5A
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • MONDAY, OCTOBER 17, 2016
NOW HEAR THIS
Emergency agencies
turn off radio encryption
By DAVE COLLINS
Associated Press
AP Photo/Brennan Linsley
Diners smoke marijuana as they eat dishes prepared
by chefs during an evening of pairings of fine food and
craft marijuana strains served to invited guests dining
at Planet Bluegrass, an outdoor venue in Lyons, Colo.
Gourmet ganja?
Marijuana dining is
growing up, slowly
By KRISTEN WYATT
Associated Press
LYONS, Colo. — How to
set a tone of woodsy chic at a
four-course candlelight din-
ner served under the stars in
the Colorado foothills:
Live musicians and low-
ers, check.
Award-winning cuisine,
check.
Beer and wine pairings
with each course, check.
Marijuana pairings? Oh,
yes.
The 100 diners at this
$200-a-plate dinner smoked
a citrus-smelling marijuana
strain to go with a fall salad
with apples, dates and bacon,
followed by a darker, sweeter
strain of pot to accompany a
main course of slow-roasted
pork shoulder in a mole
sauce with charred root veg-
etables and rice.
And with dessert? Mari-
juana-infused chocolate, of
course, grated over salted
caramel ice cream and paired
with coffee infused with
non-intoxicating hemp oil.
The diners received small
glass pieces and lighters to
smoke the pairings, or they
could have their marijuana
rolled into joints by profes-
sional rollers set up next to a
bartender pouring wine.
Welcome to ine dining in
Weed Country.
Away from Doritos
The marijuana indus-
try is trying to move away
from its pizza-and-Doritos
roots as folks explore how
to safely serve marijuana
and food. Chefs are work-
ing with marijuana growers
to chart the still-very-unsci-
entiic world of pairing food
and weed. And a prolifera-
tion of mass-market cheap
pot is driving professional
growers to develop distinc-
tive lavors and aromas to
distinguish themselves in a
crowded market.
“We talk with the (mar-
ijuana) grower to under-
stand what traits they saw
in the marijuana ... whether
it’s earthy notes, citrus notes,
herbal notes, things that we
could play off,” said Corey
Buck, head of catering for
Blackbelly Restaurant, a top-
rated farm-to-table restaurant
that provided the meal.
The grower of one of the
pot strains served at the din-
ner, Alex Perry, said it won’t
be long until marijuana’s la-
vors and effects are parsed
as intently as wine proiles.
But that’s in the future, he
conceded.
“It’s still looked down
upon as a not-very-sophisti-
cated thing,” said Perry, who
grew a strain called Black
Cherry Soda for his company,
Headquarters Cannabis.
Holding his nose to a
small jar of marijuana, Perry
said, “If I asked my mom
or my dad what they smell,
they’re going to say, ‘skunk,’
or, ‘It smells like marijuana.’
But it’s like wine or anything
else. There’s more lavor pro-
ile there.”
But chefs and pot growers
trying to explore ine dining
with weed face a legal gaunt-
let to make pot dinners a real-
ity, even where the drug is as
legal as beer.
Colorado’s
marijuana
retailers can’t also sell food,
so guests at this dinner had to
buy a separate $25 “goodie
bag” from a dispensary for
the pot pairings.
The bags came with tiny
graters for diners to shave the
pot chocolate onto their ice
cream themselves; the wait
staff could not legally serve
a dish containing pot, even
though the event was pri-
vate and limited to people
over 21. Diners were shut-
tled to and from the event by
private bus, to avoid poten-
tially stoned drivers leaving
the dinner.
Marijuana dining may
become more accessible in
coming months, though.
Denver voters this fall
will consider a proposal to
allow marijuana use at some
bars and restaurants as long
as the drug isn’t smoked,
with the potential for new
outdoor marijuana smoking
areas.
And two of the ive states
considering recreational mar-
ijuana in November — Cali-
fornia and Maine — would
allow some “social use” of
the drug, leaving the poten-
tial for pot clubs or cafes.
Tasting rooms
Currently, Alaska is the
only legal weed state that
allows on-site marijuana use,
with “tasting rooms” possible
in commercial dispensaries.
But that state is still working
on rules for how those con-
sumption areas would work.
For now, marijuana din-
ing is limited to folks who
hire private chefs to craft
infused foods for meals
served in their homes, or to
special events like this one,
limited to adults and set
outside to avoid violating
smoke-free air laws.
Guests at the Colorado
dinner were admittedly
experimenting with pairing
weed and food, many gig-
gling as they toked between
bites. It became apparent
late in the evening that a rich
meal doesn’t counteract mar-
ijuana’s effects.
HARTFORD, Conn. —
Some police and ire depart-
ments are bucking a trend
to conceal dispatch com-
munications from the pub-
lic, acknowledging that radio
encryption has the potential to
backire and put irst respond-
ers in danger.
