[UPDATED] The Hakken Child Abduction Story Apparently Started With a Simple Marijuana Arrest

UPDATE: Det. Daniel Seuzeneau, who it turns out
is the public information officer for the Slidell Police
Department, and not the officer who arrested Joshua Hakken, emails:
"Mr. Hakken, as far as we know, was not at an anti-government
rally. I never made that statement and don’t know where that came
from." 

It's been 24 hours since Joshua Hakken allegedly
broke into his mother-and-law's house in Tampa, tied her up
with zip ties, and left with his sons Cole and Chase--who are two
and four years old--in his mother-in-law's car. Florida law
enforcement authorities say the "anti-government" couple of Joshua
and Sharyn Hakken are now on the run with Cole and Chase in tow.
Law enforcement agencies in Georgia, Alabama, and Louisiana have
all issued child abduction alerts, as well as disseminated pictures
of the Hakken family. 

Over the course of those 24 hours, we've learned a thing or two
about the Hakkens from law enforcement and the media. The story
taking shape is both tragic and infuriating, as it appears from an
interview with officials in Louisiana that the couple's problems do
indeed stem from Joshua Hakken's 2012 marijuana arrest. 

Here's what we know at this point about the chain of events that
led the Hakkens to "abduct" their own children:

• Joshua Hakken, an engineer from Tampa, Florida, was arrested
  at an "anti-government
  rally" in a hotel in Slidell, Louisiana, on June 17, 2012;
  and charged with "Possession of Marijuana, Possession of Drug
  Paraphernalia and Possession of a controlled dangerous substance in
  the presence of a minor."


• 
  According to Det. Daniel Seuzeneau, the Slidell police officer who
  arrested Joshua Hakken a public information officer for
  the Slidell Police Department, Hakken ”was under the influence
  of narcotics and also had narcotics inside his hotel room and he
  was speaking kind of out of his mind a little bit.” 


• Seuzeneau says that Department of Children and Family Services
  was called, the kids were taken, and Hakken was jailed for "maybe a
  week or so but not very long.”


• The children were placed in temporary foster care in
  Louisiana.


• Allegedly armed with a firearm, Joshua Hakken tried to "abduct"
  his children from the foster care facility, and then left when he
  could not get inside.


• According to multiple media outlets, a judge in Louisiana gave
  permanent custody of the Hakken children to Sharyn Hakken's mother
  in Tampa on Tuesday of this week. 


• On Wednesday, Joshua Hakken broke into his mother-in-law's
  house shortly after her husband had gone to work,
  restrained her with zip ties, and left with the kids. Several
  hours later, his mother-in-law broke free and called the
  police. 


• The Amber Alert issued by Hillsborough County (Florida)
  Sheriffs Department says the Hakkens "are anti-government," have
  "attempted a previous abduction at gun point in Louisiana," and
  "are considered armed and dangerous."


• Joshua Hakken is facing two counts of kidnapping, two counts of
  interference in child custody, two counts of child neglect, one
  count of false imprisonment, burglary with a battery, and grand
  theft auto. If he was armed when any of that happened, Florida's 10-20-Life law
  could come into play. 

While I haven't been able to figure out anything about the
"anti-government" rally Hakken was allegedly attending in Slidell,
or what happened between June 2012 and Wednesday of this week, his
and his wife's political beliefs are hardly the danger that law
enforcement officials are making them out to be.
From The
Tampa Bay Times:

In February 2012, someone writing as "SailingBull" posted to the
website for Adam vs. The Man, a forum "about challenging authority,
sticking it to the man, and giving the millennial generation a
voice."

"My name is Joshua Hakken," he wrote. "I am a father, a
registered professional mechanical engineer and a veteran of the
USAF. I am absolutely devoted to life, liberty, the rights of the
individual and the Constitution of the United States of America.
"

After saying that he had noticed that "things here in Florida
have not added up for quite some time," he concluded, "in these
crazy times, maintaining open communication lines for ideas,
observations and news is absolutely crucial if the 'good guys' are
to be successful in surviving to maintain the fight of ideas."

That same story includes several quotes from neighbors about how
normal and pleasant the Hakkens are, save for a rather careless
habit of smoking pot in their driveway. 

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Huge News: 52 Percent of Americans Now Support Legalizing Marijuana

"For the first time
in more than four decades of polling on the issue,"
reports the Pew Research Center, "a majority of Americans favor
legalizing the use of marijuana. A national survey finds that 52%
say that the use of marijuana should be made legal while 45% say it
should not." 

