READY OR NOT NEBRASKA: Itty-bitty Sedgwick, Colorado welcomes recreational pot

Nebraska law enforcement knew it was inevitable. 

Nebraska marijuana tourists say it can’t come too quickly.

The arrival of a recreational marijuana outlet on the Nebraska/Colorado border appears to be just weeks away. 

On April 1^st the citizens of Sedgwick, Colorado (or at least the 27 who voted yes in the tiny town) approved new taxes for wholesale and retail sales of marijuana.

The owner of Sedgwick Alternative Relief plans to drive to Denver Monday to file an application to expand his medical cannabis operation, including over-the-counter sales to any legal buyer who wants it. State regulators must act on the paperwork inside a 45 to 90 day window. Owner Mike Kollartis, recently received permission to operate at another location closer to Denver. He’s cleared the security background already and expects quick approval of the application.

 

Product on display at Sedgwick Alternative Relief

As NET News reported last summer, Nebraska law enforcement officials have been wary of the Sedgwick operation from the first day it opened. To date, there have been no reports linking the store to illegal sales. A larger concern is the legal sale to out-of-state residents who will try to bring it across the border illegally. 

“It’s going to be a problem,” Duell County Sheriff Adam Hayward told me in June.  “You’re going to see a lot more people from back east or up north pick it up and turn around because you know it shortens their drive time by four hours.”

The town of Sedgwick embraced being northeastern Colorado’s only pot outpost. Tax dollars from the current sales already enriched the municipal budget. 

On Tuesday voters approved a five dollar sales tax on individual pot purchases and additional surcharges on future bulk marijuana sales from the planned indoor pot-farming operation. Combined the taxes could add tens of thousands additional dollars to the Sedgwick treasury. 

Official tally from Sedgwick pot tax vote

Opponents to expanding marijuana were swamped at the polls. Only four of the 31 people who cast ballots voted against the new taxes.

The store manager estimates sales could average at $2000 a day. There is no reliable estimate of how much revenue will come from Nebraskans taking advantage of the neighbor’s relaxed laws. As of January 1^st out-of-state visitors over the age of 21 can legally purchase and carry ¼ ounce at a time. Sedgwick is a three mile drive off I-80 and six miles from the border by the county roads south of Chappell, Nebraska. Last year I asked both the Nebraska State Patrol and the state's Attorney General if if would be useful to launch a public information campaign reminding residents that  using legally in Colorado didn't translate to bringing it back to Nebraska for private use. Both said they didn't consider that approach as useful.

The owners of the Sedgwick store are already planning ahead. Initially sales will continue in the double-wide trailer placed on a vacant Main Street lot. The building next door has already been purchased and plans in the works for its renovation into a combination grow-house and significantly expanded marijuana retail operation.

Did Floyd The Drug Dog Violate the 4th Amendment of the Constitution?

Okay, it wasn't really Floyd.  It was his handler on the Valley, Nebraska Police Department.  And the question was how long Floyd had to wait in the car before he started sniffing around.  

The Eighth Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals had to figure out how long someone should wait to be searched after being pulled over by a K-9 unit suspicious about hidden drugs.  Is 20 minutes too long?  Ten minutes?  Even two?  

UPDATE! The United States Supreme Court overturned the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling in this case. (Read the full opinion here). In a 6-3 decision the justices ruled police may NOT extend routine traffic stop to wait for drug dog to come and sniff. The majority wrote: "Absent reasonable suspicion, police extension of a traffic stop to conduct a dog sniff violates the Constitution's shield against unreasonable seizures."

Using a drug dog is legal, but the courts have said you can’t make someone wait around forever for the search.  A Nebraska drug bust which made its way to the Court of Appeals caused a lot of chatter among cops and defense attorneys.  At the heart of the case were questions about whether the search was reasonable under the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution.  (That’s the one that guarantees “the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures.”)  The ruling came down at the end of January. 

