Undercover USFS agents lurking at smoke-huts!

[stupendous man]

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Won't somebody think of the children?

[Cono Este]

What kind of idiot gets high with a stranger?

Tip, come on now, you were young once, maybe a dead show, a ganjola ride? Or a 100?

[smitchell333]

“According to the Colorado Skier Safety Act they violate the law whether they ski under the influence of drugs or alcohol. Just a couple hits of a joint or drinking a pint and they’re considered under the influence,” he says. "

Too bad they won't start arresting the tourons at the on mtn eateries for having beers at lunch.

Exactly. They dont seem concerned in the least about the folks boozing it up.

[iceman]

Get a Card Hippy!!!

Ummm... what?

[Stone-Free]

while up at steamboat a few weeks ago there were LEOs at the top of the gondola monitoring people coming off to see if they were doing anything "illegal."

I've heard of that at Breck, Keystone, and Vail too. I've never seen them, but it makes you think twice about hitting it.

[yonskion]

Ummm... what?

I love Hippy's... Jah bless you all
In Oregon Medical Marijuana card holders can carry up to 1.5 lbs on them...is that enough?
Just like chewing gum in school.. don't chew gum in class, unless you brought enough for everyone.

[72Twenty]

I don't smoke it anymore, but when I used to have many safety meetings in a given day at Mary Jane, we always disappeared for a while - never in plain view, popular spots and/or on the lift.

[iceman]

I'm not a hippy, I just don't know what you're talking about with "get a card".

[Ireallyliketoski2]

Stoners and drunks don't belong on the slopes at a ski resort, all they do is put people's lives in danger.

[Toadman]

quote of the day:

“In our world, given staffing levels and the other problems we may be dealing with, if someone is smoking a joint and doing nothing but—on our priority list that’s somewhere below cows on the road,” he says.
Crested Butte Chief of Police

Yes, they need more cow control. I once had an encounter with a cow on the back roads of Winthrop, WA while riding my Mtn. Bike. The whole time I was thinking, where the hell are the cops, don't they know there are cows on the road?!

[killclimbz]

It's USFS I don't think the medical Marijuana card would get you out of ticket. Seeing as how that is state law and the Forest Service is charging under Federal Law which still sees any use as illegal.
Still a bs use of tax dollars.

[rsknight1]

"Don't tase me Bro"

[NameTaken]

What kind of idiot gets high with a stranger?

Well, thats why no one gets high with YOU :P.

[homerjay]

I've heard of that at Breck, Keystone, and Vail too. I've never seen them, but it makes you think twice about hitting it.

I think Tower 4 on the Vail gondy has a camera. Smoke accordingly.

Closing day the past few years had USFS and county sheriffs with german shepards and the party kept on going.

[yonskion]

It USFS I don't think the medical Marijuana card would get you out of ticket. Seeing as how that is state law and the Forest Service is charging under Federal Law which still sees any use as illegal.
Still a bs use of tax dollars.

They still have to catch you. Most stoners can ski faster than any Federal Law Enforement Officer on a their best day. Only a small percent of USFS are Law Enforcement. They are big time trouble if you tangle.... USFS Cop's are mostly concerned with People camping more than 14 days in one spot, "Pot Growers", Game Violations and Trespassing into closed areas. They can only respond to reports that invole Forest Service Land.

[killclimbz]

Yeah, I agree that just about anyone on this board could out ski them. Just sayin' that a medical marijuana card isn't going to get you out of a ticket if it gets to that point.

[freezorburn]

Got'ta be kidding. Can't the Police go and bust REAL criminals? or is that just too hard?

[Cono Este]

Got'ta be kidding. Can't the Police go and bust REAL criminals? or is that just too hard?

Its way too hard, and plus criminals dont pay their fines as quickly.

[yonskion]

Yeah, I agree that just about anyone on this board could out ski them. Just sayin' that a medical marijuana card isn't going to get you out of a ticket if it gets to that point.

I still have a hard time believing that a State issued "MM Card" will keep you out of trouble with a Red Neck Sheriff looking to prove a point.

......Smokey

[KillingCokes]

I love Hippy's... Jah bless you all
In Oregon Medical Marijuana card holders can carry up to 1.5 lbs on them...is that enough?
Just like chewing gum in school.. don't chew gum in class, unless you brought enough for everyone.

State law doesn't trump federal law as shown so well in the most recent Supreme Court decision. A medical pot card will do nothing to protect you. USFS cops will press their charges against you in federal court. They don't have to wait for anybody, as most ski areas are on USFS land.

More proof of the Land of the Free actually becoming a police state

[dookeyXXX]

quote of the day:

“In our world, given staffing levels and the other problems we may be dealing with, if someone is smoking a joint and doing nothing but—on our priority list that’s somewhere below cows on the road,” he says.
Crested Butte Chief of Police

Cows on the road is some serious shit. That's an accident waiting to happen. I've come over a rise on an open 2-lane backwoods highway only to have Open Range cattle milling around in the middle of the road with a semi coming at me from the other direction. They should definitely make COTR a higher priority.

