End The War On Pot

[Truth Seeker]

On Tuesday, North Coast Congressman Jared Huffman and Humboldt County Sheriff Mike Downey both said, in effect, that they have seen the war on marijuana, and marijuana is winning.

"I was never a big fan of legalization," Downey said, "but right now I think that's the most logical way to end this drug war."

On Thursday, the U.S. Justice Department seemed to agree.

In new guidelines sent to all 50 states, federal prosecutors have been told not to target marijuana users or marijuana businesses who are in compliance with state law.

What this announcement means for the 18 states -- including California -- that have already legalized marijuana for medical use, and for Washington and Colorado, which have legalized recreational use, is that each will be expected to establish and enforce strict regulations.

If any state fails to do so, the Justice Department -- which has until now hindered, hectored and harangued any effort to establish a regulatory framework for decriminalized marijuana -- will now move to block the state's law.

The Justice Department further laid out eight federal priorities for prosecutors to weigh in future marijuana prosecutions:

-- Preventing marijuana distribution to minors

-- Preventing money from sales from going to criminal groups

-- Preventing the diversion of marijuana from states where it is legal to states where it is illegal

-- Preventing criminal groups from using state laws as cover for trafficking of other illegal drugs

-- Preventing violence and the use of illegal firearms

-- Preventing drugged driving

-- Preventing the growing of marijuana on public lands

-- Preventing marijuana possession or use on federal property

While the announcement made clear that the feds still consider marijuana to be a Schedule I drug and that users, growers, and sellers may still find themselves subject to federal prosecution, we still welcome the news. However overdue, however incomplete, it's one more step toward a cessation of hostilities in an unsuccessful war on marijuana waged by the authorities for three-quarters of a century.

What's the war on pot done for California? It's overcrowded our prisons and jails, handed large swaths of our state parks over to the cartels, driven underground commerce that would have been legitimate had state law been allowed to take effect.

Here in Humboldt County, keeping pot illegal and unregulated means environmental devastation, poisoning of lands, streams and wildlife. Keeping pot illegal means robberies, home invasions, murders. It means broken families, shattered lives.

Some say marijuana is a gateway drug, and it's true. Illegal pot is sold by some of the same people who will gladly offer you other black market drugs like coke, meth and heroin. Take marijuana off the black market and put it in the corner pharmacy, and suddenly, it's a gateway drug to ... what? Bad beer? Snack food? Poor life decisions? Pain relief? Medicine?

There is a price to maintaining our national schizophrenia on pot. Humboldt County is paying it. Illegal marijuana may be fueling -- at bare minimum -- at least one-quarter of our economy, but the gains are not spread evenly, and the costs are breaking us.

Legalization can't come soon enough.

News Hawk- Truth Seeker 420 MAGAZINE ®
Source: times-standard.com
Author: The Times Standard
Contact: Contact Us - Times-Standard Online
Website: End the war on pot - Times-Standard Online

 

[waknbak88]

It's hard for me to swallow the fact that overseas I fought just as hard as boys in legal states yet in mine I'm a criminal while they still get to be a hero doesn't sound like we are united to me.... Don't get me wrong I'm happy about the movement just don't understand how if the Feds came in my house my life and everything I have worked for since I was 18 would be gone, but if I choose to move my family a few states over I'm ok, I just feel like I have earned my freedom and can't sit by and let people who have never done anything for this country tell me what I can and can't do when it comes to putting seeds in the ground and growing some love, after the government paid me to bring so much hate to the world. I live medicated. It use to the doctors meds but now it's mine and I guess big brother don't like when you can grow meds.

 

[Stoned Redneck]

Hold on Wake n bake.... Things are bound to get better...hey, we have waited this long ,another year or so and it will be worth the wait..Here in Washington State it still seems to be "under ground" for now.It will be interesting how this "State Pot Store Thing"will play out.we are walking on uncharted ground right now.I so hope it will work.I'm afraid this 3 levels of taxing will make it cost more than before.... So anyway W/B, hold on my friend......Things are bound to get better,well as far as weed goes....Happy Trails,Red

 

[waknbak88]

Happy for the direction it's moving in but just don't make sense to me but I don't know politics either just spoke my honest opinion.

 

[dayhut]

very nice summary of the DOJ comments. Your conclusion is correct, too, in that it is a beginning.
We are a long way from cannabis being the pharmacological and industrial item it should be, but this is a start.
Thank you.

 

[drmaddogs]

" but this is a start. "

I see no start, I only see more delay, more 'it deserves a discussion', another in a long line of mis-informations given to the citizenry. In five years of 'we need to have a discussion'/ hope and change from Obama... this is what we get... a memo. I see no differences in the Centrals approach, I see no difference in the ONDCP's pattern of Campaign Fund Management services (Rand Paul and H. Clinton are using the ONDCP constituents just as Bush, Obama and Romney did) so future policies are still being made by the ONDCP constituents and not the legislators/candidates.
The 2014 and 2016's are coming up and I see this as an attempt to separate Mj users from their vote. To say, reliance on the memo versus proven track records of policy where Mj policy is concerned. The Mj 'community' is at least 10% of the population, mostly of voting age. This is nothing but 'hope and change'(memo) for votes.

