The return of Bobby Harris > Rexroad.com

I have seen quite a few press releases in my life. Some good. Some bad. Some short but none quite as long as this one from Bobby Harris about this return to Woodland.

Read below.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE :

Controversial Woodlander Returns After Playing Pivotal Role In Prop. 215

A Woodland City Council Candidate in ‘90 & ‘92, Bobby Harris Brings Home
His Successful Prop. 215 Policy Advocacy

Arcata & Woodland, Ca. -- April 10, 2007 -- With startling irony, Bobby
Harris, a Woodland City Council candidate in 1990 and 1992, intends to
restore his 16 year residency in Woodland, after living for a decade in
Arcata, where during 1997 he originated the key legal concept of local
governmental implementation of California’s medicinal cannabis initiative,
Prop. 215 of 1996.

Harris was a boardmember of the Woodland Downtowners Association from 1986
to 1990, when he first became a candidate for city council. During this
election, a false claim of electricity theft by police led to a warrant
that discovered Harris’ small, medicinal, personal-use cannabis
cultivation in one of two homes near City Park he’d owned since 1983.

“Not only did local law enforcement falsely accuse me of stealing
electricity, unlawfully intruding on my city council bid,” states Harris,
“when required by law six months later to file my claims of such civil
rights violations, within a few days a spurious, retaliatory forfeiture
action against my property was filed, to block use of my property equity
to fund my claims.”

After a 30 month court battle that eventually gained international
attention on CNN, Harris lost his homes and property in an
asset-forfeiture process ruled unconstitutional less than a year later by
the U. S. Supreme Court.

Within the span of these two and a half years of in court, Harris became
the poster-person for civil rights abuses of state asset-forfeiture law,
as well as the legislative advocate who engineered its legal reform in
1992. Despite being unlawfully, economically executed, he sued the police
in federal court acting as his own attorney until, after being stonewalled
in this case for three years, he became destitute and homeless in late
1995.

Prop. 215 was at this time becoming a ballot initiative and Harris tied
his fate to it and several other legislative actions, including sponsoring
a bill to reform civil law discovery process which made historical
progress and was authored by a prominent Republican.

In July of 1997, Harris was retained as an advocate by a small group of
patients in Humboldt County, who were qualified through Prop. 215 and
greatly desired an immediate and stable approach to its implementation. He
persuaded the Arcata City Council of his novel interpretation of this new
voter-initiative statute, leading to its adoption of local law in January
of 1998 which became the basic policy model for the rest of the state and
was eventually established within an implementation statute by the
California Legislature (SB 420, 2003).

In 1998, the Orange County Register editorialized that among all of its
various activists, “Harris is perhaps the closest thing to a hero in the
struggle to achieve implementation of [Prop. 215],” because of his
creative and successful legal theory of local independence from state
authority, and also because of his proven abilities as an effective
legislative advocate, especially within such a controversial and difficult
area of public policy.

“I realized within a few months of Prop. 215’s electoral victory, that
this issue still remained far beyond any proper action under the dome,”
recalls Harris. “So, I focused upon discovering the potential architecture
of a valid legal option for enactment of relevant policy by local
governments. While the noted SFBay-Area liberal enclaves initially refused
to recognize the legal possibility of such policy, Arcata calmly and
rationally agreed with my unique approach, becoming the first community in
California to enact a medicinal cannabis ordinance, the basic model for
subsequent local governmental law on this subject.”

Since that initial breakthrough, local governments have increasingly
become the primary platforms for Prop. 215 policy development and are now
accorded such status within state law, all within the legal bounds of a
valid interpretation of this initiative statute. “At first, officials and
attorneys in Berkeley, San Francisco, Santa Cruz, Oakland and San Jose,
etc., didn’t accept this concept of their local authority. But after
Arcata adopted this plan, these other cities gradually followed,” explains
Harris.

“Development of Prop. 215 was of profound importance for me,” Harris
describes, “because in 1990-92 I raised a medical exception argument for
cannabis with several of the criminal attorneys the local government
provided for me -- after seizing the equity in my homes -- who refused to
pursue that legal theory and prospect, as being too novel and awkward,
although state courts even then recognized the validity of a legal
exception to criminal charges by means of a medical necessity defense.

