRE machines without any effort to preserve the information on them. Why the county did so is anybody's guess. But the result is absolutely certain: The information on those machines is lost completely."

Following that failure, the court stepped in again last week, throwing out the original referendum results entirely and beginning the process of putting Measure R back on the ballot next November. Both sides have until Oct. 30 to respond to the ruling.

Alameda County Registrar of Voters did not return a request for comment.

Gregory Luke of Strumwasser & Woocher LLP, who represents the Measure R sponsors, said last week's ruling comes at the end of a complex, three-year battle to hold the county accountable to its voters.

"This is a very sweet and hard-fought victory because the courts, by their nature don't like to mess around with elections," Luke said. He added that concerns about the county's failure to uphold citizens' rights helped to encourage the court's action.

Even before the case went to court in Alameda County, e-voting technology and the policies surrounding its use were already facing mounting scrutiny.

In Sept. 2004, the county and state of California sued Diebold for fraudulent claims about the security of its electronic voting machines. That suit eventually resulted in a $2.6 million settlement in December.

At the time, then-California Attorney General Bill Lockyer argued that Diebold had not been truthful about the security and reliability of its DRE machines.

Officials and citizen groups in other states had also been raising concerns and lawsuits targeting e-voting in general and Diebold in particular. Many of these arguments trumpeted the need for paper receipts even in e-voting scenarios to avoid precisely the kind of missing-data problems uncovered in the Measure R case.

"In order to recount something, you have to know what it is you're recounting," Luke said. "The data you put in on day one is not necessarily the same data you'll see on day 10."

Despite the ongoing lawsuits, Alameda County evidently had few qualms about continuing to use Diebold DREs in its own November 2004 elections. And while it's unclear whether paper receipts may have prevented the resulting three-year court battle, supporters say they may at least do something to mitigate future problems.

"The first question to ask [about e-voting technology] is, 'How does the law need to be adapted in order to ensure that citizens can continue to exercise their rights to a public, efficient, and transparent post-election confirmation of the accuracy of the election,'" Luke said. "If it turns out the technology you're thinking of buying doesn't allow people to meaningfully exercise these rights, then it's not the right technology."

Some states evidently share those concerns. According to data tracked by VerifiedVoting.org, 26 states have voter-verified paper record legislation on the books. An additional nine have similar legislation on the House and Senate tables.

"You're always going to have a problem of human control," Luke said. "The public must be guaranteed the ability to check the work of elections officials, so legal procedures have to be firmly in place to protect this right in the context of a recount or contest. It's important to make sure laws are on the books."

Even if laws requiring paper receipts don't perfect the e-voting system overnight, they at least might help avoid some of the same pitfalls experienced in the 2004 Alameda County referendum. And they may potentially pave the way for a more widespread e-voting system, which even the system's critics say may be beneficial in the long run.

"There are some really good aspects to the technology that benefit the disabled and language minorities," Luke said. "Take what's good from the tech, and be strong enough to walk away from what's bad."

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Posted: Saturday, 26 January 2008 11:13AM

Council Members Want Berkeley to be a Sanctuary for Medicinal Marijuana


BERKELEY, Calif. (KCBS) -- The Federal Drug Enforcement Agency and the city of Berkeley may be headed for a showdown over medical marijuana dispensaries, as the city toys with the idea of selling pot.

In the past year, five medical marijuana dispensaries have been shut down in the Bay Area by the federal Drug Enforcement Agency. Fearing that Berkeley could be next, city councilman Chris Worthington is putting together a resolution that would make Berkeley a sanctuary for medical marijuana users.

”We may need to tweak it, and change a few words here and there, but I think the basic concept of opposing the D.E.A.’s waste of the tax payer’s money, and attacking a medical service, I think that concept will sale through overwhelmingly,” said Worthington.

Worthington and city councilman Darryl Moore believe the city should provide access to medicinal marijuana if D.E.A. agents do move in. One D.E.A. agent tells the Contra Costa Times "anyone who breaks the law is at risk of being arrested."

