A LOT SPENT TO STOP POT

The DA's office spared no expense in the drug investigation.
"Operation Night Out" included wire-tapping, aerial reconnaissance
and managing an informant on the inside.

The investigation was started by state police detectives in the
office of Bristol County District Attorney Samuel Sutter but then
mushroomed. Sutter brought in the State Police Special Services
Operations unit, federal authorities from the U.S. Immigration and
Customs Enforcement agency, a Rhode Island drug task force staffed by
multiple agencies, and additional Massachusetts state police from the
Plymouth County district attorney's office. Since this investigation
focused on a couple of businesses in North Attleboro, local police
also had a role to play.

Imagine what all this undercover work, involving numerous police
officers and a state police helicopter equipped with high-tech
surveillance equipment, cost the district attorney's office. It must
be in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, and that doesn't even
count the prosecutions to come.

So, what did the six-month investigation yield? Not a lot: five
arrests, a little marijuana, a few weapons, recovery of $37,000 and
elimination of a couple of marijuana growing operations.

Was it worth it? It's too soon to tell since the cases haven't gone
to court, but the charges so far don't amount to much. Two men with
ties to the Attleboros pleaded innocent to drug conspiracy and
possession of marijuana with intent to distribute.

Also arrested were a Bellingham man and a Marion couple who were
allegedly growing pot. DA Sutter said the investigation is continuing
and more arrests could be made.

The investigation was dubbed Operation Night Out because the local
men who were arrested own Celebrity Limousine and Entourage Limousine
on Route 1. Four of their vehicles were confiscated. Sutter said
limos were used to deliver marijuana.

Note that none of the charges involve any drugs other than marijuana,
which seems strange since the DA's office referred to "illegal
distribution of narcotics." In any case, it's all about pot for now;
this in a state that decriminalized pot possession two years ago.

Obviously the law doesn't apply to drug dealing, but the pot has to
come from somewhere. Hence there are going to be marijuana growing
operations and middlemen who seek to profit from the marijuana market.

New England is the most liberal part of the country when it comes to
tolerance of marijuana use. The Massachusetts decriminalization law
came about because of a voter initiative in 2008. Bills have been
filed to go a step further and legalize pot here.

Rhode Island has a medical marijuana law. (One of those charged in
North Attleboro was licensed in Rhode Island to grow and use
marijuana for back pain, according to his lawyer.) Rhode Island
recently began licensing marijuana dispensaries.

Maine and Vermont have medical marijuana laws. Maine has also
decriminalized pot possession. The governor of Connecticut supports
decriminalization as part of a corrections reform package. New
Hampshire doesn't have such laws but bills are under consideration in
the legislature there.

Similar laws are found in about a third of the states across the
country. The Obama administration, meanwhile, has said that it
opposes decriminalization but isn't going to fight medicinal use of marijuana.

It was in 1972 that a special commission appointed by President
Richard Nixon recommended decriminalization of marijuana. That idea
went nowhere and after almost 40 years the United States still hasn't
come to grips with the marijuana "problem."

Thus we end up with investigations like "Operation Night Out,"
expensive undercover operations financed by the taxpayers. Maybe DA
Sutter should instead take a day off, at least until he can come up
with something more substantial than this investigation has produced so far.