Here's the demographic breakdown: 

The survey by the Pew Research Center, conducted March 13-17
among 1,501 adults, finds that young people are the most supportive
of marijuana legalization. Fully 65% of Millennials –born since
1980 and now between 18 and 32 – favor legalizing the use of
marijuana, up from just 36% in 2008. Yet there also has been a
striking change in long-term attitudes among older generations,
particularly Baby Boomers.

Half (50%) of Boomers now favor legalizing marijuana, among the
highest percentages ever. In 1978, 47% of Boomers favored
legalizing marijuana, but support plummeted during the 1980s,
reaching a low of 17% in 1990. Since 1994, however, the percentage
of Boomers favoring marijuana legalization has doubled, from 24% to
50%.

Generation X, born between 1965 and 1980, came of age in the
1990s when there was widespread opposition to legalizing marijuana.
Support for marijuana legalization among Gen X also has risen
dramatically – from just 28% in 1994 to 42% a decade later and 54%
currently.

The Silent Generation continues to be less supportive of
marijuana legalization than younger age cohorts. But the percentage
of Silents who favor legalization has nearly doubled –from 17% to
32% – since 2002.

H/t Tom Angell

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Covered at Reason 24/7: Oregon Considers Legalizing Marijuana

Legalizing just medical marijuana might not
be able to get a hearing in places like
Florida, but the effort to legalize recreational marijuana
continues elsewhere.

From the Statesman-Journal:

Forty years after Oregon became the first state in the
nation to decriminalize possession of small amounts of
marijuana, lawmakers are considering a bill that would regulate its
production, processing and sale.


"Marijuana legalization is coming to Oregon sooner rather than
later," said Anthony Johnson of Portland, Ore., an activist who
leads New Approach Oregon. "It makes sense to regulate marijuana
like alcohol and for the Legislature to take the lead on the issue
and make sure sensible regulations are in place."

There’s a lot more money to be made for the government in
keeping drugs illegal than there ever was in keeping gays from
getting married, so don’t expect politicians to jump on the
anti-drug war bandwagon as fast as they did in support of gay
marriage. Nevertheless, the eventual end of the drug way may be
becoming just as inevitable as gay marriage.

Follow these stories and more at Reason 24/7 and don't forget you
can e-mail stories to us at 24_7@reason.com and tweet us
at @reason247.

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Army Veteran, Medical Marijuana Patient Jeff Crawford Not Evicted

Yesterday
afternoon was the moment of truth for U.S. Army Veteran Jeff
Crawford, who, due to his medical marijuana use was
in danger of losing the subsidized housing he receives through
the nonprofit Volunteers of America.

Crawford was understandably nervous about the meeting, fearing
that he would be separated from his wife and two sons if he didn't
start passing drug tests. But Ben Perdue, a case manager with VOA
that has been sympathetic to Crawford’s use of marijuana to treat
his stomach ulcers, migraines, and arthritis, called the whole
situation, “a big misunderstanding.”

In a phone call, Perdue said, "He’s not going to be evicted at
all. Drug screening is just to help us help people who fall off the
wagon with drugs like heroin." I also spoke with Orlando Ward,
executive director of external affairs for VOA in L.A., who said,
"It’s not an untruth in terms of our transitional housing policy
[that he could be evicted], but we consider the medical needs that
are there… In this case, we don’t have approval from the VA [for
medical marijuana use].”

Crawford says he's getting mixed signals from the Department of
Veterans Affairs, too. He claims his case worker, Katie
Hashimoto, initially told him that if he didn't return a clean
urine analysis he could be put in Narcotics Anonymous, removed from
his apartment with VOA, and separated from his family. When
Crawford met with Hashimoto yesterday, he says she denied telling
him he could ever face those consequences. An attempt to reach
Hashimoto for comment was met with a referral to VA's public
affairs office in L.A., where a public affairs specialist told me,
"Marijuana is not prescribed by VA clinicians nor dispensed by VA
pharmacies because to do so would be a violation of federal
law."

That doesn't actually clear things up for Crawford. We do know
it's not impossible for a veteran to get help from the VA while on
medical marijuana.
VHA Directive 2011-004 states basically that the VA will
neither help a veteran get access to a drug that is still
classified as Schedule I by the Controlled Substances Act nor will
they deny services if done in a state where it is legal, such as
California. (The VA's outdated opinions on medical marijuana is a
subject that
I've written about before.)