While at face value, every governments intended manner of communicating, there would seem to be structure intended in the memo, there is not. Only the Fed sets 'legal age' for intoxicants for Fed policy, any State not in Fed compliance can be challenged by the Fed... there is no change there... in the 'memo'. Thus, like other catch-22s the ONDCP partners have used, like IRS non-acceptance of Mj banking, at any point the Fed can step in on the stated 'memo' basis of age requirements. The same can be said for the other allowances stated in the memo.

This is why laws, are the definition of what is allowed, not memos. Vote as one wishes, I will still vote for candidates with a policy proposal for legalization and avoid those with 'Hope and change' communicating false directions in 'Memos'. Sure, its possible and likely, those constituents to the ONDCP are gearing their operations around a different model that provides them the same, or more, tax dollar funding amounts such as larger program funding dependance for counseling, but depending on the ONDCP to change direction for the sake of complying with a memo to filter down to National acceptance of Mj as an inebriate is self defeating and doomed to disappointment.

Only the public vote will make a difference.

 

[mariajuana9]

For it is only a black propaganda, if the government says "The Lollipop is illegal" people used to say it is not good to use it. Really drmaddogs make sense post about how laws effects the community.
When the government get the right attention and exact uses of Marijuana then they approved it makes better country.

 

[drmaddogs]

"make sense post about how laws effects the community" I can understand your desire, from a direction of the community (Mj users?.. general community?). My previous point was that all communities involved are being misdirected. The law has not changed, I expect the effect of this memo to not change how the communities are affected any differently than they are affected by the law now.

Simply, a @hit in one hand and a wish in the other and see which hand is full. The hand with the law is full and the hand with with the memo is holding a wish. This gives an effect that separates Mj users from their vote. A wish/hope is not a valid investment theory or practice in anything. The community must not be fooled into relinquishing its goals of changing the very basis on what Mj prohibition is built on.
For me, that basis is investment of tax dollars. Tax dollars which swirl around appointees of the administration, through the different cabinets, through the organizations, NIH, HHS DEA, DoJ ect all competing for 50 Billion a year. Much of which will go away without Mj prohibition.... which does not change with a memo. The memo will not stop members of the ONDCP from going into States and committing election violations by way of campaign contributions to candidates that can be 'bought off'. Nor will higher court Judges be able to force access to banking records proving it is an ongoing process because the ONDCP has noticeably had those legal decisions reversed by the same Judges which first judged the bank records should be accessible. 6 times the ONDCP has been sued for interfering with elections using Federal dollars where the case has made it to court.

How the laws effect the community first starts with what the affectors are.... commercial interests, represented largely by the ONDCP membership. The memo changes nothing with the ONDCP, the effects on the community will not change. Simply stating what terrible effects the Drug War has on people may help a general understanding of those effects, but all wars are won only when one knows the enemy... unless one relies on hope...change..memos.

 

[mariajuana9]

Yes, it is

Thank you for the Post drmaddogs

 

[dayhut]

"make sense post about how laws effects the community" I can understand your desire, from a direction of the community (Mj users?.. general community?). My previous point was that all communities involved are being misdirected. The law has not changed, I expect the effect of this memo to not change how the communities are affected any differently than they are affected by the law now.

Simply, a @hit in one hand and a wish in the other and see which hand is full. The hand with the law is full and the hand with with the memo is holding a wish. This gives an effect that separates Mj users from their vote. A wish/hope is not a valid investment theory or practice in anything. The community must not be fooled into relinquishing its goals of changing the very basis on what Mj prohibition is built on.
For me, that basis is investment of tax dollars. Tax dollars which swirl around appointees of the administration, through ....

I'm new at this, trying to catch up. What does "ONDCP" mean?

 

[digger1]

Office of National Drug Control Policy

 

[SerenityNow]

Legalized! That's the closest thing you're gonna get to them admitting they've legalized it. Make no mistake, guidelines come after a HUGE amount of consultation and horse trading. This is the end of criminalization and the beginning of taxation. This is the step they take once they've decided to go ahead. This was always the best expected outcome, because it all comes down to money, and these guidelines herald, "let the taxation begin". Make no mistake, 10 years from now most of those guidelines will 'unofficially' be watered down, as it becomes more palatable for the conservatives amongst us. They'll never make it legal for minors, much like alchohol, but it will eventually gain the respect it deserves as the single most amazing plant on the planet. As Jack said, it will save the earth, that's provided it's still saveable by then...

 

[dayhut]

The Feds will stay out of it until real money begins to be made.
Once you see merchandising and jingles, the Feds will show up.
I hope we pick back up where we left off in 1937, and bring modern agri-biz to hemp.
Medicine, and smoking cannabis for a buzz, these are only part of the story.