As for blazing, discretion should be the motto of the day.

This past weekend I was actually amazed to watch a guy spark up in the lift line in front of 2 off duty patrolers and then tell the patrolers that they should have been wearing their jackets so they could have gotten first chair. I swear the guy actually worked at the resort and had the brazen cajones to spark up right there in the lift line in front of co-workers and patrol. I'm pretty open minded and mellow on all fronts, but that was just a little too much. Discreet can be so complete sometimes. Total disregard for it, however, makes you look like a complete idiot.

[powder11]

what is it with Colorado? I think high altitude living makes people really dumb.

[KillingCokes]

Oh and if you didn't like my POLICE STATE comment read this. 1 in 99.1 people in the land of the free are in prison. More than any other country in the world

By DAVID CRARY, AP National Writer NEW YORK - For the first time in history, more than one in every 100 American adults is in jail or prison, according to a new report tracking the surge in inmate population and urging states to rein in corrections costs with alternative sentencing programs.
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The report, released Thursday by the Pew Center on the States, said the 50 states spent more than $49 billion on corrections last year, up from less than $11 billion 20 years earlier. The rate of increase for prison costs was six times greater than for higher education spending, the report said.

Using updated state-by-state data, the report said 2,319,258 adults were held in U.S. prisons or jails at the start of 2008 — one out of every 99.1 adults, and more than any other country in the world.

The steadily growing inmate population "is saddling cash-strapped states with soaring costs they can ill afford and failing to have a clear impact either on recidivism or overall crime," said the report.

Susan Urahn, managing director of the Pew Center on the States, said budget woes are prompting officials in many states to consider new, cost-saving corrections policies that might have been shunned in the recent past for fear of appearing soft in crime.

"We're seeing more and more states being creative because of tight budgets," she said in an interview. "They want to be tough on crime, they want to be a law-and-order state — but they also want to save money, and they want to be effective."

The report cited Kansas and Texas as states which have acted decisively to slow the growth of their inmate population. Their actions include greater use of community supervision for low-risk offenders and employing sanctions other than reimprisonment for ex-offenders who commit technical violations of parole and probation rules.

"The new approach, born of bipartisan leadership, is allowing the two states to ensure they have enough prison beds for violent offenders while helping less dangerous lawbreakers become productive, taxpaying citizens," the report said.

While many state governments have shown bipartisan interest in curbing prison growth, there also are persistent calls to proceed cautiously.

"We need to be smarter," said David Muhlhausen, a criminal justice expert with the conservative Heritage Foundation. "We're not incarcerating all the people who commit serious crimes — but we're also probably incarcerating people who don't need to be."

According to the report, the inmate population increased last year in 36 states and the federal prison system.

The largest percentage increase — 12 percent — was in Kentucky, where Gov. Steve Beshear highlighted the cost of corrections in his budget speech last month. He noted that the state's crime rate had increased only about 3 percent in the past 30 years, while the state's inmate population has increased by 600 percent.

The Pew report was compiled by the Center on the State's Public Safety Performance Project, which is working directly with 13 states on developing programs to divert offenders from prison without jeopardizing public safety.

"For all the money spent on corrections today, there hasn't been a clear and convincing return for public safety," said the project's director, Adam Gelb. "More and more states are beginning to rethink their reliance on prisons for lower-level offenders and finding strategies that are tough on crime without being so tough on taxpayers."

The report said prison growth and higher incarceration rates do not reflect a parallel increase in crime or in the nation's overall population. Instead, it said, more people are behind bars mainly because of tough sentencing measures, such as "three-strikes" laws, that result in longer prison stays.

"For some groups, the incarceration numbers are especially startling," the report said. "While one in 30 men between the ages of 20 and 34 is behind bars, for black males in that age group the figure is one in nine."

The nationwide figures, as of Jan. 1, include 1,596,127 people in state and federal prisons and 723,131 in local jails — a total 2,319,258 out of almost 230 million American adults.

The report said the United States is the world's incarceration leader, far ahead of more populous China with 1.5 million people behind bars. It said the U.S. also is the leader in inmates per capita (750 per 100,000 people), ahead of Russia (628 per 100,000) and other former Soviet bloc nations which make up the rest of the Top 10.

[JaneRider]

I heard one of the dudes busted in CB on the radio a few days ago. He called in to some idiotic morning show that had a lawyer on the air fielding questions. He said the cops (I'm not sure if he id'd them as USFS cops or not) were milling around the hut, wearing gaper gear, and pretending to work on their boards. When the puffage began, they were offered a hit and declined. Then, they waited to see who was smoking and then pounced.