Agencies with digital radio
systems have turned off the
encryption to their main dis-
patching channels and oth-
ers have decided not to turn
it on. They say their ofi-
cers and ireighters may not
be heard during emergencies
by responders at neighboring
departments with radio sys-
tems that either don’t have
access to their encrypted chan-
nels or aren’t advanced enough
to have encryption capability.
Oficials also say they are
addressing concerns from
critics who argue encryp-
tion decreases police trans-
parency at a time when it is
needed, especially in the wake
of shootings of unarmed black
people by police oficers.
“The overwhelming opin-
ion of encryption is that it
works great for preplanned
tactical environments like
SWAT teams staging a situa-
tion,” said Eddie Reyes, dep-
uty chief of Amtrak police and
chairman of the International
Association of Chiefs of Police
communications and technol-
ogy committee.
“But for day-to-day opera-
tions where oficers are going
across borders in emergency
pursuits or foot pursuits, that’s
where it tends to break down,”
he said. “A good number of
agencies are still operating on
antiquated systems and would
not have the ability to accept
encryption.”
When Reyes was work-
ing for Arlington, Virginia,
police in 2006, he said, an ofi-
cer who fatally shot a teen-
ager outside a restaurant inad-
vertently switched over to
encryption mode on his por-
table radio. There was tempo-
rary chaos on the radio when
oficers en route couldn’t com-
municate with the oficer in the
shooting because their radios
weren’t in encryption mode,
Reyes said.
AP Photo/Dave Collins
Police Chief Christopher Edson points out the department’s
dispatching communications system in Naugatuck, Conn.
an encrypted channel that is
available,” he said. “But we
very rarely use it when dis-
cussing conidential or oficer
safety information. It is sev-
eral channels from our reg-
ular channe,l so as not to be
confused.”
Gathering trend
A slow trend continues
toward encryption, which has
been around for years. It hides
communications from public
airwaves by modifying voice
signals with coded algorithms,
preventing people from lis-
tening via radio scanners, the
internet and cellphone apps.
Only people with encryp-
tion “keys,” the information
needed to access the encrypted
channels, can listen.
Open government advo-
cates say the practice with-
holds crucial information
about emergency situations
from the public. Concerns also
have been raised by news orga-
nizations, which say it cuts off
journalists who monitor public
safety broadcasts from being
alerted to major events.
Police oficials say they’re
worried about the safety of
their oficers, because crimi-
nals have been known to track
oficers’ movements by listen-
ing to police communications.
They also say they want to pre-
vent the public broadcasting of
people’s personal information,
including medical histories
and juveniles’ names.
They further cite vio-
lence against oficers around
the country over the past few
months and the response to the
Boston Marathon bombings in
2013, when people listening to
police communications posted
misleading and inaccurate
information on social media.
Among police departments
that have recently encrypted
all communications are those
in Anchorage, Alaska; River-
side, California; Manchester,
New Hampshire; and New-
town, Connecticut.
“What happened this sum-
mer really culminated in mak-
ing the decision,” Newtown
Police Chief James Viadero
said, referring to violence
against police. “I had a legiti-
mate concern for my oficers.”
Opposite approach
Other departments are tak-
ing the opposite approach.
Police in New Orleans; Spo-
kane, Washington; and other
cities have vowed not to
encrypt their main dispatch
channels. Others that had
encrypted their communica-
tions have turned it off.
Police in Mansield, Mas-
sachusetts, turned off their
encryption more than a year
ago after oficers expressed
concern they couldn’t talk with
counterparts in some neighbor-
ing towns, Police Chief Ronald
Sellon said. Mansield is home
to the 20,000-seat Xinity Cen-
ter outdoor amphitheather, and
there were worries about com-
munications with other agen-
cies if there was a mass casu-
alty event at the theater.
Last year, Washington,
D.C., oficials switched off the
encryption for ire communi-
cations. The move came after
ireighters had problems using
their radios in a subway tunnel
during an emergency response.
The tunnel illed with smoke
because of an electrical mal-
function, killing one person
and sickening dozens more.
The Metro transit agency,
which had a radio system in the
subway that allowed below-
ground communications by
city ireighters, said the radio
problems were the result of
the ire department changing
its own radio system, includ-
ing adding encryption, with-
out telling the transit agency.
City oficials denied encryp-
tion caused the problems.
Police in Naugatuck, Con-
necticut, like many depart-
ments, are keeping their main
dispatch channel open to
the public while maintain-
ing encrypted channels to use
during tactical operations.
Naugatuck Police Chief
Christopher Edson cited the
need to be able to commu-
nicate with other emergency
responders, as well as the
expense of encryption, which
can cost several hundred dol-
lars per radio to implement.
Another issue was not wanting
to block out the public, he said.
“We also want to be trans-
parent,” he said, “during
this particular climate in the
country.”
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Dave Ham, Seaside police
chief said, “We do not use an
encrypted channel. It has not
been an issue for us.”
Cannon Beach Police Chief
Jason Schermerhorn said “All
the agencies in Clatsop County
mainly use the main dispatch
frequency which is plain lan-
guage and nonencrypted. This
is for clarity and transparency
to dispatch, oficers, and the
public.
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