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