A standing-room-only crowd showed up to the NH state house on Tuesday to testify against a bill that would ban Kratom, SM758, only to discover that at the senator who submitted the bill changed it at the last minute into a bill that would instead regulate Kratom. It was a sneaky move on the senator’s part, as it flipped the energy in the room. Most of the average folks who’d taken time off to come out and speak against the potential prohibition of Kratom were then relieved that it was now a regulatory bill, without understanding that regulations are also bad for freedom and will hurt the industry.
If you’re not familiar, Kratom is a plant in the coffee family that has helped people break additions to opiates and has helped others with pain relief, while for others it helps them with productivity.
Last year, Bedford police targeted 2020 Republican candidate for governor of New Hampshire, “Nobody” for felon-in-possession of a weapon charges over a machete they found with other garden tools in the trunk of his car. This, despite the fact that a machete does not qualify as a weapon in New Hampshire unless used, intended, or threatened as such.
After charging him and dropping the charge, not once, but twice, Nobody, who at the time was called by his given name Rich Paul, was finally able to get the robed man at Hillsborough Superior Court North in Manchester to order the police to allow Nobody to pick up his machete.
This video includes the full hearing for the return of the machete and our visit to the police department in Bedford to retrieve it:
Unidentified Conservation Commission Member Attacks Ridley – Can you ID this man?
An as-yet unidentified member of the “City of Keene” Conservation Commission has been recorded on video assaulting and battering Dave Ridley of RidleyReport.com. In a recent series of videos recorded in Keene, Ridley visits a meeting of the Conservation Committee in City Hall. As is his typical “ambush” style, Ridley waits outside the meeting location with his video camera and some completely legitimate questions at-the-ready for any member of the commission or any other government bureaucrat.
While one commission member, former Keene police chief Arthur Walker, is quite willing to converse with the “poor man’s TV station” newsman, a couple of others violate Ridley’s personal space and one grabs his camera – a clear case of assault and battery. Ridley forgives the first man who touches him after the man says he’s sorry, but the other guy who assaults and batters him is unrepentant and Ridley calls him a goon. The white-bearded commission member tells Ridley to look in a mirror, suggesting Ridley is the goon for simply asking basic questions of the attacker who is serving in a supposedly public position. See the crime here on video for yourself:
Here’s the full list of the members of the Keene Conservation Commission. Does anyone know who the man is? Based on internet photos, I believe the assailant is one of the first three on this list:
Kenneth Bergman
Thomas P. Haynes, Alternate
Steven Bill, Alternate
Alexander Von Plinsky, IV, Chair
Eloise Clark, Vice Chair
Mayor George Hansel
Brian Reilly
Art Walker
Andrew Madison
If you know which of these people is “goon guy”, please post in the comments. Stay tuned here to Free Keene for the latest on this developing situation.
It’s a plant. Holding it should not result in jail.
Three years after cannabis possession by adults in New Hampshire was first decriminalized, there’s another bipartisan house bill in play this session that will go even further. I recently reported here on HB 1648 when NH 2020 gubernatorial candidate “Nobody” and I went to testify at the house committee hearing for the bill. Of all the speakers at the hearing, only one person spoke against it. Not even the police bothered to send a speaker to speak against the bill – it was an amazing hearing.
Now, the votes are in from the full state house, and it has passed the house with a veto-proof margin – 236 to 112! Though it was veto-proof, it was just barely so, with just over 67% of those attending today voting in favor of it. In 2017, the state house voted nearly 90% in favor of the initial cannabis decrim bill.
HB 1648 is a really good cannabis decrim bill that improves on the one passed in 2017 that made possession of under 3/4ths of an ounce of flower and under 5 grams of concentrate a violation instead of a misdemeanor. If it passes this year, HB 1648 will eliminate any penalty for people over 21 possessing those amounts. It will no longer be something police can act on at all. The bill, significantly, also allows adults to grow their own cannabis at home.
The bill is not perfect, of course, as I pointed out during my testimony in the two-hour long hearing. It still treats people under 21 like children by retaining violation-level penalties for people between 18 and 21, and also penalizes people under 18 for possession by forcing them into the juvenile system. That’s not fair or right. Also, the limits on the amounts that would be legal to possess are too low. That said, it’s a major step in the right direction and does it without creating a taxing and regulatory structure. Also, please note my summary of the bill is based on its text as-introduced. It was passed with an amendment that is currently not available to read online.
Hardcore civil disobedient activists who came out in the rain for 4/20/2019!