What I don't undersand is who shows these cops where the huts are? In my experience, it's always taken one of two things to locate the on-mountain huts at a new resort: either someone showing me or myself putting in some significant time exploring a resorts' trees. Since I'm guessing these gaperific cops aren't spending a lot of time dodging tree limbs looking for pow ...

[el_jefe]

full text of the cb news story:

Feds crack down on illegal “smoke shacks”
Written by Evan Dawson
Wednesday, 20 February 2008
Some skiers cited

United States Forest Service law enforcement agents have been searching Crested Butte Mountain Resort this past week investigating the extent of illegal “smoke shacks.” Some skiers were caught with illicit items on Sunday, February 17, when Forest Service agents observed them allegedly smoking marijuana at one of the shacks.

Illegal structures can be found from the extreme limits terrain to high traffic areas right under a lift. Their construction ranges from simple lean-tos to fully enclosed tree houses.

But regardless of where or what, it’s unlikely that anyone had a building permit—the shacks are illegal structures, built on Forest Service land without permission. And while many people may know they exist, few may know where.
CBMR vice president Ken Stone says, “I’m sure we’ve got a few… I know they’re probably all over just about every ski area in Colorado.”

CBMR assistant mountain manager Dale Massey says the Forest Service is concerned about the extent of illegal structures on Crested Butte Mountain Resort. “They don’t look kindly on stuff being built in the forest, regardless of what it is,” Massey says.

Mountain manager Jack Gibbons says, “Forest Service law enforcement approached us about going into National Forest on the ski area and having a look around. Obviously they knew there were some structures out there that were problematic and they don’t like them.”

According to U.S. Forest Service patrol captain Dan Nielsen, “It is illegal to construct, or maintain any structure on forest service land without special use authorization.” He says maintenance would include tightening string or wires holding the structure together, or clearing a path to access a structure.
Nielsen says inspecting the ski area for illegal structures is a routine procedure. “We’ve worked with the other resorts and found similar structures,” he says.

The structures pose several problems, Nielsen says. One of them is safety concerns. He says, “If somebody is skiing through the trees and isn’t aware something is there it could create a crash hazard.” He says people also tend to congregate around the structures, and then skier-on-skier collisions could occur.

Aside from safety, the shacks pose environmental concerns and natural resource damage. “If you build these things they tend to use a lot of native materials. In some of the structures it was apparent they used awls from some of the surrounding trees,” Nielsen says. The structures also used nails, rope, and wire that can accumulate in the forest, or damage trees they are affixed to, he says.

Damage to the trees could lead to bark beetle infestation, Nielsen says, a problem that is afflicting thousands of acres of National Forests across the state, but has yet to overtake the Crested Butte area.

Nielsen says the law enforcement officers also observed trash in the snow in and around some of the half-dozen structures they investigated.
However, just because the shacks are found doesn’t mean they will immediately be taken down, Nielsen says. “It depends on the circumstance. If it poses an immediate threat to public health and safety we get in there and try to get them removed as quick as possible. If there’s no immediate threat we’ll do it at the first available opportunity.”

Massey says CBMR doesn’t have an official policy on smoke shacks. At times in the past, Massey says, the resort would work together with the Forest Service to eradicate the illegal structures. But, he says, eventually the resort relaxed its practice. “Of course, you tear one down, and four more pop up. It went by the wayside after some time,” Massey says.

The Forest Service officers went beyond just investigating the illegal shacks. On Sunday, February 17 Forest Service agents were present at one of the shacks when several skiers appeared and began smoking marijuana. Nielsen says the officers had probable cause to search the skiers after observing their behavior.

“They were observed smoking marijuana, which is illegal in the state of Colorado. It is illegal regardless of where you’re at on federal property,” Nielsen says.

Nielsen says the skiers were issued a summons in U.S. District Court in Grand Junction. Nielsen said he did not have the details of how many skiers (or snowboarders as they were not identified) were present or issued summons.
Nielsen says the skiers weren’t breaking the law just because of possessing marijuana, but also because they were smoking it while skiing at the resort. “According to the Colorado Skier Safety Act they violate the law whether they ski under the influence of drugs or alcohol. Just a couple hits of a joint or drinking a pint and they’re considered under the influence,” he says.

Nielsen says the Forest Service will be following up on the summons to see if it can be learned who built the shacks. “If it can be determined who built the structure, or who has been maintaining the structure, they will be cited,” he says.

Mt. Crested Butte police chief Hank Smith says because the agents were acting on federal authority, they can issue summons only in a federal court.
Smith says, “In this state possession of less than an ounce is a petty offense. There’s no chance of jail. The fine is usually 200 bucks.”
Smith says the Mt. Crested Butte police do not handle many situations of marijuana use at CBMR. “In our world, given staffing levels and the other problems we may be dealing with, if someone is smoking a joint and doing nothing but—on our priority list that’s somewhere below cows on the road,” he says.