For now, it looks like Crawford
is clear of the immediate danger of losing his housing, but he has
been asked to submit to regular drug tests and produce notes from
his doctors that recommended using medical marijuana.

As Ward said: "It's our job to be flexible and work with folks,
but we have to think of the 20 other people in the program... We
help over 4,000 veterans each year." Ward added that although he's
heard of a few reasons why VOA might want to transition Crawford to
more "appropriate housing,"—noise complaints and a difficulty
coming up with rent money—they're not going to simply make "an
arbitrary transition."

When I spoke with Crawford and his wife yesterday evening after
the meeting they were understandably relieved to be home but remain
on edge. He says that a security guard comes to his apartment once
a week about noise, even when his family is asleep. In an email,
Crawford wrote:

So on top of the latest scare re: my medicine, which, btw, I do
not take around my kids, I have this menacing security guard
who follows us with his lights out at night and always seems to be
parked outside our unit... I feel the Volunteers of America
are going to try to find any reason to complain about us and have
us removed. I understand now why there are so many homeless
veterans (Freedom Fighters). Give us a break.

This situation has gotten Crawford support from several
different agencies: Americans for Safe Access, the Assistance
League, California NORML, Oaksterdam University, and Veterans for
Medical Marijuana Access. Hopefully they can all work together with
VOA to keep Crawford and his family stable and on their feet.

Read More

The Illusion of Effective Marijuana Regulation in Colorado

"We need to maintain the edifice of what
continues to work in Colorado," declared Norton Arbelaez of the
Medical Marijuana Industry Group at a January 24 meeting of the
Amendment 64 Implementation Task Force's Regulatory Framework
Working Group. Crucial to that system, explained Meg Sanders of
Gaia Plant-Based Medicine, is "seed-to-sale production tracking,"
because "we need to make sure we are accountable for what we're
producing until it reaches the consumer." The alternative, Arbelaez
warned, is California-style chaos, which he presented as "a
cautionary tale" of "cannabis run amok." The problem in California,
he said, is that "the lack of a statewide seed-to-sale regulatory
framework has made controlling diversion and effective regulation a
near impossibility."

Arbelaez, Sanders, and their allies in the
medical marijuana industry, who stand to benefit from rules that
impede new competitors, argued that the state's strict regulations
explain why the Justice Department has been relatively light-handed
in Colorado, allowing hundreds of dispensaries to continue
operating. They said preserving that system, including a rule
requiring marijuana retailers to grow at least 70 percent of what
they sell, would discourage federal interference with the new
recreational market. And in the end, as I noted
last month, their views were reflected in the task force's
recommendations to the state legislature, based on the premise
that, as Erica Freeman of Choice Organics put it, "you have a
regulatory system in front of you that works very well." 

But as a
state audit issued this week confirms, that system never really
existed. Sure, there was an impressive-looking, 220-page book of
Colorado Medical Marijuana Statutes and Regulations, and
there was a Medical Marijuana Enforcement Division (MMED) within
the state Department of Revenue. But Colorado's vaunted
"seed-to-sale" monitoring system, which was supposed to include
electronic plant tags, 24-hour video surveillance, and records of
every marijuana transfer, was never actually implemented. "The
envisioned seed-to-sale model does not currently exist in
Colorado," reports State Auditor Dianne Ray, and in any case "may
not make sense," especially now that the legal marijuana market is
expanding to include recreational users. As a result of inadequate
manpower, funding shortages, and poor financial management, Ray
says, the MMED not only has failed to create the high-tech tracking
system it envisioned; it does not even "review forms designed to
track medical marijuana activities and inventories and ensure
that medical marijuana is not being diverted from the system."
That's right: Although medical marijuana businesses are required to
file forms whenever they move any of their product, no one ever
looks at them.

Furthermore, state inspectors visit medical marijuana businesses
during the application process but generally do not check in again
after they are up and running, so it is hard to say how many of
1,440 or so operations officially overseen by the MMED (including
producers of cannabis edibles as well as dispensaries) are actually
complying with regulations such as the 70 percent rule or the limit
of six plants per patient. MMED Director Laura Harris tells me
enforcement is "complaint-driven," although "we have to prioritize
our complaints because we have a limited number of investigators
whose primary mission at this point has to be conducting
pre-licensing inspections." The auditor's report recommends
discontinuing those inspections in favor of "risk-based
on-site inspections of the licensed businesses as part of a
comprehensive monitoring program."

