So you've got some weed and you're heading somewhere to smoke it, but then, in a sad twist of misfortune, you trip and your stash falls out at the feet of an officer of the law.

Busted, right? Not necessarily, says Nick Mills, 26, of Bedford. Mills is the local representative of Temple 420, a purported Judeo-Christian flock in Hollywood that's been signing up as many sheep as it can find since its creation in July. Advertised in papers like this one across the nation, the temple solicits $10 for information about how to "SMOKE WEED LEGALLY in all 50 states." Inquiring heads are then directed to www.temple420.com where they're asked for a donation of $100 to become eligible for a membership, which includes legal representation whenever misdemeanor pot possession charges are leveled.

Mills says that a temple attorney will claim the accused was using marijuana for religious purposes. The temple, an actual Hollywood gathering place with a bar, VIP room and regular comedy nights, capitalizes on a little-known 2005 U.S. Supreme Court ruling (Gonzales vs. O Centro Espirita Beneficiente do Vegetal) that affirmed the legality of drugs if used for legitimate religious purposes.

A case is pending in Delaware County, Ohio in which a "420 Nation" member is using the defense. But it's all still in the budding stages.

"Right now, the effort is to become an established organization where there's so many members that the law just can't ignore the issue anymore," Mills says.

Group founder Craig X Rubin (nicknamed "Hollywood's Wizard of Weed") uses his Web site to promote his books, 9021GROW and Jesus Smokes Weed: "In the very last chapter of the Bible, Revelation 22 states that there will be a plant for the healing of all nations that will have 12 uses and be harvested 12 months a year. I know this is cannabis."

Of course, the police just know this is bullshit. "I'd say it's pretty much a hoax," says Cleveland police Lt. Tom Stacho. "There's no legal way to possess or use marijuana in this state."

WWJD, Lieutenant? — Dan Harkins

IDENTITY CRISIS

Lawyers seem to have found the right strategy to attack the most insidious provision of Ohio's new election laws, requiring voters to bring ID to the polls.

Cleveland attorney Subodh Chandra has been railing against various provisions of the law for months. In August he filed a lawsuit against letting poll workers demand citizenship papers from voters they thought might be naturalized citizens. But voter ID was a tougher nut to crack. After all, voters had a slew of alternatives before them: passports, utility bills, drivers' licenses, Social Security numbers. There seemed little to go after.

But then Chandra started hearing stories of absentee voters being turned away, of absentee ballots being held to unnecessarily higher ID standards, and of boards of elections around the state giving differing answers to what sorts of ID would be accepted. The situation screamed of violations of due process and equal protection rights under the U.S. Constitution.

On Tuesday, Chandra and two other law firms filed a lawsuit in federal court against Secretary of State Ken Blackwell for not creating uniform interpretations for BOEs on the voter ID provisions. The lawyers are representing the Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless and Service Employees International Union, Local 1199.

"The muddled statutory scheme and defendant [Blackwell's] failure to [provide] guidance on the issue have led to Board of Elections applying different interpretations of the laws to absentee voters," the lawyers write in their motion for a temporary injunction on the ID requirements.

Though Ohio's Republican legislators, quite disingenuously, implemented voter IDs as a way to prevent fraud, the morass BOEs find themselves in now portend a much greater threat: a midterm election so blatantly and fundamentally unfair that it could possibly be nullified.

For example, as Ohio law now stands, voters must bring a government-issued ID to the polls, like a driver's license. Chandra, however, discovered that some BOEs are not accepting Ohio drivers licenses with former addresses, even though the statute does not mandate a current address. As he writes in his motion, Trumbull County is denying voters regular ballots if they present valid licenses with old addresses. Under the same circumstances, next door Mahoning County will let voters cast a ballot.

In Cuyahoga County, BOE Executive Director Michael Vu said that driver's licenses with old addresses would be accepted. But Chandra learned that his staff denied at least one voter the right to cast a regular ballot. And of 63 Ohio BOEs with Web sites, only four stated that valid driver's licenses with former addresses are OK.

