Missouri Legalization Group Sues State Drug Task Forces

Show Me Cannabis Regulation (SMCR), a group working to fully legalize cannabis in Missouri in 2016—hemp farming, medical and recreational —released a report in early February detailing years of abuse in state drug task forces and announced Monday they will be taking legal action against three Missouri drug task forces “alleging violations of state laws requiring transparency from public officials.”

The report, Secret, Dangerous and Unaccountable: Exploring Patterns of Misconduct in Missouri’s Drug Task Forces is the culmination of years of research and “Sunshine Requests”, Missouri’s equivalent to Freedom of Information Act requests. All publicly funded acts of government are available to citizens in the state who file Sunshine Requests.

“The Sunshine Law exists because legislators decided that Missourians have a right to basic information about how their government agencies enforce laws and spend their tax money,” the report says.

The report was compiled by SMCR’s director of research, Aaron Malin. Malin requested records from every known drug task force in the state, often traveling to pick them up in person when specific departments claimed delays or inaccurately claimed documents would cost money to transfer to Malin.

His efforts were met with hostility and resistance, he was even mailed a blood-smeared envelope containing requested documents from one task force. Malin had the envelope tested and determined it was likely smeared with the blood of a primate, meaning either the blood came from a monkey or a human being.

The three task forces who refused to comply with open records requests now being sued by SMCR are the St. Louis Metro Multi-Jurisdictional Undercover Drug Program, the Kansas City Multi-Jurisdictional Task Force and the East Central Missouri Drug Task Force.

“This open defiance of the law … underscores that these task forces operate within a culture where they feel as though they are ‘above the law.’ It also provides more evidence that multi-jurisdictional drug task forces operate with next to no actual oversight,” Malin says in the report.

Show Me Cannabis first attempted to put their legalization initiative on the ballot in 2012, their narrow loss in that cycle has propelled the group to be in good position to legalize cannabis in the state in 2016. The issue of drug task forces runs deep in the state, and particularly for supporters of SMCR — a series of violent paramilitary style raids has been plaguing the state for years.

In 2010, a Youtube video of two retreating family dogs shot down by a SWAT team in front of a young child in Columbia, Mo., went viral online and brought attention to the overuse of SWAT. Further reports uncovered a SWAT team used to raid two college students smoking a joint and playing video games, another used to raid an elderly woman’s home—the wrong address.

Although many of the task forces claim they are working to stop the spread of dangerous drugs such as meth and heroin, SMCR says the task forces have been primarily focused on seizing marijuana. Further, through civil asset forfeiture laws, SMCR says these task forces have taken money the state has allocated to a public school revolving fund and pocketed it.