Global Ganja Report

Federal Judge Shira A. Scheindlin on May 16 approved a class-action lawsuit challenging the New York Police Department's stop-and-frisk tactics, saying she was disturbed by the city's "deeply troubling apathy towards New Yorkers' most fundamental constitutional rights." The decision provides potential legal recourse for hundreds of thousands have been caught up in the department's aggressive stop-and-frisk practice, which has resulted in hundreds of illegal cannabis arrests and critics say unjustly targets Blacks and Latinos.

A UC San Diego student left in a federal holding cell for days without food and water has filed a $20 million lawsuit against the government. Daniel Chong, 23, was picked up in a Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) raid April 21. After questioning him, agents told him that he would not be charged and to wait in the holding cell until they finished the paperwork to release him. He spent four days alone in the cell, apparently forgotten.

Organizers failed to win an emergency temporary restraining order in Boulder District Court barring the University of Colorado from closing its Boulder campus to the public on April 20—the day of what has become an annual "420" cannabis smoke-in. Police showed up in force and even spread the campus' Norlin Quadrangle with foul-smelling fish fertilizer to keep tokers away from their intended gathering point. But a few hundred protesters defied the crackdown and rallied on another field—where many lit up at 4:20 PM.

A new study finds that NYPD cops in the Bronx made hundreds of unlawful cannabis arrests over a five-month period last year—despite a warning from Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly. The study, released April 2 by the advocacy group Bronx Defenders, shows that illegal stops and searches are an "epidemic" in the Bronx, said the group's executive director Robin Steinberg.

The US Supreme Court ruled 5-4 April 2 in Florence v. Board of Chosen Freeholders of County of Burlington that a suspect's Fourth Amendment rights were not violated when he was strip-searched upon entering jail. Albert Florence was arrested in New Jersey after being pulled over, when it was found that there was an outstanding warrant against him for failure to pay a fine—a non-criminal offense in the state. He produced a letter stating that he had paid the fine, but the officer made the arrest anyway. Florence was taken to a local jail where he was forced to strip naked for inspection. He was transferred to another facility a week later, and was again subjected to a strip search.

ThinkProgress notes that over the last 48 hours, there has been a sustained effort to smear Trayvon Martin, the unarmed 17-year old African American shot dead last month in Sanford, FL, by self-appointed "neighborhood watch" vigilante George Zimmerman—who has notoriously still not been arrested. Martin's mother, Sybrina Fulton, said, "They killed my son, now they're trying to kill his reputation." Sleazy tricks apparently include circulation of a picture on Michelle Malkin's website Twitchy of a tough-looking kid in baggy pants which was passed off as from Martin's Facebook page (it wasn't—his actual Facebook photo is pictured here). Here are some other dirty tricks documented by ThinkProgress:

The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled Feb. 23 that mouth swabs may be used to extract DNA samples from any adult arrested on felony charges in California. The 2-1 decision upholds a 2004 voter-enacted provision, Proposition 69, that amends the DNA and Forensic Identification Database and Data Bank Act of 1998, requiring law enforcement officers to collect such samples from all felony arrestees. This mandate was challenged by the plaintiffs as a violation of Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable search and seizure. Justice Milan Smith, Jr.  affirmed the lower court's denial of plaintiffs' motion for a preliminary injunction. (Jurist, Feb. 24)

Fear is growing in Northern California's cannabis hub of Humboldt County over a wave of busts and home break-ins. The Sheriff's Office is searching for four unidentified male suspects after a report of a home invasion robbery in Salmon Creek Feb. 9. Sheriff's deputies were dispatched to the residence before 6 AM after a 911 call from the residence reporting that four men with ski-masks and shotguns had forced entry, tied up the caller and his wife, and made off with 30 pounds of cannabis and more than $3,000. Held for about an hour as the assailants searched the premises, the caller managed to free himself after they fled. (Eureka Times-Standard, Feb. 9)