“Prop. 215 has brought legitimacy to medicinal cannabis use, and recent
polling indicates 75% or greater public approval of this reform. Patients
who benefit from it are increasingly coming out of the closet and are safe
from legal problems,” asserts Harris, “as long as they stay relevantly in
the closet with a dimension of cultivation and possession that complies
with the practical matters and considerations regarding federal policy not
prosecuting individual patients. Federal resources are justifiably focused
on large production and distribution activities, many of which represent
significant violations of tax law.

“Prop. 215 patients who are reasonably cultivating for themselves and/or
in small support groups don’t generate enough of a profile to warrant
federal attention. Historically, modest (few hundred square feet or less)
cultivations are handled under state law. Indeed, state law has for many
years even allowed expungement of criminal charges for relatively small,
first-time, personal-use cultivation.

“Dispensaries in public operation are another level of patient conduct,”
relates Harris, ”where general ‘distribution’ within the meaning of Prop.
215 takes place. Arcata has three public dispensaries, which really serve
the entire Humboldt County area, with another outlet soon opening right
next door to the downtown post office. That’s how much of a public safety
and welfare problem such a situation is, here in Arcata, where there is a
decade of relevant experience.

“A middle-road approach is delivery service which transports medicinal
cannabis to patients. At least until federal issues are resolved, I
believe this option of distribution is the best legal and political course
for many communities, in conjunction with robust outreach programs that
assure reliable patient contact.

“Adoption of local governmental policy is required to lawfully and
properly conduct such implementation programs,” Harris claims, “without
which many patients remain forced to resort to historical, usually
unaffordable and possibly unsafe sources in the black-market. As I’ve
argued since 1997, a ‘white-market’ is essential to fulfillment of Prop.
215’s goals.

“’Affordability,’ is a literal key and generally neglected aspect of
implementation of this voter-initiative statute,” declares Harris. “If
properly conducted, reasonably sized cultivations should provide cannabis
to patients for around $200 per ounce or less. Policy should be enacted by
local ordinance, that sets such a cost ceiling for legitimate
distribution. Patients are then able to police their own circumstances to
best ensure lawful, white-market conditions.

“What’s been allowed to occur, through insufficiency or absence of
governmental action, is widespread, pseudo-legal distribution to patients
at unreasonable expense: $300, $400, $500 per ounce. Often, even in
locations with implementation programs, black-market cannabis is actually
cheaper. This is a primary failure of presently cast implementation
policy.

“If patients are simply provided with state law rights gained through
Prop. 215 and (so far) well interpreted by the state Supreme Court, they
are capable of organizing themselves into cooperative associations which
will satisfy the goals of this ballot initiative through ways and means
that will achieve relative comity with the federal system.

“When the Yolo County Board of Supervisors recently considered an agenda
item about Prop. 215 implementation, a few local patients who were aware
of me being in Arcata and so pivotal to this subject -- perhaps the
state’s leading expert on the topic -- contacted me and asked me to
immediately return and attempt to intervene in these matters. To quote
them -- ‘the time is now’ -- for Woodland and Yolo County.

“Alongside this cause, I’ve lately become somewhat frustrated with working
essential advocacy projects at the Capitol from such a huge distance away,
out on the far flung frontier,” indicates Harris.

“I moved to Yolo County in 1980, to live and participate in a wonderful
country community, attend UCD and eventually create a lobbying career at
the Capitol (Harris interned as a legislative advocate for the Ca. Coastal
Commission in 1986). Although I’ve immensely enjoyed a decade in Arcata,
my alterior home, now is surely the time to put my original program back
on track,” explains Harris.

“Honestly though,” says Harris, “the currently organized group of local
patients doesn’t possess economic resources to support advocacy for an
implementation effort, so I’m having to move back home to Woodland in
about the same rough shape I was in, when dispossessed of my former homes
and property in 1992. Presently, with a medicinal cannabis garden to
relocate and a familiy of cats to care for, I’m perhaps now in a more
challenging situation than ever before.

