Why would law enforcement be against legalization; do they work on commission? If the Pigs have $100,000.00 to burn, where did they get so much money; from selling confiscated contraband?

@dry white toast

It's really simple. It's the Sheriff's association that put in the money. Sheriff's are charged with jailing people. So if you get arrested by Portland PD you are booked by the Multnomah County Sheriff. If pot is legalized that means a SHITLOAD of people aren't going to need to be jailed. Then their funding will go down because it won't require anything close to the amount of resources to keep the jails operating. The Sheriff's Association gets money from the union and union dues. They are against it not because it doesn't make total sense but because their funding will dry up and probably cut into many deputies overtime pay they collect.

So yeah I guess they do kind of work on commission in a sense.

How does the public know that all the confiscated contraband is properly accounted for? Is the defendant going to complain if the quantity he is charged with is lower than actuality? Who's word to we have to take that it's all present and accounted for? Does the Merc have reporters on the scene of the arrest to witness and report the factual details?

It's disturbing how close this vote appears to be, and a bit embarrassing.

Opponents to legalization actually wrote the fatally flawed bill, so that heads would reject it and opponents could proclaim the issue dead.