Chandra et al make their case today for a temporary restraining order on the voter IDs. Their hearing is at 1:30 p.m. in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio, Eastern Division, before Judge Gregory L. Frost. — Charu Gupta

FRINGE AND PURGE

As if Ohio didn't have enough real problems with its elections, an Internet rumor spread like wildfire last week, enflaming paranoid progressives. On October 18, an individual calling himself K Street Projector posted a discussion thread on left-wing blog DailyKos.com, titled "ACTION ALERT: Blackwell purged Ohio Voter Rolls Oct 1st."

In it, the D.C.-based writer claimed that "a friend" attended a luncheon of "GOP insiders," one of whom "abruptly stopped the conversation" by telling the gathering that a new "Diebold voter registry system" had sent letters to 1.2 million voters in transient areas (low-income and universities) that appeared to be merely informational but in fact had a hidden kicker: If the recipient didn't respond in 60 days, he or she would be purged from the voter rolls. The thread generated hundreds of hysterical responses urging assaults on local media to expose the injustice, and hand-wringing about the hopelessness of it all.

But so far no one has produced a copy of the letter.

Not Vicki Lovegren of the voting advocacy group OhioVigilance; nor Christopher Nance of Conrgesswoman Stephanie Tubbs Jones' office and attorney Leslye Huff, who are overseeing the election observer effort in Cuyahoga County; nor Tom Powell-Bullock, who's organizing Cuyahoga County election protection for the Strickland campaign; nor Ohio Democratic Party communications director Randy Borntrager — who added that such a purge would be difficult under Ohio statute. That was echoed by Columbus-based elections activist/attorney/investigative journalist/Green party gubernatorial candidate Bob Fitrakis, who also hasn't seen such a letter.

Fitrakis also explained his unwitting role in fanning the flames of the purge-letter rumor.

Rob Kall of OpEdNews.com quoted Fitrakis in a way that made it sound as if he was confirming the letters' existence: "We're going to try desperately to get to the bottom of this and try on Friday to get an injunction — Monday, at the latest."

"What [Kall] didn't write," Fitrakis explains, "was "if' we find the information. I said we're going to see if it's true, and if it is, I'll be in court Monday. He wrote as if it were a foregone conclusion."

— Anastasia Pantsios

AT THE PD, IT'S NEVER MILLER TIME

Apparently the Plain Dealer is capable of writing about shady land deals involving taxpayer money. It's just selective.

Sunday's PD included a front-page knee-capping of developer Todd Davis, who reportedly turned a $350,000 investment in once-contaminated land on Kinsman Road into a $3.6 million profit — on our dime. According to the article, Davis collected a total of $4.7 in public funds to clean up the site and prepare it for development as an industrial park, but ultimately sold it to the Cleveland Municipal Housing Authority. CMHA — which is consolidating operations, not creating jobs — agreed to pay a staggering $150,000 per acre, before getting an appraisal.

On Tuesday, the PD reported that U.S. Sen. George Voinovich was demanding an investigation, and an op-ed piece hailed the intrepid reporters. Funny, though, that the same newspaper has written nothing about the time Sam Miller pulled a similar stunt.

Free Times' October 4 cover story, "Tainted," explained how a subsidiary of Miller's Forest City made $2.75 million on the land near East 93rd and Quincy that hadn't actually been cleaned up — in fact, it still contains dangerous chemicals. But that hasn't slowed the county's plan to build the new juvenile courthouse on the site.

The similarities to Davis's deal, as reported by the PD, are striking. Both developers made millions by selling land back to the public — though Miller hadn't bothered to clean up the contaminants; he just somehow got the county to pay as if he had. In both cases, appraisal companies were used as pawns to ensure a top-dollar return.

But you won't read about any of that in the PD. Just editorials mocking juvenile court judges for not wanting to move to the East Side because there aren't enough good places for lunch there.

