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Fine Paid, Yacht Freed After U.S. Seized It Over Tiny Amount of Pot

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Associated Press

The $2.5-million yacht Ark Royal, seized under the tough new “zero tolerance” policy when the Coast Guard found a tiny amount of marijuana aboard, was released Tuesday after payment of $1,600 in fines and fees.

The 133-foot boat left the Key West Customs dock later Tuesday, said Miami’s U.S. Customs Service spokesman Michael Sheehan.

The seizure under the new policy had been criticized by boat owners and civil libertarians, who said the penalty does not fit the crime.

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Michael Rogerson, president of Irvine, Calif.-based Tomima Corp., which owns the Philadelphia-based yacht, paid a $1,000 fine and $600 in seizure fees Tuesday, and agreed not to hold the government responsible. But he assailed the get-tough policy:

“This type action presents an unreasonable danger to all boat owners for the isolated actions of passengers and crew,” Rogerson said in a statement. “The seizure of this vessel for the apparent individual actions of a crew member against the stated policy of the corporation and the vessel for minute traces makes no sense.”

After consultations between the Customs Service and Treasury Department in Washington, the government agreed to levy a fine and release the vessel, Sheehan said.

The Coast Guard boarded the boat Saturday and discovered some marijuana seeds and two stems weighing a fraction of an ounce in a drawer and a trash can. The yacht was then seized under a federal law allowing any vessel carrying drugs to be confiscated. No charges were filed against the crew.

The Ark Royal was being moved from San Diego to the Mediterranean for charter duty when it was stopped in the Yucatan Channel 260 miles southwest of Key West for a routine documents check, the crew and Coast Guard said.

Previously the law was used only for boats carrying large drug shipments, but under the new policy the Coast Guard says it will confiscate boats carrying even small recreational amounts of drugs.

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Transportation Secretary James H. Burnley IV, who administers the Coast Guard, defended the seizure of the Ark Royal, and promised to continue enforcement of the law.

But civil libertarians said it puts the punishment before the trial.

“What’s wrong with it is the same thing that’s wrong with shooting someone or hanging someone, and then saying: ‘We’re going to give you a trial to see if you’re guilty,’ ” said James Powell, national legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union.

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