“Denied the economic stability desired to have an ordinary family, and
needing a durable defense against severe rodent infestations from
adjoining creeks and farms near Arcata’s student-ghetto, where I’ve lived
for eight years, I’ve more or less established a surrogate-family of cats.
These cats were born here and they don’t yet understand the notion of
relocation. I’m hoping I can protect them and we can find a new home.

“It’s been beyond my ability to financially recover from that forfeiture
disaster, and such experiences have certainly added a worthy dimension to
my political perspective, about crucial differences between economic
classes. I believe our culture unwisely squanders human resources, to
satisfy pernicious ideological demands for some system of social
Darwinism.

“Thus, I’m again scrambling to survive the unlawful economic execution
suffered so long before, in order to advance key policy goals in the
public interest, flowing directly from those very events that occurred
more than 17 years ago in Woodland.

“Ironically, if YONET (Yolo County Narcotic Enforcement Team, the combined
local governmental, drug-enforcement task force) and ensuing civil and
criminal prosecutions wouldn’t have violated my civil rights and
devastated my personal life, both the legislative reform of state
asset-forfeiture law and local implementation of Prop. 215 likely wouldn’t
exist today.

“Added irony is found in the fact that I now propose to return home to
Yolo County to educate not only local policymakers, but also the law
enforcement community, regarding legal matters related to medicinal
cannabis implementation. Also, I’ve worked as a law clerk for several
years, in the midst of my veritable Odyssey, so I hope to discover some
opportunities regarding this subject with members of the local bar
association.

“Certainly, if compounded civil rights abuses suffered during a gauntlet
of legal process wouldn’t have crippled me into a career as a rather
different kind of lobbyist than I’d planned to be, the Orange County
Register (the only large - 3rd largest circulation in state - newspaper to
endorse Prop. 215 in 1996), wouldn’t have described me as the ‘hero of
implementation.’ I had to travel to the utter fringe of California to
accomplish such a unique, legal and political task. Luckily, Arcata
realized the merits of my proposal and the historical challenge at hand,
and began the process and model for proper, durable implementation.

“The remaining task is to expand acceptance and adoption of proper law
within local venues, until the quality of political understanding and
resolve at the Capitol eventually enacts consistent policy throughout the
state. I’ve had bill language prepared by Legislative Counsel, with the
help of some cooperative legislators, for several years. Being so far from
the Capitol, though, it’s been impossible to secure authorship for this
measure or others of great significance for the public interest.

“I’m hoping to pursue these and other important advocacy goals when I
return to Woodland later this month,” says Harris.

Contact:

Bobby Harris
(707) 825 - 6545
Prop215@humboldt1.com

Comments

By YoloCalVet @ Wednesday, April 11, 2007 1:48 PM

There goes the neighborhood.....I guess it's time to sell out and move to Idaho.

By Josh @ Wednesday, April 11, 2007 5:17 PM

Seems like your typical blowhard.

By Super K @ Wednesday, April 11, 2007 5:42 PM

I've had a few e-mails go back and forth with Bobby Harris. From what I've seen in the e-mails and this press release, I like the guy.

He is interesting - no doubt about that.

He has a great 'live and let live' attitude, without judging other people or asserting that they need to live their lives in a way that he prescribes.

And this press release? I think this shows him to be a person with a combination of a sense of humor, and a sense of purpose.

He is not a stupid man. He doesn't think the press release is going to be taken seriously. Yet at the same time it gives him an opportunity to speak about something he feels strongly about.

Will it work?

Well, Matt posted it, and we read it.

By duane750 @ Wednesday, April 11, 2007 9:35 PM

Seems like this guy is a really nice fella, maybe we should have a welcome home party for him. LOL...

By Charlie in Japan @ Wednesday, April 11, 2007 10:26 PM

Hey..it’s a smart move by him...Board of Sups just voted for Medical Pot Cards...and most of Woodland sits on 'Ya' (Yolo Silt Loam)....That should grow a nice back yard garden for him. Prop 215 is a 'can of worms'...just brings in back into view. (In my most humble opinion) Charlie-san

By YoloCalVet @ Thursday, April 12, 2007 3:32 PM

WAVE can air the "Bobby Harris Show" kind of a cross between Cheech & Chong and Dr. Dean Adell...outakes of Timothy Leary. And a little Jim Jones to go!

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