Posts by Russell Brown
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Amplifier's 2012 Top 20 is a great shopping list of NZ albums.
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Hard News: Switched on Gardener: to what…, in reply to Tom Semmens,
I wonder if the disconnect between the draconian consequences of being convicted of participation in an organised criminal group and the actual facts of what the accused have got up to is leading to juries simply refusing to convict?
I wonder too. It's also worth noting how unimpressed judges have been with some police actions in this case.
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Hard News: Switched on Gardener: to what…, in reply to andrew r,
I talked to a few Crown Prosecutors about the case.To them Switched on Gardner were selling equipment and making tens of thousands in profit. Equipment that the owners knew was to be specifically used for gowing cannabis which in some cases they argue, would then be on sold.
You know what's highly ironic about that? Some of the equipment seized in Operation Lime was later onsold at police auctions.
Therefore, they say, prosecution was both necessary and worth while regardless of the cost.
It wouldn't have been so bad if police and prosecutors had communicated that the practice that had let SOG trade and advertise for 15-odd years was to change, and let the owners and managers make their choices. Instead, police embarked on an expensive, nationwide operation that made aggressive use of search warrants and undercover officers -- and yet didn't anywhere near live up to its billing in the end.
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Today's extreme weather saw Bryan Gould's flight from Tauranga cancelled and any thought of driving the distance swiftly abandoned. Toby Manhire stepped ably into the breach for this evening's recording.
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Hard News: Switched on Gardener: to what…, in reply to Angus Robertson,
If this sort of leverage can’t be made to work we end up only prosecuting for cannabis those people who commit other crimes (mostly poor people) and who are then found to be involved in cannabis. Without this sort of approach we will be letting the richer parts of society commit cannabis crimes almost without consequence.
Being young, poor or brown -- and especially all of the above -- will increase your chances of being prosecuted for a cannabis offence. But how on earth does Operation Lime alter that?
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Hard News: Switched on Gardener: to what…, in reply to Luke Williamson,
Some shops were selling home-made beer at the counter
I might be wrong, but wasn't it one employee at the store in Tauranga who sold some seedlings and one other some actual pot? Given the aggressive use of undercover officers to go and and ask for these things over several years, it's not exactly the face of organised crime.
The police admitted to leaving out of their reports the encounters where undercover officers had been told by staff they wouldn't even discuss cannabis.
and staff were known to drink some at lunchtime in canteens in which fridges had been installed, specifically for storing home brew below room temperature.
At the staff Christmas party? I've worked places where that has been the case.
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Hard News: Switched on Gardener: to what…, in reply to Angus Robertson,
If the organised criminal group prosecution had been successful this next step would have been easier, but the police probably still have enough leverage to get SOG employees to cooperate.
I rather think that the police exercising "leverage" on people to "cooperate" is pretty much the kind of undesirable behaviour we're talking about.
And will it work? No. It's worth recalling that the indoor growing business is basically a result of past enforcement efforts directed at outdoor cultivation. The police used to fly helicopters over Ponsonby and Grey Lynn back yards. They don't bother with that any more.
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Hard News: The Public Address 2012 Word…, in reply to Graeme Edgeler,
Doesn’t it seem weird, but 9/11 isn’t part of the last decade.
Quite so. But you could certainly argue that its influence on the past decade has been prodigious.
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Hard News: Looking at Leveson, in reply to Aidan,
Then I read Kenan Malik. Damn he is impressive.
It's a very strong argument. I've just followed him on Twitter.
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Hard News: Looking at Leveson, in reply to Aidan,
I still think yes to Leveson (like my opinion matters), but now I’m filled with doubt.
Oh, me too.