COMMUNITY FEARS POLICE, NOT MARIJUANA

In a Sept. 27 guest opinion, Oakland County Sheriff Michael Bouchard
asserts to clarify facts regarding the Aug. 25 drug raids carried out
by the Oakland County Narcotics Enforcement Team.

"The pro-marijuana legalization faction seeking total legalization has
gone into PR overdrive." Bouchard says, "SWAT was not used, patients
were not thrown around."

But I have interviewed patients who were thrown around. The public
outcry over those raids is not a PR stunt, but an outpouring of fear
and anger from the community Sheriff Bouchard calls "real patients
that the voters intended to help that have no basic safeguards to
protect them." The folks protesting outside Oakland County Courthouse
believe they're in danger, not from an unregulated product but from
police who look and behave like soldiers. The violence and terror
created by those raids generates danger where none previously existed.

For the chronically ill, state-sanctioned medical marijuana patients
and their caregivers, collective fear is very high.

I urge readers to consider why, as a society, we have come to accept
these actions carried out on American citizens.

The original purpose of SWAT was to respond to domestic violence
attacks, snipers or hostage situations. As the drug war progressed
under the Military Cooperation with Law Enforcement Officials Act,
Congress directed the military to make equipment and facilities
available to civilian police in the anti-drug effort and the Pentagon
began equipping local police with M-16s and armored personnel carriers
such as the "Colonel" tank owned by the Oakland County Sheriff's department.

As the military was drawn further into those efforts, state and local
police departments increasingly accepted the military as a model for
their behavior and outlook. The problem is that the mindset of a
soldier is simply not appropriate for a civilian police officer.
Police officers confront not an "enemy" but individuals who are
protected by the Bill of Rights.

But to make war you must have an enemy. In January 2008, a Lima, Ohio
SWAT team shot and killed 26-year-old Tarika Wilson. They were there
to arrest her boyfriend, who was visiting but did not live there.

When Tarika heard the SWAT team bust down her door, ignite a flash
grenade and shoot her dog, she ran into her children's bedroom
carrying her 13-month-old son. An officer fired three shots into the
dark room where she gathered with her six children. The bullets killed
Tarika.

Posters in the Lima and Toledo newspapers said Tarika "deserved it
because she allowed drugs in her house." Other comments were "she
probably was hiding a gun behind her baby" and "she was living in a
drug den, knew it, and paid the price."

This was when I understood the power the drug war holds over people's
lives, beliefs and communities.

Today there are more than 1700 SWAT teams across America. Such a team
executed the raids in Oakland County on Aug. 25. The issue is not what
we call them, but if we are going to continue to sanctify these
assaults on our neighbors.

Charmie Gholson is a journalist, mother, and drug policy reform
advocate.