NH Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on HB1623, "marijuana decrim," 4/22/2008.
Some distress, some hope (surprisingly enough). Evidently, the Committee unanimously and perfunctorily ITL'd it anyway, as reported here. You might wanna ask NHPR why the audio archive isn't posted yet, as of 4/27...
Looks like the prison industrial complex trotted out the cops to oppose the bill and I wonder if those police officers were getting paid by the taxpayers while they were speaking? If they were that is a very perverted system to have the people who pay the officers fighting against them.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I have a major problem with that notion, too. Happens way too often, though: public servants telling other public servants not to listen to the voters.
ReplyDeleteSeems unlikely there's any reason why they wouldn't have been on our dime. They were officially representing "our masters," after all. And certainly we shouldn't be telling them what to do, right...?
To be fair, though, Van Wickler (despite being a card-carrying member of the prison industrial complex, upper echelon, no less) is defintely a stand-up guy. You can hear his, and a beat cop's positive testimony in front of the House Committee here.