The report estimates that pre-approval inspections of all 2,400
applicants who sought state licenses prior to a two-year moratorium
that began in August 2010 "would take about 12,300 hours,
 which equals the work of six full-time equivalent staff in a
year." It adds that "the number of Division staff available to
perform these on-site inspections has been as high as 19 but has
been reduced to 10 as of February 2013." You can start to see why
it takes so long to obtain a license. According to the audit, "The
shortest approval time was 436 days, while the longest approval
time was 807 days." The average was about two years. "Out of about
2,400 pre-moratorium applications," the report says, "the Division
has approved or denied only 622, or about 26 percent [as of last
October]. The rest of the applications were still pending (41
percent) or were voluntarily withdrawn by the applicant (33
percent)." Pre-moratorium cannabis businesses are allowed to
continue operating in the meantime.

The extra time spent processing applications does not
necessarily translate into extra care. In a a sample of 35
applicants, the audit found "potentially disqualifying information"
about 13 (37 percent), including four out of the 10 who had
received licenses. The audit likewise found that the occupational
licensing required for employees of cannabis businesses "is not an
efficient and effective method for determining eligibility to work
in the medical marijuana industry." It does not reliably screen out
people with disqualifying criminal records, for example, largely
because the MMED typically issues employee licenses before it sees
the results of background checks.

Other problems noted in the audit include "weaknesses in the
Division's fee-setting, strategic planning, and expense controls"
that have contributed to chronic revenue shortfalls, which led the
MMED to lay off most of its staff last year. The audit questions
the wisdom of "large capital purchases, such as furniture, computer
equipment, and software for a marijuana plant tracking system" (the
one that still does not exist). Meanwhile, the MMED "underreported
sales tax revenue generated by 56 dispensaries by about $760,000
for Fiscal Years 2011 and 2012 combined."

This is the same agency that the Amendment 64 task force wants
to entrust with regulation of the recreational market. Some state
legislators are skeptical. "If they couldn't handle the little
piece they have now,"
says Rep. Brian DelGrosso (R-Loveland) "there's no way we can
trust them to handle more." But The Denver
Post reports
that supporters of the current system are undeterred:

Michael Elliott, executive director of the Medical Marijuana
Industry Group, said the state's regulation works but needs
funding. Although the state might lack oversight, he said, "the
vast majority of business owners are staying in strict compliance
with state law."

I don't know if that's true or not, and it really doesn't matter
to me whether the current marijuana businesses are complying with
the state's arbitrary rules. But Elliott and other advocates of
strict control have sold those rules as the key to preventing
massive diversion of marijuana to other states, which they warn
would provoke a federal crackdown. It may well be the case that the
appearance of careful, comprehensive regulation has
helped keep the feds out, and it may also have reassured some of
the voters who supported Amendment 64. But we should not confuse
appearances with reality.

"There are folks in this industry [who] are interested in
maintaining that status quo," says Harris, who as head of the MMED
should know a thing or two about the reality of marijuana
regulation in Colorado. "What you will hear from many in industry
is that this works. Well, I'm not as optimistic about it working.
If it worked, we would be able to present evidence of how the model
works toward good enforcement....I'm not as optimistic that the
theoretical model works as well as I think they hoped it
would."

Read More

NY Legislators Introduce Medical Marijuana Bill, Bitcoin Enjoying Increased Popularity Amid Crisis in Cyprus, New Zealand May Introduce Press Regulator: P.M. Links

• New York legislators have introduced a medical
  marijuana bill despite the fact that Gov. Cuomo has said that
  he is not in favor of such legislation. 

• 
  Bitcoin is becoming increasingly popular in Europe as more
  people seek ways to keep governments away from their
  money. 

• 
  New Zealand could follow the U.K.'s
  example and introduce a regulator for the press. 

• For the second year running Californian
  regulations have prevented the sale of kosher
  Coca-Cola. 

• Gay couples could face
  higher taxes if the Supreme Court rules that DOMA violates the
  Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution. 

• A prohibition-era law is still on the books in
  Pennsylvania that forbids alcohol bought outside its
  borders from being brought in. 

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