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About The skanner. (Portland, Or.) 1975-2014 | View Entire Issue (Dec. 5, 2012)
News Aryans CAMP Protest Winkler, who works as a logger, original- ly planned the compound on 17 acres of nearby land he purchased last year. But money woes have pushed that purchase toward foreclosure. ‘I’m just one guy that wants to bring people together to continue the struggle for white survival,’ — Shaun Winkler Winkler described himself as an imperial wizard in the White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, and said the compound will operate under a flag of the KKK, rather than Aryan Nations. ``This is an early step,” he said. ``It’s not going to happen overnight.” He considers himself a white separatist, who believes people of different races should live segregated lives. ``We aren’t here to kill anybody. We aren’t here to cause harm to anyone,” Win- kler said. “We just don’t want nothing to do with their society.” Bonner County, like much of the rest of the region, has a population that is over- whelmingly white _ about 96 percent of the 40,000 residents. Butler for nearly three decades operated out of a 20-acre compound that became a gathering place for white supremacists. He held annual meetings that drew hundreds of supporters. The land was auctioned off after he lost a lawsuit in 2000 brought by the SPLC on behalf of a woman and her son who were terrorized by Butler’s security guards dur- ing one of those annual meetings. Former community members and CAMP board members protested outside Centerstone, the former Central Area Motivation Program building. The group cites numerous examples of what they see as a disregard for the African American legacy of CAMP by the Centerstone executive director and board of directors, including the changing of the organization’s name over the objection of 2,000 community members. Pot continued from page 1 national weariness over failed drug laws didn’t hurt, either. ``Maybe ... the dominoes fell the way they did because they were waiting for some- body to push them in that direction,” says Alison Holcomb, the campaign manager for Washington’s measure. Washington and Colorado, both culturally and politically, offered fertile ground for legalization advocates -- Washington for its liberal politics, Colorado for its libertarian streak, and both for their Western independ- ence. Both also have a history with marijuana law reform. More than a decade ago, they were among the first states to approve med- ical marijuana. Still, when it came to full legalization, activists hit a wall. Colorado’s voters reject- ed a measure to legalize up to an ounce of marijuana in 2006. In Washington, organiz- ers in 2010 couldn’t make the ballot with a measure that would have removed criminal penalties for marijuana. Since the 1970 founding of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, reform efforts had centered on the unfairness of marijuana laws to the recre- ational user -- hardly a sympathetic charac- ter, Holcomb notes. That began to change as some doctors extolled marijuana’s ability to relieve pain, quell nausea and improve the appetites of cancer and AIDS patients. The conversation shifted in the 1990s toward medical mari- juana laws. But even in some states with PHOTO BY SUSAN FRIED continued from page 1 those laws, including Washington, truly sick people continued to be arrested. Improved data collection that began with the ramping up of the drug war in the 1980s also helped change the debate. Late last decade, with Mexico’s crackdown on car- tels prompting horrific bloodshed there and headlines here, activists could point to a stunning fact: In 1991, marijuana arrests made up less than one-third of all drug arrests in the U.S. Now, they make up half - - about 90 percent for possession of small gers. Steves, who lives in the north Seattle sub- urb of Edmonds, was a natural choice -- the ``believable, likeable nerd,” as he calls him- self. Known for his public television and radio shows, as well as his ``Europe through the Back Door” guide books, he openly advocated in 2003 for a measure that made marijuana the lowest priority for Seattle police. The ACLU chapter recognized that voter Thursday is ‘Legalization Day’ in Seattle, with a tote-your-own-ounce celebration scheduled beneath Seattle’s Space Needle — a nod to the measure allowing adults to possess up to an ounce of pot amounts -- yet pot remains easily available. “What we figured out is that your average person doesn’t necessarily like marijuana, but there’s sort of this untapped desire by voters to end the drug war,” says Brian Vicente, a Denver lawyer who helped write Colorado’s Amendment 64. ``If we can focus attention on the fact we can bring in revenue, redirect law enforcement resources and raise awareness instead of focusing on pot, that’s a message that works.” With a potentially winning message, the activists needed something else: messen- education would be crucial to any future reform, especially after polling revealed that many voters didn’t even know Wash- ington had a medical marijuana law. Holcomb helped recruit Steves to star in a 2008 infomercial designed to get people talking about marijuana law reform. The video was aired on late-night television and at forums held across the state, during which experts in drug policy answered questions from audiences. In November 2009, John McKay, the for- mer Seattle U.S. attorney, agreed to appear on one of those panels. McKay was well respected, from a prominent Republican family and had served as the Justice Depart- ment’s top prosecutor in western Washing- ton -- charged with carrying out U.S. drug laws. He called for a top-to-bottom review of the nation’s drug war and endorsed regulat- ing marijuana like alcohol. Suddenly, the legalization movement had traction. Over the next year, a voter initiative drive and legislative efforts gained steam but ulti- mately failed. California’s Proposition 19 legalization measure also failed in 2010. But even with little money and no signifi- cant editorial endorsements, in an off-presi- dential election year with lower youth turnout, Prop 19 received more than 46 per- cent of the vote. Holcomb thought: Imagine what Wash- ington could do in a presidential year, with an endorsement from McKay and some money. So, with the backing of the ACLU’s state chapter, Holcomb formed New Approach Washington. In June 2011, the group announced Initiative 502, to legalize up to an ounce of marijuana and to create a sys- tem of state-licensed growers, processors and retail stores. It was tailored to gain mainstream support: There would be no home-growing, and there would be a DUI standard designed to be comparable to the See OUNCE on page 6 Scam continued from page 1 Shirley Giffin. Around Nov. 10, four more official-look- ing notices came in the mail. By month’s end, he’d received nearly 20. All included bar codes or seals resembling those of gov- ernment agencies, legal language, and fine print — all apparently designed to convince the desperate or gullible of their legitimacy. ``I thought, `Oh, heck. This is a scam,”’ Dwight said. Charlie Rosenzweig, the chief criminal deputy at the Cowlitz County Sheriff’s Office, said mail fraud cases like these are common. ``They seem to go kind of in cycles where we don’t see one in three to four months and then we get half a dozen in a week,” Rosen- zweig said. people who feel they’ve b e e n scammed to contact local law enforce- ment agen- cies. But — Charlie Rosenzweig, Cowlitz County Sheriff chief t r a c k i n g criminal deputy down the cul- prits can be difficult, He said the public should remember that ``if it sounds too good to be true, it’s proba- largely because the operations are based in other states or foreign countries. bly not true.” The FBI refers to the phenomenon as Rosenzweig also cautioned that legitimate businesses will never demand money in ``mass-marketing mail fraud.” A report on exchange for a big payoff. He encouraged the agency’s website said the scams are often run by organized crime groups in ‘They seem to go kind of in cycles where we don’t see one in three to four months and then we get half a dozen in a week’ North America, Europe and other parts of the world. An almost sure indication that the Giffins’ letters amounted to a scam: The notices appeared to come from different companies, but the same signature was scrawled across the bottom of many of them and they all included the same Miami post office box — P.O. Box 527800 — as a return address. The address appears on numerous online mes- sage boards warning people of the grift. Shirley Giffin said she worries ``some lit- tle old lady or little old man on a tight budg- et” could fall prey to the scammers. ``I could see where they could just get taken like a son of a gun,” she said. December 5, 2012 The Seattle Skanner Page 3