Next, the bill heads to the NH senate and its sponsors already include one democrat and one republican state senator, so hopefully that bodes well for its chances. We know that the current republican governor, Chris Sununu signed the first cannabis decrim bill in 2017 but has opposed legalization. That he opposes legalization is actually a good thing however, as all of the legalization bills so far have included regulations and taxes on cannabis. People who want freedom support ending prohibition but should not support taxing and regulating cannabis. Cannabis should be free to grow, sell, and possess without any penalty and that includes having to beg permission from the state gang to offer it to others.
While the decriminalization bill doesn’t decrim sales of cannabis, it is still a big step away from reducing the harm done to adults by the insane war on drugs and allows people over 21 to possess it without fear of police assault. Hopefully the governor will support this continued decriminalization of this amazing plant. If not, hopefully the NH senate will also pass it with a veto-proof margin. Stay tuned here to Free Keene for the latest.
After a decade of attending various cannabis legalization and decriminalization hearings at the Concord state house, this week’s hearing for HB-1648 was refreshing. HB 1648 is a really good cannabis decrim bill that goes even further than the one that passed in 2017 that made possession of under 3/4ths of an ounce of flower and under 5 grams of concentrate a violation instead of a misdemeanor. If it passes this year, HB 1648 will eliminate any penalty for people over 21 possessing those amounts. It will no longer be something police can act on at all.
The bill is not perfect, of course, as I point out during my testimony in the two-hour long hearing. It still treats people under 21 like children by retaining violation-level penalties for people between 18 and 21, and also penalizes people under 18 for possession by forcing them into the juvenile system. That’s not fair or right. Also, the limits on the amounts that would be legal to possess are too low. That said, it’s a major step in the right direction and does it without creating a taxing and regulatory structure.
The real shocker at the public hearing this week was the lack of any police presence. Having attended these cannabis hearings over more than a decade, this is the first time where the police not only did not speak against the bill, but weren’t even there watching. The chiefs of police association did sign the blue sheet against the bill, and were the only ones to sign against it. All other signatures were for the bill. Plus, of all the various people who spoke, there was only one who spoke against it, the woman from prohibitionist busybody group “New Futures”. All the other voices were in favor of the bill passing.
Nobody told the house Criminal Justice panel that rather than punishing people under eighteen by putting them into the harsh juvenile system if they are caught with cannabis, the most the state agents should do is call their parents. He said further, “The idea that kids should be subject to more criminal liability than adults kind of flies in the face of reason, when you think about it. I mean, we’re going to attach a criminal penalty to your behavior because your mind is not well enough formed yet to make decisions that have a lasting impact. Well, don’t you think it’s possible that taking criminal sanction against somebody has a lasting impact on their life? Maybe they shouldn’t be bound to that by a decision they make so young.”
With nearly 60% of the vote, Vermin Supreme is victorious in a closed primary vote held by the Libertarian Party of New Hampshire! The entertaining, longtime satirical candidate has run for President of the United States under both the republican and democrat parties over the year and this time has thrown his boot in the Libertarian party’s primary ring for their 2020 nomination.
Supreme has spent a lot of time campaigning in New Hampshire, including an epic, armed pony march on Concord’s state house last month. His New Hampshire campaign manager and national chief strategist, Richard Manzo said this about his decisive win in an exclusive interview for Free Keene, “I think this is very much a proof of concept, that recruiting younger members to the LP is possible with the right messenger. I think the young people we recruited to the party tipped the scales in Vermin’s favor.”
For the last three presidential elections, the national Libertarian Party has put forward terrible presidential candidates. Bob Barr, the former republican congressman, was their embarrassing choice in 2008. The national LP’s selection in 2012 and 2016, former republican governor of New Mexico Gary Johnson, was barely an improvement on Barr. These choices were bad enough because they propagate the mistaken idea that libertarians are somehow right-wing. However, if Barr or Johnson actually had embraced the non-aggression principle and were communicating it during their campaigns, I could forgive them. At least they would have been on-message. They weren’t.
Today at their annual convention in Concord, the LPNH tallied up the votes that were mailed in by their membership in a closed party presidential primary. Using ranked choice voting, 44 of their 110 members cast votes in the primary, with 26 of the 44 voters choosing Vermin Supreme. That’s over 59%! It was a decisive victory.
Maybe there’s hope for the national Libertarian Party, as even the satirical Supreme is a better presidential nominee than former republicans, simply for the entertainment factor alone. However, it wouldn’t surprise me if they choose another former republican governor, this time Bill Weld, as their nominee. In 2016, Weld was given their vice-presidential nomination and went on to promote Hillary Clinton during his campaign appearances. The only time Weld ever addressed the non-aggression principle during his campaign was when I asked him about it at his appearance at Keene’s Central Square.
Good luck, Vermin. In a world where LP members appreciated good satire and had a sense of humor, you’d win nationally. Sadly, I don’t expect to see that happen. Kudos to LPNH’s members for sending a message to national with their nomination.