 

[Fish4Fun420]

Happy for the direction it's moving in but just don't make sense to me but I don't know politics either just spoke my honest opinion.

if it makes you feel any better I am completely surrounded by green states but yet mine is the only one holding out in the region. God forbid I drive 20 minutes from my house and get pulled over in a neighbor state that's trafficing even if it's brought to a green state, complete bs in my opinion.

Thank you for serving sir! Much love -Fish

 

[waknbak88]

I hear you on that man, and no worries brother I had a good time in the service.nice name I did some cat fishing the other day did not catch nothing but drove the boat to some awesome 20 ft cliffs and had a swim! The depth finder said 31ft of water so it seemed safe lol

 

[Fish4Fun420]

Recently I've been bass fishing with my fly rod. Makes them feel like marlins when reeling them in haha! Haven't been cat fishing but when I was up in Alaska I did every kind of fishing you could think of, one afternoon we caught 350lbs of king salmon fillet I was beside myself when we had to empty the beer coolers for more fish!

 

[waknbak88]

Man it sounds like u catch4fun lol

 

[Fish4Fun420]

Man it sounds like u catch4fun lol

It's all fun and games until a child points at my travel tube for my rods and goes "look at that bazooka!" I then was "randomly selected" for a screening. Fished since I can remember I can thank my old man for the luck

 

[drmaddogs]

"I'm new at this, trying to catch up. What does "ONDCP" mean?"

It is a formally an official Cabinet level organization, until recently, which has not changed its mechanisms. It is the coordinator for extensive spending in the Drug War. While the Org. is virtually a clandestine group if one takes how much the citizenry knows about its daily operations, the ONDCP is largely ignored by those whom assume the DEA runs the Drug War(DW), or the President directs the DW or said offices base policy in the DW via medical research.

The National Institutes of Health - through the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) and the ONDCP set policy. The DW money comes to 50 billion a year, The ONDCP only admits to 100<> employees averaging via total funding 25 million an employee. When the DEA was brought to suit by Ron Paul(with help), to answer for why there were clearly "misinformation's"(lies) about Mj coming from the DEA, it was not the DoJ that answered (the DEA's upline), it was the ONDCP's office that answered suit against the DEA. Relevant answer was the DEA was allowed to say anything(lie), to carry out its "Mandate". (This distinction is a pivotal point of how government can, does and continues to misinform (lie to) its citizenry in any departments dealings with the public). All departments have a "mandate".

While much can be said about different departments, at the heart of the DW is funding. With enough funding (so far over a trillion @ 50 Billion a year) the ONDCP puts the capital 'C' in Crony Capitalism. As I remarked before, even going into States to fund favored candidates, literally, the Central government picking State Officials... a very scary situation when the 'Fed' chooses State representatives that assure Fed Program Funding by artificially creating (voters are not guiding election or Mj policy) the need for DW funding. Overturning Superior Court rulings happens where the ONDCP meddles in State politics(via the power of the mechanism of legalized 'Mandate' has removed the ability to require banking records for proof of malfeasance). Look to recent problems in the office of NIDA where Obama's appointee is involved.

Programs exist that spread the DW loot(taxes) around to supporters, Commercial concerns are involved. If, on a State level, a Private Prison company or company that provides drug counseling has funding concerns, the go-to Fed org is the ONDCP, as an example.
This paradigm extends to other commercial entities that are common sectors of, comprising, in toto, large amounts of the GDP. Alcohol, being 5% of the U.S. GDP is an example. Whom does the relevant organizations approach in government to assure markets(alcohol) where candidates for office may affect regulation (Mj threatens 750 billion dollars a year)? The ONDCP. Ever wonder why Hemp legislation has such a difficult time?

While Americans can say the ONDCP is no different than other Cabinet level orgs, no other situation exists that influences 600,000 arrests a year (simple possession) as the competitors to Mj, Alcohol and Pharma commodities
have kills millions (The World Health Organization is calling for action to reduce the harmful use of alcohol, which kills 2.5 million people every year.)

So, for what amounts to a relative small amount of profit from 50 billion a year in DW funding directed by the ONDCP, we have a total of a trillion expended, millions arrested affecting millions dying with an overall DW policy.
I say a relative small amount of profit when dividing those affected by the DW policies into those 50 Billion dollars. Divide the population of America into 50 billion($) and one starts to understand just how massively successful the Drug War funding has been for commercial concerns in a 16 TRILLION dollar economy. But one has to ignore the end results affecting the populace in measuring the DW success. I find this latest step/memo an insult piled on top of other 'official' policy announcements and totally void in changing the underlying mechanisms, players, motivations, agendas, tax dollar allocations and what will be, ultimately, any effect change on social ramifications.... leading back to the ONDCP.

 

[rkutchjm]

It will all happen in every state. Just keep the motion going in every way you can inside and outside of politics.