We're not the only ones who've noticed the disconnect. Noting Free Times' recent cover story and the PD's silence, Michael D. Roberts writes in this month's Inside Business, "At best, this disgraceful story is a moral indictment of Forest City Enterprises, it makes the County Commissioners appear suspect and the Plain Dealer clueless. And the rest of us lose more and more trust in a failing community." — James Renner

chatter@freetimes.com

RUST BELT REPORT

Browns owner orders firing of offensive coordinator Maurice Carthon.

Rejects Coach Crennel's compromise: find Carthon a harmless office job and transplant his knees into injured corner Gary Baxter.

300 millionth American may have been born in Cleveland Heights.

"We're thrilled!" say parents, while packing for Solon.

Thieves steal historic gong from City Club.

What do you want to bet Sam Miller's using it to summon servants to the dining room?

Ohio Amish families do not want food stamps.

"And you can keep your godless Section 8 vouchers, too, English!"

Cleveland Institute of Art hopes to be known for its video-game design program.

Keep an eye out for Sims Election Fraud and Myst VI: Burning Riven.

American Greetings will tear down Memphis Drive-In to make employee "walking path."

"And nobody better make eye contact with me when I'm usin' it!" shouts Ziggy before handlers abruptly end press conference.

Local Nationwide branches want to hire more black agents.

They just don't.

Mentor business evacuated after gas sensor goes off, but firemen find no cause for alarm.

Owner blames it on the dog.

Cleveland police dress up as prostitutes to nab perverts.

Or, someone at HQ needed to explain away expense reports from the Frederick's of Hollywood catalog.

Lakeland Community College prof known as "Coupon Man" saves $10,000 a year in groceries.

Uses savings to pay family to be seen with him.

Ohio nuclear facilities will require drug tests for the first time.

See article in this month's How Did We Dodge That Bullet? magazine.

ELEPHANT HUNTING-

TRACKING AND TAGGING OHIO'S RIGHT-WINGERS

There's a point at which a star becomes so dense it begins to collapse into itself, forming a dark void too dangerous to go near. The Ohio GOP has finally reached a critical mass of corruption. Now, we watch as it collapses and begins to suck. In the last two weeks we've witnessed:

€ Republican Congressman Bob Ney pleading guilty to felony charges of conspiracy and making false statements. He admitted to accepting illegal gifts from lobbyist Jack Abramoff and said he would resign from Congress in a few weeks.

€ The ongoing trial in Toledo for Tom Noe, the GOP stooge who invested Bureau of Workers' Compensation money in his collection of rare coins. He's already been convicted of funneling illegal contributions to President Bush during his reelection campaign. P.S.: Republican candidate for Attorney General Betty Montgomery still has not returned the contributions she received from this man.

€ The Findlay Courier's "unendorsing" Blackwell: "His total nastiness at the [recent] debate with his opponent, Democrat Ted Strickland, has proven that he's really not the kind of man we need as our next governor. Š The only people who react positively to negative campaigning are those who are as mean-spirited as the message. And thankfully, there aren't enough of them to make a difference at Ohio's polls." Daaaaamn!

But at least the reasoning was clear. The Plain Dealer offered an endorsement of Mike DeWine that the incumbent probably wishes it would take back. The PD described DeWine as a "go-along, play-along senator who recognized the downsides to war in Iraq, yet still voted to give President Bush carte blanche against a nation that had not attacked us," and a "curiously passive senator who has allowed the Bush administration to ride roughshod over congressional prerogatives in national security and intelligence matters."

So in other words, he shares the blame for every American casualty in Iraq, for all of the hundreds of billions of dollars squandered there, and for the administration's conviction it can wipe its ass with the Bill of Rights, the Geneva Conventions and every other document it deems a nuisance. But we should still vote for him.

If Sherrod Brown had been as hard on DeWine as the PD was in endorsing him, this race would be as lopsided as Strickland-Blackwell.

— James Renner and Frank Lewis