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The Berkeley Daily Planet
January 29, 2008

City Council Addresses Homeless, Police Behavior
By Judith Scherr


The Berkeley City Council will be addressing the issue of people lying on sidewalks and will have its first opportunity tonight (Tuesday) to address criminal behavior in its police department following the 2006 conviction of former Sgt. Cary Kent for stealing drugs from the evidence room he supervised and the alleged theft of cash and property belonging to suspects by another officer.

The council meeting begins at 5 p.m. with a workshop on the city’s Climate Action Plan and continues at 7 p.m. with the public commons proposal, a contract with police, a resolution calling on the governor to remove the California National Guard from Iraq, a resolution opposing attempts by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration to close medical marijuana dispensaries and more.


<span class=postbigbold>Public Commons</span>

The mayor’s Public Commons for Everyone Initiative was intended to address the needs of people with inappropriate behavior so that they would not interfere with consumers’ enjoyment of shopping.

Part of it is an ordinance that allows police to cite people lying on the sidewalk in commercial areas. When the measure came to the City Council in December, Councilmember Linda Maio would not vote for it.

“I was concerned with what happens to people in the middle of the night,” Maio told the Planet on Friday, explaining that she was not sure if there was adequate space in shelters for the people sleeping on the sidewalk.

To be sure homeless people have somewhere to sleep, she and Councilmember Laurie Capitelli have written a resolution that would stop police from citing people lying on the sidewalk when there were no shelter beds available and would have the officers direct people to an available shelter bed and even give them taxi scrip to get them there.

Maio said she was told that there are five-to-10 shelter beds available each night.

“There’s no enforcement if there’s no bed,” she said.

Maio said that when homeless people go to shelters, they have the opportunity of being connected to services that will eventually take them off the streets.

Asked how the council will know if the program is working, Maio said one way would be to ask for a report on how the taxi scrip was being spent.

Also on the council agenda is a public hearing on raising the parking meter fee from $1 per hour to $1.25 per hour This is expected to raise $1 million annually, which would be dedicated to pay for services for the people acting inappropriately. That would include keeping bathrooms open all night, renting port-a-potties and providing housing with services for 10-15 people in need.


<span class=postbigbold>Addressing police behavior</span>

“The possibility that a sworn and armed officer was not only working while under the influence of narcotics, but that he was able to steal drugs from what should have been the most secure location in Berkeley, cast a shadow of doubt on the entire department,” says the report authored by a Police Review Commission subcommittee.

The council will consider separate recommendations by the PRC and the police chief. While Chief Doug Hambleton agreed with most of the commisision’s recommendations for change, there are differences notably in areas where the commission is asking the chief to go further in his investigation of the missing drug evidence.

The full amount of missing drugs is unknown. While there was tampering with 286 drug evidence envelopes, there was no measure of the quantity of drugs missing. “Without knowing the total amount of drugs missing, the possibility that the amount of missing drugs was more than what would have been required to supply one addict can not be ruled out,” the report says.

Committee members said they wanted more investigation into the quantities of drugs in those envelopes, as they suspected that there may have been more drugs missing than one person could have consumed.

But the chief argues in his report that more investigation is costly and that the criminal—Kent—was apprehended, convicted and served his time, based on just a few envelopes with drugs missing that were fully investigated.

The PRC report recaps the Cary Kent case, noting that 21 officers had observed that Kent had problems such as having a “sallow look,” being “withdrawn,” appearing “disheveled,” being “extremely talkative” and exhibiting “erratic” behavior. Twelve officers complained of Kent’s tardiness or missing appointments when he was responsible for bringing drug evidence to court, the report says.

Despite this and other suspicious behavior, “the chief was never informed and did not suspect any drug abuse until November of 2005,” the report says.

“The failure of BPD officers, particularly supervisors, to intervene given their observations of Sergeant Kent is unacceptable,” the report says, noting that officers in the narcotics unit are not all trained in detecting drug abuse and they are not trained to tell their supervisors if fellow officers appear unable to fulfill their responsibilities.

