Manch Cops Unnecessarily Intimidate Innocent People in Search for Suspect
Manchester has recently been the site of some major police state tactics including lockdowns and checkpoints. Tonight beginning at 6:00pm, Manchester-area activists and Cop Blockers will be holding a press conference at 6:30pm, then various members of the West Manchester community will be testifying to the city council about their experience in the recent police state activity. Here’s the full event announcement from Foundation for NH Independence president Carla Gericke:
Is the Manchester Police Department on the Warpath?
Concerned Manchester residents will gather at City Hall Plaza on Elm Street at 6PM on Tuesday, June 7th, 2016, to discuss the increasing use of military-style occupation tactics and deployment of military-grade equipment on the streets of Manchester, NH.
MPD Police Chief Nick Willard says, “crime is down 20 percent in Manchester,” yet in the past 3 weeks:
8 Manchester schools have been placed under lockdown;
MPD has deployed its SWAT team and armored BEARCAT at least twice;
One home was tear-gassed;
At least 3 helicopters clamored over the city for hours after an entire neighborhood of 30,000 people was placed on lockdown with a shelter-in-place order for more than 5 hours after the suspect had been apprehended.
In Manchester, a city with a population of 110,000 that often ranks highly in affordability and livability, the past few weeks have seemed like a war zone. (more…)
Patients have died while waiting for the state bureaucrats to finally allow the four legally-authorized medical cannabis dispensaries to open. Despite medical cannabis passing in 2012, bureaucrats dragged their feet on implementation until now, four years later the dispensaries are finally opening. So far there are locations in Plymouth, Dover, and Lebanon. Until the ultra-restrictive medical cannabis statutes are changed, the fourth facility still-to-open in Manchester will be the final one for the whole state.
Worse, apparently patients are assigned to a specific dispensary and can’t buy at the other three locations. All of these restrictions are continued, desperate attempts by the state to control a plant they’ve never been able to control. One patient, speaking anonymously, told me that he would no longer be buying from the dispensary as the quality of cannabis he can find on the black market is better.
Cannabis needs to be legal to possess, grow, transport, and sell with no government involvement whatsoever. Without true market competition, the government-approved, artificially-limited number of dispensaries will never be able to reach their full potential.
This is going to be a big election year with many prohibitionist senators leaving office as well as the governor, who has long stood in the way of any meaningful decriminalization. Cannabis freedom activists have pledged to make sure legalization is a major issue this election season.
Meanwhile, the state’s medical cannabis program continues to slowly move ahead. WMUR got to take a look inside one of the few legal growing operations in New Hampshire – here’s the video:
Once again, I’m throwing my hat into the ring for the office of governor for New Hampshire in the democratic race. The first time I did so was in 2014 where I garnered second place and received more than 4% of the vote against then-incumbent Maggie Hassan in a campaign where I accepted no campaign contributions and spent approximately $2.50 on postage to reply to various candidate questionnaires.
My goal was to spread the ideas of liberty and NH declaring independence from the federal government. That continues to be my goal. It’s unlikely I will defeat the establishment candidates who will be well-funded by the powers-that-be. However, I will do the best I can to spread the ideas of liberty and NH independence with virtually no campaign budget.
NH Liberty Party
In 2014 I had the opportunity to address the republican debate held at Franklin Pierce University, since the other two candidates in the democratic primary refused to debate. What will happen this time? Stay tuned here to the NH Liberty Party blog for campaign updates. Or, just sign up for emailed updates via the signup box in the right-hand column of NHLiberty.info. Hopefully we’ll be announcing other NH Liberty Party candidates for other state races as the filing period runs from today through June 10th.
Here’s a page with details about my campaign and my prime issues which include ending prohibition, declaring independence from the federal government, and ballot access fairness. Thank you for your interest!
Now in its fifth year, the Memorial Day parade peace contingent once again made an appearance in Keene’s Central Square on Monday morning around the time when the yearly Memorial Day parade was scheduled to begin. However, no parade came. Though this prevented us from joining the parade as has been the tradition for several years, it didn’t stop us from getting the message of peace out to those who were on the road that morning.
As usual, we received many positive reactions including waves, friendly honks, and thumbs-ups. Of course, there were a couple nasty drive-by commenters, including one city employee who claimed “we wouldn’t be there if it weren’t for the military”, to which Rich Paul responded, “yeah, I’d still be in bed”. Plus one other guy drove by and rattled off the tired, old comment about the peace sign being the symbol for the American chicken.
Thanks to everyone who was so supportive that drove past – you make it worthwhile!
Here’s a photo of this year’s peace contingent:
Rain on Memorial Day didn’t stop the peace contingent!
According to the Marijuana Policy Project‘s Matt Simon, the new compromised “decriminalization” bill discussed Tuesday at the state house isn’t going to change much of anything at all”.
On May 24th the senate met with the NH house to discuss a compromised cannabis “decriminalization” bill. The turnout for the meeting was very good, but the prohibitionist senators again stood in the way of real progress. This video contains the full press conference, the very short hearing, a recap by Matt Simon of MPP.org, and Rich Paul and I hounding a couple of prohibitionist police chiefs afterwards. Enjoy!
On Monday’s episode of Free Talk Live we went into detail about Rich Paul’s recent arrest in Salem, NH for possession of cannabis. We spent most of the last hour of the show discussing it. In short, a few weeks ago, Rich and a friend were heading back from dropping an activist at Boston airport and stopped off at a rest area once back in New Hampshire. While there, they smoked a joint before heading back out on the road. They were immediately pulled over before even leaving the rest area, as it turns out they had smoked up in the middle of an undercover police operation that was monitoring the rest area that day for heroin deals.
According to Rich, the police seemed disappointed they didn’t bust any heroin and would have been willing to issue them summonses and release them on the scene, but Rich’s passenger did not have ID on him, so they were taken back to the police station for booking. Ultimately they were released on PR bail and issued court dates. Both have been charged with Class A misdemeanors for possession, which means they could take this to a jury trial, unless the state reduces the charges to Class B.
If it does go in front of a jury, it will be the first time an NH liberty activist has gone to jury trial for simple possession. Rich is looking forward to his chance at a jury trial, especially since he is a minister of the Church of the Invisible Hand and considers cannabis to be a sacrament.
One big, and as-yet-unanswered question is whether the state will motion the court to impose Rich’s suspended sentence from his previous conviction for selling cannabis. Stay tuned here for the latest.
