WAS EAGLES LODGE THREATENED OR ADVISED BY DEA AGENT?

There's a political storm brewing in Billings, one that encompasses
the U.S. Senate, powerful Washington lobbyists and Americans' First
Amendment rights.

The nexus of the storm involves the unlikely combination of the Eagles
Lodge in Billings and a 21-year-old camp counselor in Laurel.

How these two became involved, what happened on May 30, and why it has
become the stuff of national news is a little complicated.

Here's the story:

More than a year ago, Adam Jones, 21, a camp counselor for the Laurel
YMCA, was arrested with one-half gram of psilocybin mushrooms and
sentenced to five years in prison with three years suspended, Jones
said. After serving more than two months in jail, the judge reduced
his sentence to three years probation.

Because of his conviction, Jones said he can't get financial aid for
college. That seemed wrong to him, so he became interested in drug law
reform and that led him to start a Billings chapter of the National
Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, or NORML.

During the 2003 legislative session, state lawmakers voted down the
Clinical Cannabis Act, a bill to make medical marijuana use legal in
Montana. NORML would like to put the issue on the 2004 ballot and is
raising money to do so, said Montana NORML director John Masterson.

This led Jones to plan a fund-raiser for the initiative. The Fraternal
Order of Eagles Aerie #176 is often booked for concerts by some of
Billings' younger, edgier bands. Jones booked the facility for May 30,
hired several bands and advertised on radio and in newspapers.

But when Friday rolled around, Jones was in jail.

Part of Jones' parole requires him to notify his parole officer if his
work supervisor has changed. Jones said his transfer from the Billings
YMCA to the Laurel YMCA meant a change in supervisors, which he
neglected to tell his parole officer. On Thursday, May 29, Jones'
parole officer searched his house and Jones provided a urine sample.
The sample came back positive for drugs, Jones said, so he was jailed.
The urine sample was then sent to a laboratory, which subsequently
showed that the positive result was false, he said. Jones was released
on Sunday.

While Jones was in jail, his fund-raiser fell apart.

The bar manager for the Eagles Lodge, a woman named Kelly who asked
that her last name not be used, said an agent with the Drug
Enforcement Agency entered the lodge at about 1 p.m. Friday. He told
her about a new law that could be used to fine venue owners up to
$250,000 if drugs are used or sold during an event.

The agent was polite and businesslike, Kelly said. "He didn't say we
couldn't have the concert. What he said was that if we did have it and
there was any drug use or selling on the premises, we could be fined
$250,000."

Kelly called one of the Eagles directors, who called the DEA and then
the Eagles' lawyer, who told them it would be best to cancel the concert.

She informed the bands as they arrived to set up.

"They were shocked, but they were polite. Nobody was rude throughout
this whole ordeal. The DEA agent wasn't being intimidating in any way.
He was just doing his job," Kelly said.

Was the DEA agent just doing his job? NORML says no.

Keith Stroup, the founder and executive director of NORML in
Washington, D.C., said the issue comes down to Americans' rights to
free speech.

He said the bill used by the DEA agent - the Illicit Drug
Anti-Proliferation Act - was sponsored by Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del.,
and failed twice in the Senate. He said Biden sneaked it into the
popular Amber Alert Bill when it was in conference committee. The
Amber Alert Bill was signed into law by President Bush several months
ago.

"This is probably the first instance that an event has been canceled
due to fear of the bill," Stroup said. "The bill's sponsors kept
reassuring us that it will only be used at places where the owner is
selling drugs or is running a crack house."

Bill Piper, the associate director of national affairs for the Drug
Policy Alliance, claimed the law would punish club owners not only if
they don't pay attention to the law, but even if they do.

"Our concern is that small business owners will be told not to hold
events," he said. "If they do, then they'll be told not to make their
facilities safer with things like better ventilation or first aid or
available water or any other common sense measure." He said such
measures would indicate the owners knew drugs were going to be used at
their venues, and would make them liable under the new law.

Stroup said he has been in contact with several organizations -
including the Drug Policy Alliance, the American Civil Liberties Union
and Students for Sensible Drug Policy - to mount a court challenge to
the constitutional legitimacy of this law.

Chip Unruh, a spokesman for Biden, said the senator didn't sneak the
Illicit Drug Anti-Proliferation Act into the Amber Alert Bill. Biden
was chosen to be on the conference committee for the bill, and it was
appropriate for him to add this bill into the Amber Alert measure.

"This was a bill to protect children from harm. It addressed child
pornography, sentencing guidelines - all designed to protect children.
It is appropriate to have a portion to help protect children from the
dangers of drugs, and from stopping crooked concert promoters from
knowingly selling drugs," Unruh said.

Jeffrey Sweetin, the special agent in charge of the DEA for the Rocky
Mountain Division in Denver, said the Billings DEA agent saw an ad for
the NORML fund-raiser and approached the Eagles' management on his own
initiative. The agent suspected that the Eagles didn't know what kind
of crowd a NORML event might attract.

"I think it's safe to say that the kind of audience attracted to NORML
concerts are typically a marijuana-using crowd," he said.

Sweetin said that to his knowledge such a warning had never been given
before and has not been given since. He said this is because bigger
venues know how to handle controversial bookings, while smaller venues
don't tend to get those kind of bookings.

"The fact that it was NORML just makes it a better story," Sweetin
said. "NORML sees this as an attempt to stop their fund-raiser. That's
not what we do."

Kelly at the Eagles' Lodge has spent a lot of time on the phone.

"I've had calls from a lot of reporters from New York, Chicago,
California, lots of members of NORML, a lawyer from the ACLU ... it's
surprising how big this turned out to be."

One of the bands scheduled to perform at the NORML concert, ENDever,
has been booked to play the lodge on June 28, she said.

She said the Eagles are "a really good bunch of people who do a lot of
good things in the community." They are a non-profit organization with
about 300 members in the aerie and the auxiliary.

Members of the Eagles' board of directors were in Helena Friday
attending a convention and could not be reached for comment.

Meanwhile, Jones continues to work at the YMCA. He said his employers
know of his arrest record. He said he will continue to work for reform.

"My interest in drug reform is not an implication in drug use. That's
like saying a person who is pro choice is going to have an abortion.
It's not directly related to it," he said.

"If anything, this whole experience has further proved to me why we
need reform."