OFFICIALS: POT NOT ACCEPTABLE AT COLISEUM

Authority Members Say Cops Must Bust Smokers Regardless of Vote
Result

OAKLAND -- Busting pot-smoking fans at the Network Associates Coliseum
complex in Oakland should remain a top priority for law enforcement
agents regardless of how city voters feel, Coliseum officials said
Thursday.

Members of the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum Authority said it would
be too confusing -- and dangerous -- to treat marijuana use at the
complex as a low priority for law enforcement.

Measure Z, an initiative on the Nov. 2 ballot, calls for making
private use of marijuana in one's own residence a low priority for
local police. Initiative backers say the Coliseum Authority's focus on
the issue is irrelevant, since the complex is a public place.

"There needs to be no ambiguousness," said City Councilmember Danny
Wan (Grand Lake-Chinatown), an authority member. "I want to make sure
we still prohibit marijuana use in and around the Coliseum."

Wan, along with Alameda County Supervisor Scott Haggerty, also an
authority member, criticized the initiative during a Thursday meeting
as security for Oakland Raiders games was being discussed.

Both said allowing the initiative to cover the Coliseum complex would
confuse security since it is handled by two different agencies: the
Oakland Police Department and the Alameda County Sheriff's Department.

Since the Sheriff's Department -- a county agency -- would not be
bound to follow the initiative, both said officers and deputies at the
complex could be confused, potentially following different standards.

Further, both argued, making pot smoking a low priority would only
invite more crime to the complex, turning the parking lot into an open
drug market.

Measure Z would make the "private use" of marijuana Oakland's lowest
law enforcement priority. It also would set up a platform for the city
to tax and regulate the sale of marijuana for adult use should the
state make the drug legal.

Joe DeVries, campaign manager for Yes on Measure Z, said Wan and
Haggerty were wasting their time trying to draft an exemption to the
law for the Coliseum complex.

If passed, the law would only apply to the private use of marijuana,
not public uses such as smoking pot at the Coliseum complex.

"It's absolutely ridiculous that they would consider this," he said.
"It is only private adult use that we are talking about. I just think
they are being silly."