Some other facts noted in the PRC report were that while Kent was placed on administrative leave Jan. 6, a warrant to search Kent’s office and car was not issued until Jan. 25 2006, and a search warrant for his computer wasn’t issued until Feb. 17 2006.

The chief accepted most of the recommendations advanced by the PRC including:

moving the responsibility for storage of all narcotics evidence out of the Special Enforcement Units; holding scheduled and unscheduled inspections; and identifying who is responsible for monitoring entry into secured drug storage areas.

The authors of the report, PRC Commissioners William White, Sharon Anne Kidd and Sherry Smith, and community members Jim Chanin and Andrea Prichett, said that the report’s weakness was the inability of the subcommittee to interview various officers.

“The [Berkeley Police Association] BPA’s attorney wrote to Chief Hambleton and threatened to sue the city if officers were interviewed about this incident,” the report says, noting that the objections were related to a California Supreme Court decision and a BPA lawsuit that shields officers from public scrutiny for personnel reasons.

Also before the council will be:

• The contract between the Berkeley Police Association and the city that will give the police a cumulative cost of living adjustment of 14 percent over four years, approximately $6.9 million between 2008 and 2012.

• A resolution aimed at the Marine Recruiting Center downtown: asking the city attorney to look into enforcing a clause in the city’s municipal code prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and directing the city manager to send letters to the Marine Recruiting Center “advising them that the Marine recruiting office is not welcome in our city….”

• A resolution calling on the governor to remove California National Guard troops from Iraq;

• A request asking for information on pedestrian and bicycle accidents;

• A resolution opposing attempts by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration to close medical marijuana dispensaries and declaring Berkeley a sanctuary for medicinal cannabis use and distribution.

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The Daily Californian Online

City OKs Medicinal Marijuana Resolution

By JANE SHIN
Contributing Writer
Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Berkeley City Council members unanimously approved a resolution last night to declare Berkeley a sanctuary for medicinal marijuana in the event of federal interference with dispensaries.

The resolution, which was received with overwhelming support and applause from the audience, opposes attempts by the Drug Enforcement Administration to conduct raids on medical marijuana dispensaries in Berkeley, and urges city, county and state departments to not cooperate in the event that a raid occurs.

By claiming itself as a sanctuary, Berkeley have committed to ensuring that residents are provided access to medicinal marijuana if dispensaries in the city are shut down.

"It's frightening when I go to a dispensary," said Berkeley resident Patricia Crossman, who said she has been using medical marijuana for more than ten years. "There's that fear we're going to be raided. ... We musn't penalize everyone because of this."

Proposition 215, which passed in 1996, legalizes marijuana usage for medicinal purposes in California.

The proposition had overwhelming local support, with 85 percent of Berkeley voters approving the measure, Councilmember Darryl Moore said.

Federal law, however, states that any use, cultivation or distribution of marijuana is a federal violation.

In the case of a raid, the Berkeley Police Department will not cooperate with the DEA, a pre-existing policy. However, if there is an emergency in which lives are in danger, the police department would provide safety enforcement, said Berkeley police Sgt. Mary Kusmiss.

An increase in the use of medicinal marijuana as a recreational drug and for sale has been noticed, which can welcome violence and crime into neighborhoods, said DEA Special Agent Casey McEnry.

But advocates of medicinal marijuana say it is a treatment that patients rely on.

"This is really about the health and safety (of patients)," said Angel Raich, an Oakland resident and medicinal marijuana proponent. "This is about saving lives."

Some advocates also argued that a surge of federal interferences nationwide made it important for the resolution to be passed and declared immediately.

In July 2007, the assets of a Berkeley cannabis club were frozen following a series of federal raids on Los Angeles County medical marijuana dispensaries.

"It's more extremely necessary now because of the surge to interfere with state law," said Becky DeKeuster, community liaison for Berkeley Patients Group, a local dispensary.

Supporters said they were happy about the enthusiastic support by the City Council and said they wanted the resolution to be a model to other cities.

"At least in Berkeley, patients can be safe," Raich said. "If any dispensaries close, we won't have to go to the local corner drug dealer to get medicine."