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.

A Federal Judge's Cancer Treatment Got Him Thinking About Marijuana.

It was (and is) unheard of that a sitting U.S. District Court Judge would take to the Internet to express strong opinions about government and the legal system.  Judge Richard G. Kopf, District of Nebraska, apparently needed a place to vent, so in February of 2013 a blog was born and off he went.  

His writings were a source of amusement, fascination and, in some quarters, outrage.  He called it Hercules and the umpire and banged out items long and short about reforming the courts, law schools, old trucks and his grandkids.  You get an idea of his approach by clicking on the sub-heading “RULES.”

"Rules are, well, rules. My number one rule is simple: This is my blog, and I will do with it what I want and that includes (1) trashing your comments if they annoy me or (2) barring you from the site because I think you are crazy. I have other rules, but I am not going to tell you about them because my number one rule covers the waterfront."

Any comment  from the judge about the blog remained primarily within the blog.  I requested an interview for an NET News segment for the radio and was told politely by his office staff that he felt uncomfortable talking about himself.  (There was an exception. NPR did a segment about a man Judge Kopf had sent to prison who later became a law clerk and friend of the judge’s.)

At the end of last year Judge Kopf abruptly shut it down saying the blog had “exceeded my wildest expectations. And so–it is time to kill it.”

Judge Richard Kopf

Not quite.

On March 7 Judge Kopf jump-started Hercules again with the headline “He’s alive!”  What followed was a stunning and typically frank revelation.  He’d been diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma. (He quickly added, “For what it is worth, that is the “good” kind.”)  A few days later he followed up with a blow-by-blow description of the process he underwent to have his chemo port installed for the delivery of his treatment medications.  This included an un-nerving “selfie” (certainly a first for a judge in the federal courts) displaying his shirtless chest and fresh holes through his skin. (“This is latest in chemo-fashion. No unsightly lines dangling from your aging body.”)

The discussion which followed was even more remarkable. The judge opened up a spirited discussion about medical marijuana and the legalization of recreational pot in Colorado. It wasn’t out of the blue.  Judge Kopf’s oncologist lives in Denver and practices routinely in Lincoln. They shared “a fascinating discussion about legalizing marijuana in Colorado and some of the unintended consequences of Colorado’s idiotic (my view) pot policy.”  He then threw down a gauntlet on the keyboard of another legal blogger, Doug Berman, who writes the online column Sentencing Law and Policy.

“Could it be that the new legal regime in the Rocky Mountains is a “win-win” for both the cartels and the State of Colorado?”  

The judge, of course, was referring to drug cartels who, in Kopf’s view, might prosper from legalized cannabis. Bermen took the bait, and so did another blogger, Scott Greenfield, writing for Simple Justice.

The written exchange that followed was remarkable. Readers heard a federal judge talk frankly about the risks of lifting prohibitions on marijuana.  But he added an important qualifier. 

“I am not addressing medical marijuana. Indeed, I am glad that the Obama administration announced Friday that it was extending to the University of Arizona a waiver to study the potential medicinal benefits of marijuana. That said, if I were the King, and it was determined that there was in fact medicinal benefits to the drug, I would dictate that registered pharmacists dispense the drugs as opposed to street corner vendors.”

I won’t rehash the entire exchange, but the sparring between Judge Kopf and two writers who both disagree and respect the man is worth the read for anyone interested in quickly evolving marijuana policy.  Read it here. 

Judge Kopf has started his chemo.  Doctors also biopsied tissue for any signs of lung cancer different from his Hodgkin’s lymphoma.  Like anyone dealing with cancer, he’s waiting to see what happens next. 

Is stinking of pot enough of a reason for police to search someone’s car?

The Nebraska Supreme Court didn’t quite come up with an answer today, but the case that started in Aurora, Neb. gives police a little more leeway. 

In 2011 Roger Dalland and his girlfriend were at the law enforcement center at Aurora talking to police about something completely unrelated to drugs.  The police couldn’t help but notice Dalland’s clothes reeked of marijuana smoke.  (As the Court of Appeals judge summarized it: “Given that the odor remained on Dalland the entire time he was at the law enforcement center, we can ascertain that the odor lingered on his person for a substantial period of time.”)   

A search of his car out in the parking lot turned up syringes that later tested positive for meth.  Arrested, convicted, and sent to jail, Dalland appealed claiming the smell of pot is not reason enough to trigger the search of his vehicle, so the needles never should have been allowed in as evidence. 

The Court of Appeals took Dalland’s side.  The judge wrote:  “while Dalland may have encountered it in his vehicle, he may have encountered it any number of ways and in any number of locations throughout the day.”

In today’s ruling, the Nebraska justices did not come flat out and say the smell test was grounds for a search.  (Read the whole opinion here.) There was also testimony from an Aurora police officer, Cpl. Chad Mertz, who said he did the search only after following Dalland out to his car.   

There were conflicting versions of whether Mertz was aware there were syringes to be found before the search (giving plenty of probable cause for the search) or after he’d found them (which means the pot smell was the main reason to poke around car.)

By accepting Mertz’s assurance that he did the search because of the needles AND the pot smell, the Nebraska Supreme Court said the search of Dalland was legal and his conviction stands. 

“Because we find probable cause for the search based on the combined facts that Dalland smelled of burnt marijuana and that he admitted prior to the search of his vehicle to having needles in the vehicle, we do not reach the question whether the odor of marijuana emanating from Dalland was sufficient to establish probable cause.”

The Supreme Court’s closing take on the case seems to leave unresolved the most interesting question:  If you show up at the police department smelling like pot, is that reason enough to bring on a search?

NET News did quite a bit of reporting on the new legal landscape involving marijuana.  Check out our documentary Marijuana Crossroads and links to our radio stories HERE.