Floyd The Dog (Photo: Dean Jacobs, Fremont Tribune) 

Just after midnight on March 27, 2012 Dennys Rodriguez let his car drift off onto the shoulder while he drove through Valley. The sloppy driving caught the attention of Officer Morgan Struble, who had his drug-sniffing dog Floyd riding shotgun.  Struble handed the driver a warning ticket for the bad driving, but he also noticed the heavy smell of too many air fresheners and felt the driver and passenger were a little too nervous. It was a hunch, but Officer Struble was suspicious.  He radioed in for back up and asked Rodriquez if he could walk his dog around the car.  The answer was no.   

The second officer arrived about five minutes later.  Once Floyd the Dog hopped out of the car it didn’t take long for him to react.  Floyd found a big bag of meth.  Rodriquez and his passenger were charged by the U.S. Attorneys office and later convicted.  According to the Court of Appeals ruling "all told, seven or eight minutes had passed from the time Struble had issued the written warning until the dog indicated the presence of drugs."

Rodriguez tried to get his conviction thrown out in part “because the stop was unreasonably prolonged by the dog sniff in the absence of reasonable suspicion to continue his detention."  The three judge panel decided the traffic stop “was not unreasonably prolonged” by waiting for a second officer to arrive in the name of safety.  The conviction stood. Win one for Floyd the Dog and Officer Struble.

What’s the big deal?  As Orin Kerr, the legal writer for the Washington Post, pointed out in his Volokh Conspiracy blog  “this might seem like a really technical question. But it’s actually pretty important.”

In one sense that’s good news for K-9 officers, since the court acknowledged that waiting for another officer to be on hand was a legitimate reason for making someone wait.  In another sense it can be pretty darn confusing these days. The Floyd the Dog case has said one length of time was okay.  In other Federal Court of Appeals districts other times have been acknowledged as appropriate.  Some are longer.  Some are short.  What’s a K-9 officer to do?

Terry Fleck, a retired dog handler and deputy sheriff in California who writes extensively about drug dog legal issues, told me in an email that “handlers simply keep track of their U.S. Circuit's K-9 decisions and abide by their State's K-9 decisions as well.”  In other words, the patrol officers have slightly different rules depending on what court has ruled which way.  Could it take the U.S. Supreme Court to identify a national standard for putting dog sniffs on a clock?  Fleck says its possible, since just last year guidance came from the high court on when it was appropriate to use drug dogs for searches of residences. 

Meanwhile, Floyd The Dog has taken a new job with the Fremont Police Department.

Drug Courts: Five things you didn’t know

I'd heard about them but knew nothing about them.

The  past couple of weeks I talked to the judges and staff who run Drug Courts and other problem solving courts in Nebraska.  The people who have been through them have a lot to say too.  They’re promoted as good for the participants, good for the community, and a bargain.  The numbers in studies done both nationally and in Nebraska seem to back that up.

They get a HUGE turnout when they hold Drug Court Graduations. (Photo: Lancaster Co. Court)

Here are five surprising things I learned about them:

1. The people who volunteer to take part start out going back to court every week to report back to the judge.  It’s a weird combination of being talked to by a parent, a psychologist, and a cop who happens to be wearing a judge’s robe.   Every participant gets called up for a chat… in public, so there are no secrets. 
   
2. Only 5% of the people who graduate from a drug court program commit another crime within a year later.  Compare that to 32% who re-offended after being released from a state prison.
3. Even the people who wash out of the program are way less likely to commit a crime after they’ve been through part of the program.  Only about 7 out of one hundred reoffend.
4. Keeping someone in drug court is way cheaper than prison or county jail.  Nebraska spends about $70 dollars a day on every prison inmate.  It costs about $45 dollars a day to house and feed someone in a county jail.  Someone in the Drug Court program costs between $20 to $40 a day.  Individual drug courts around the state set up their own budgets.
5. Participants may get a drug test two or three times a day.  That can be at home, or work, or wherever one of the staff ask them to fill up the cup.  About the worse thing a participant can do is try to cheat a drug test.

Click here to check out the story I filed this morning on NET News: