Obama’s Pot Guidelines: What Do They Mean?
Obama’s Pot Guidelines: What Do They Mean?
The Obama Administration issued guidelines regarding the prosecution of marijuana users and distributors in states that have legalized marijuana under the guise of medicine. These guidelines provide clarity to a policy that took effect in January.
The current policy is not much different than the practice of the previous administration. The Drug Enforcement Administration has never gone after patients or dying people - they have always focused their limited resources on the biggest marijuana offenders violating state and federal marijuana laws.
Despite the misinterpretation of these guidelines, the federal government can still prosecute marijuana distributors and shut down marijuana dispensaries that are breaking the law.
The guidelines do not change the fact that marijuana is NOT endorsed by the federal government, and marijuana is still considered harmful. Marijuana sales in the U.S. are the largest source of money for violent Mexican drug cartels and must be dealt with severely.
Comments
President Obama's decision
President Obama may have made one of the biggest, most revolutionary policy decisions of all time. The implications of President Obama's dramatic decision will be far-reaching, indeed. The first waves have already reached California where we have had an adversary relationship with the federal government over cannabis. Nevertheless, in spite of relentless assaults and raids under the Bush administration, medicinal cannabis collectives and outlets established themselves, and with President Obama's election their number skyrocketed. In Los Angeles alone there are now an estimated 800-1100 cannabis dispensaries, all very popular with the communities they serve. In California, cannabis use has been normalized.
For better or worse, California is the cultural bellwether and trend-setter for the United States. Every cultural trend that starts here eventually seeps into the rest of the nation, and cannabis legalization will spread across the states, with, as always, the South last. Canada can be relied on to follow the U.S. as usual. It is inconceivable that Canada. reputed for its B.C. cannabis, will not try to cash in on the bonanza of U.S. legalization. And in turn, the fact of legal cannabis in North America will hit Europe like a meteor. There, the Netherlands stands to benefit greatly, given its long experience in cannabis cultivation, but no doubt other countries will follow.
Then there is the huge issue of hemp, cultivation of which of course will be legal in the U.S. American farmers have long chafed at the bit to grow hemp, even more since it is an excellent source of biofuels. Hemp and cannabis represent a brand new revenue source for a country in need and open up many venues for achievement. For example, California could be as reputed for its world-class cannabis as it is esteemed for its fine wines.
President Obama did exactly what a president should do: demonstrate a far-seeing vision. He deserves our thanks.
NOT REALLY
Wherever marijuana legalization has been attempted, the policy has failed. In 1975 Alaska experimented with marijuana legalization and by the late 1980s their crime rate was up and their youth marijuana use rate was 3 times the national average; voters recriminalized the addictive drug in 1990. Canada and England have toughened their liberal stances on marijuana, and even Amsterdam has closed many of its cannabis cafes and has stopped licensing any more. And even though the years 1996-2000 saw a steady trend in states passing medical marijuana laws, 2001 to the present has seen a reverse trend of states saying 'NO'. I think marijuana legalization is up in smoke.
Get real. Alaska didn't
Get real. Alaska didn't "legalize" as in having a regulated system of sales. They had a court decision that found a right to possess cannabis in ones own home. Canada and England didn't have "legalization", but somewhat less punitive policies, which they decided to upgrade based on political rather than scientific criteria (see: David Nutt in the UK). Amsterdam is the one place you can credibly claim has legalized cannabis, and it is no doubt a nuisance for them to be the only country in Europe that holds this distinction because knuckleheads from all over converge on their quaint land. What on earth do you think it would look like if alcohol were illegal all over the United States except in, say, Delaware? Answer: A whole lot worse than Holland.
Decriminalizing Marijuana and the Ramifications
If you folks out there that subscribe to the notion that Marijuana is a safe substance and should be made legal and a taxed product, think of this. Once that happens, and I hope it doesn't, what's next to be legalized? Coke? Crack? This is a very slippery slope here. I understand that jails are filled to the max with people arrested for marijuana, but if you break a law, there must be just punishment for that offense.
Marijuana IS safe, at least
Marijuana IS safe, at least in the sense that it's not possible to overdose. If you can't acknowledge at least that, you've lost any hope of convincing the rapidly more skeptical public of your increasingly shrill and desperate claims. Google "Marijuana is safer". As for your do-the-crime-do-the-time mentality, the question is whether prison is supposed to be retributive or rehabilitative. So many on the prohibition side are for retributive justice, as shown by the imbalance between treatment and law enforcement from the very start of the War on Drugs. When you lose the argument over legalizing marijuana (which you surely will based on generational attrition alone), I suggest you make your peace with rehabilitative justice. Punishment need not be long and harsh to have an effect (as Prof Kleiman acknowledges in his magnum opus, "When brute force fails"). Coupled with actual, meaningful increases in treatment, many of the constituencies for legalizing drugs other than marijuana, such as those concerned with the overall and minority incarceration rate, will be placated. I think ultimately the slope is not as slippery as you think. Despite decades of prohibitionist propaganda intended to overstate the harms of marijuana and conflate it with heroin, cocaine, and meth, the public clearly sees a distinction. The constituency for legalizing other drugs is small by comparison to that for marijuana, just like their respective markets, precisely because of this distinction. Chill out, man.
Legalize all drugs!
So let's say we legalize cannabis. It has been adequately documented that cannabis is a fairly benign drug. Ideally, we would then tax the sales of cannabis so that it collects a substantial amount of revenue for the government, but not so much that it drives consumers to a black market to get it. This alone would take away 65-70% of the cartel's profits, since a rational consumer would rather purchase cannabis safely from a store than on the street, all other things being equal. When you consider that some high-quality cannabis strains have a street value of $300-500/ounce, the effects of legalization would be felt by drug traffickers right away.
So what happens next? Well, the cartels will probably resort to selling hard drugs to turn most of their profits. But without cannabis sales, their wealth and power would be greatly diminished. However, why not just go all the way and legalize hard drugs also? The competition of a legal drug market would cause the drug cartels' revenue stream to dry up almost completely, meaning there would be no way for the cartels to fund their other illegal operations. Less organized crime means less violence.
Whole wars have been fought over drugs. People aren't going to stop using them now. The best we can hope for as a society is that people understand the risks of using drugs, and rehabilitate those who seek help for drug dependency. Those who use drugs responsibly should not be harassed by their government simply because they use drugs. If they commit other crimes because of drugs or endanger the lives of others, then that's a different story. But drug use alone should not be considered a criminal act.
Let's not forget that drugs were once sold legally in this country. Soda is a perfect example. Soda was once sold at pharmacies all across the United States. Coca-Cola, invented by John Stith Pemberton, was marketed as a medicine and, not surprisingly, contained cocaine. It was advertised as being beneficial to "ladies, and all those whose sedentary employment causes nervous prostration, irregularities of the stomach, bowels and kidneys, who require a nerve tonic and a pure, delightful diffusable stimulant". Pepsi contained Pepsin, a digestive enzyme which aided digestion and boosted energy. Even when products like this were regularly sold in pharmacies, the percentage of people abusing drugs was about the same as it is today. Why do you think that legalizing drugs would have any considerable effect on rates of drug use? Because drugs will be more available? Drugs are readily available even when prohibited. As long as there is a demand, there will always be a supply. In fact, some countries with liberal drug laws (such as Portugal or the Netherlands) have lower rates of drug use than countries with strict laws. Prohibition hasn't worked in the past, and it isn't working now. That applies to all drugs.
People will abuse drugs whether or not they are legal. But if you legalize drugs, then you only have the problems of drugs, without the additional complications of enforcing prohibition (black markets, criminal activity, corrupt law enforcement, etc.) No matter what your moral stance on drugs is, in the long run, it is a far wiser and cheaper solution to rehabilitate addicts who seek help than to prosecute them.
Sir or Ma'am, I think you are
Sir or Ma'am,
I think you are the one who needs to think about things harder.
Exactly why is it that you have this notion that after we legalize cannabis all drugs are going to be legalized?
I mean, alcohol was legalized without legalizing many other drugs.
Cannabis is safer than alcohol. This is an undeniable fact. Therefore, at worst, we should trade their legality. Since there are far fewer pot-heads than alcoholics, it'd be a good idea... based on your logic... to prohibit alcohol in place of a far less popular, far less deadly drug.
Right?
What a downright mindless
What a downright mindless attempt at justification. Make marijuana legal and we'll have heroin at 7/11's. That's just another hypothetical fantasy created to scare people. Is this Berry McCaffrey? There isn't a large community of responsible recreational crack users out there. There is no "Heroin Times" or "Meth Culture" magazine. There are no large protests of coke users demanding to pay taxes. Alcohol legalization didn't legalize opium (as the fear mongers predicted back then). Marijuana legalization doesn't effect the legality of any other drugs. It doesn't mean that marijuana can be sold at 7/11's either. You can sit home and scare yourself all you want. The rest of us are going to work towards the safest and most effective strategy to deal with marijuana. This conversation doesn't pertain to any drug but marijuana. Step away from the classic prohibition tradition of trying to group all illegal drugs together and try view reality. Marijuana legalization is not crack legalization. Marijuana is not crack. These are 2 very different substances. This is something that prohibitionists need to get through their head.
"There must be just punishment for that offense." Are you insane? How is ANY punishment for marijuana "just" when a slow suicide on alcohol or tobacco is encouraged by our society? There is no argument that can be brought against marijuana by prohibitionists, however unrealistic, that can't be made against tobacco and alcohol as well. So if marijuana must be criminalized, logic dictates so must alcohol and tobacco.
OXYCONTIN
Does anyone remember the embarrasing scandal with Rush Limbaugh? Authorities allege he had been buying Oxycontin from a dealer who operated from a gas station restroom. Gee, I thought Oxycontin was a legal and regulated drug that could be purchased from a well lit pharmacy in a perfectly safe neighborhood. So how is it possible that there is a black market pulling in huge profits from something that is legal and regulated? Maybe this whole legalize and regulate and the black market will vanish simply doesn't work.
The Black Market
No, there will always be a black market. Just like there is for tobacco and alcohol, albiet very small. But it probably wouldn't consist of cartels and beheadings and robberies and various property crimes. You point out a case where 2 adults were dealing "legal" prescription drugs (oxycontin=heroin's 1st cousin). Proof right there, the appetite for drugs of all kinds for all ages and all lifestyles is what drives this market. This market is bigger and badder than ever - if you haven't noticed.
Not to mention, making substances of any kind illegal goes against our Constitution. The only way they were able to cause them to be illegal is by attacking it from the "trade" side.
And don't even get me started on Rush Limbaugh... what a hipocrite. He was just acting like a typical addict. That is what they do.
HEALTH CARE
I have a feeling the Obama Administration may take a different approach if his healthcare initiative ever goes through. The last thing an outrageously expensive, government run bureacracy wants is hundreds of thousands of people getting cancers, heart attacks and all kinds of other physical and mental health problems from smoking marijuana. When that happens, I am sure you will start to see more and more crackdowns on marijuana dispensaries in order to lower healthcare and rehabilitation costs.
people are using marijuana right now!
This whole harebrained theory that there will be a jump in social costs is predicated on there being no marijuana users now; then having everyone become marijuana users when it becomes legal. Millions of people use marijuana every year, with absolutely NO tax revenue to offset the social costs of that use. Social costs that are a fraction of that associated with tobacco and alcohol. You obviously know nothing about the health risks associated with marijuana use. You betrayed your ignorance when you suggested there will be hundreds of thousands of cancer cases. It's amazing how very little the people who crusade against cannabis really know about it. Marijuana does not cause cancer. This has been proven through numerous reputable, controlled and peer-reviewed studies. Even most educated prohibitionists have stopped trying to make that claim because they know in the wake of the scientific evidence they will just look foolish suggesting such a thing. There isn't any science out there saying that marijuana users are any more likely to experience heart attacks than non-marijuana users. Marijuana use IS NOT responsible for the rising cost of health care either. There will actually likely be a drop in social costs all together over time as people move from the more harmful recreational substances like tobacco and alcohol to the safer cannabis. If you wish to overlook the science on the issue due to fantasies you conjure up then that's on you, but you can't expect public policy to be written based on nightmares instead of reality. Prohibition does nothing to prevent the social costs of using any particular substance and prohibition does nothing to recoup the inevitable social costs the occur regardless of legality. Nice try.
Let's face it, people, it is
Let's face it, people, it is easier for the youth in my community to buy weed, cocaine, heroin and prescription pills than it is for them to buy alcohol or tobacco.
It only makes sense to have some type of control over it. Being a mom and a smoker, I see it first hand.
I do not use any "illicit" substances, but I know plenty of kids that do; and you know what, they are carrying a gram of weed in their pocket trying to bum cigarettes off me because they can't get them otherwise. This is enough proof for me. It is "real" life, not one created by these agencies taking public money and lying to us. They havent made any real progress. Drugs are better and cheaper than ever and in more supply.
prohibition is crumbling!
The spin machine is working overtime down there, ain’t it? How is this NOT a departure from previous administrations? The Bush administration attacked dispensaries even if they were in compliance with state laws, sometimes against the wishes of local officials. This was documented on dozens, perhaps hundreds of instances, so where you got the notion that this is basically the same policy as previous administrations is beyond me. The FED may not have been directly arresting medical marijuana users for use, but they were going after those co-ops that supply the medicine. Often times the people arrested were California’s sick and dying who were helping produce medicine for other patients. That is where California’s medical marijuana comes from, by the way, not drug gangs. Medical marijuana user co-ops produce medicine for its own. Dispensaries are not and never were a source of street violence, nor is there any connection to the Mexican drug cartels. Another claim you guys make that goes uncited. In fact, according to the Washington Post, the limited domestic production of legal cannabis has put a small but obvious strain on these Mexican drug organizations.
“Marijuana sales in the U.S. are the largest source of money for violent Mexican drug cartels and must be dealt with severely.”
Exactly, and your way of “dealing with it” obviously isn’t working. There is one solution to this problem, and that is regulated domestic production of cannabis in the United States. Prohibition doesn’t lessen demand. Prohibition can’t stop supply. With supply and demand you have a market. Under prohibition, drug cartels control 98% of the marijuana market. That is how these drug gangs are making all this money. Meaning, it is the very policy that you promote that is causing this violence.
Despite what kind of spin you wish to put on it, American citizens by the millions are demanding change in terms of this issue, and government officials at every level are listening. They see how prohibition feeds these black market organizations. They see how prohibition actually endangers the youth of America. Politicians must still play the political game to prevent themselves from becoming targets of groups such as yours. But this is the federal government beginning the process of backing off from these harmful and destructive policies just as state and local governments across the country have done already. This is more evidence that the straw house of prohibition is finally crumbling.
Cartel profits
So how is legalization going to force the drug cartels to just go away and abandon this profitable market? They'll be able to undercut the legal price every time. Have you heard of a black market? It's out there and is huge in legal drugs like tobacco. There's a great resource - the Tobacco Atlas - that exposes the black market in cigarettes that is encouraged by the tobacco companies to test market their products. I wish I were making this up, but I'm not. http://www.tobaccoatlas.org/
tobacco black market vs. cannabis black market
I also don't see any effort by anyone, including the DFAF, to criminalize the use of tobacco. And the best thing we can do for the tobacco black market is ban it's sale and use. Currently the black market only represents a FRACTION of American tobacco sales. According to the link you provided illegal sales in the United States make up 5.9% of all tobacco sales. Marijuana black markets control over 99% of the marijuana sales here. This only demonstrates how the black market's influence is reduced with legalization. There is not widespread violence over tobacco sales gone wrong or tobacco smuggling routs. Tobacco money is not funding, as Calvina Fay suggested on CNN about marijuana, terrorism, kidnapping and murder. In fact tobacco use in the United States is at it's lowest point in history. It got that way through taxation, regulation and a sincere public education program. No DEA raids. No hundreds of thousands of citations for possession. None of the things that haven't worked with marijuana. At some point you would figure you would want to try something that works as opposed to the proven failure of prohibition. Especially if you are sincere about reducing risk, usage and abuse.
The cartels will not
The cartels will not disappear. But their customers will cease to ask for pot. Who in their right mind is going to by a drug from some shady guy that probably has a gun in an ally when they can go to a store where there are cameras? Not to mention if it is legal then I don't have to worry about being ripped of or worse robbed by these people. If I go to the store and pay for 7 grams of cannabis and get 6, or if those 6 grams are mixed up with some other substance like cocaine, I can call the police or FDA and have justice done. It is a matter of accountability. So sure, kids who aren't old enough will surely still be a target of cartels, but everyone else will be safe. This reduces the problem of cartels tremendously. Organized crime will always be a problem as long as there are laws to break. What percentage of alcohol users do you think buy it on the black market? An absurdly small portion is the answer. Undercutting prices? Why in the world would that be? Surely there are taxes tacked on, but it is a free market economy. Businesses operating legally to grow and distribute cannabis will not have to protect themselves against government seizure and jail time. They will not have to arm themselves to the teeth because they can call the police if there is a robbery. Just think about how much that will reduce their costs? Besides, any sane American who wants to by cannabis would pay more for the privilege of buying it legally. I CANNOT WAIT TO PAY TAXES IN A STORE FOR CANNABIS. These same arguments were made when the legalized alcohol. Look what happened. Society is still here. What is at stake is our freedom. What is at stake are peoples lives.
No More Medical MJ raids
The DEA never went after patients or dying people? There's videos of the DEA manhandling patients, even terrified people in wheelchairs. They break windows, destroy computers, and steal money and medicine. And they do this all because people are using cannabis (a relatively harmless plant) to treat their symptoms (whether it be pain, nausea, etc.). A study performed in the UK and Italy shows that cannabinoids can even destroy certain staph bacteria, such as MRSA. What's harmful about cannabis exactly? Dr. Donald Tashkin observed that there is no correlation between using cannabis and cancer or COPD. There are no overdose deaths from it either.
Cannabis doesn't have to be smoked even though many users smoke it. Burning cannabis does release carcinogens but this is true of burning anything. The fact that smoking cannabis may release these carcinogens is not a good reason to oppose its legalization either. Saccharin is known to cause cancer, but Sweet N' Low is legal. Coffee contains many carcinogenic compounds, and that is legal also. In fact, if you analyze most products people consume on a regular basis, you would find that many of them contain carcinogenic compounds.
People who use cannabis medicinally tend to vaporize it anyway, therefore they are not being exposed to many of the harmful carcinogenic compounds.
While the new medical marijuana policy is better than nothing, the best drug policy solution is full legalization, which will eliminate the black market sales of cannabis that results from prohibition.
Now that it is Federal policy not to interfere with states that have medical marijuana laws, California should enact the California Cannabis Initiative (CCI). This is the most sensible of the 3 initiatives currently on the table, since it will eliminate all penalties related to cannabis, and also expunge all criminal records for those with a prior pot-related offense.
It's time to legalize marijuana
It's time to end the insane war against the Earth's safest recreational substance. Legalize marijuana correctly and the entire black market in marijuana, and all the violence it entails, will fall by the wayside. Money currently spent and earned on the black market will come into the general economy, where it may be taxed and recirculated. Millions of recreational users and hundreds of thousands of medical users will no longer fear the violence of the State, thousands of non-violent "offenders" will no longer lose productive time behind bars, or fighting in courts. Police officers need never fear dying meaninglessly while chasing those involved in the marijuana trade.
I just don't get this
Are we as a society seriously looking at moving towards legalizing yet another harmful mind altering substance? What is with us? Do we not learn from our mistakes? Are we, as a species, that unintelligent and gullable?
Look at all the deaths, addictions, and other health issues caused by alcohol and cigarettes. Our society is clamping down on these to try tocurb if not completely stop usage of them. Yet on the other hand we have people like George Soros out there telling us we should legalize marijuana, a known cancer causing agent, a known addictive and mind altering drug, for what ... our pleasure. Face it the whole medical thing is a complete hoax, proven by the epidemic of 20 something year old males who now have cronic pain in Colorado. (must be the dry climate)
What are we doing to ourselves? Are we trying to end humanity? Are we heading towards the scifi/thriller state where everyone is stoned and walking around like drones, while puppetiers like Soros are making fortunes?
Wake up people!
the sky is falling!!
You guys keep saying the same things over and over again no matter how many times they are addressed. It speaks to your inability to form a truly convincing argument against legalization. We are learning from our mistakes. Like the mistake of prohibition. We learned that criminalizing alcohol didn't reduce it's usage nor did it reduce the risks of it's usage. We learned that prohibition empowers black market organizations and leads to gang wars in our streets. Well... we though we learned that. Then came these "anti-drug" zealots.
You're points about tobacco and alcohol are about.... tobacco and alcohol. Substances that are legal to buy and use responsibly; with no widespread demand for it's criminalization. Substances that are objectively more harmful to both the user and society than cannabis. If the risks of their use by society troubles you, then you should support the legalization of a safer substance that does NOT produce the deaths and serious addiction and health problems of tobacco and alcohol. Numerous peer-reviewed studies have stated that not only does cannabis not lead to an increased chance of developing cancer; it does not effect a persons mortality at all! Try doing a little research into the science.
You mention the "epidemic" in Colorado. So what sort of widespread negative impacts has this had on Colorado? Or California at that matter? People spend so much time focusing on the fact that abuse happens, no one has ever said anything about how this is specifically harming society in these places. The fact is, it's not making things any worse than they were under total prohibition. Medical marijuana is a hoax because people abuse it? A wide verity of pharmaceutical drugs are abused. That doesn't mean that they have no medical value. Again we are discussing a substance far safer than any other drug of abuse, legal or illegal, that is out there. We are also talking about a substance with a proven track record of safe and effective medical use going all the way back in human history. This is backed up by modern day scientific studies.
Much of what you would call "abuse" is, in fact, legitimate medical use. It's perfectly acceptable to get a script for a deadly, mind altering pill to treat depression, stress or sleeplessness. But walk into a cannabis dispensary to treat any of those things and you "just want to get high." I love how people with no medical background can accurately diagnose people over the internet or from a dispensary parking lot. The fact is no one; not you, not me, not the police or state government, knows for sure how many people are abusing the medical marijuana programs for recreational use. What we do know is, it is definitely not all of them. Full legalization would remove the incentive to abuse the medical marijuana programs.
"Are we trying to end humanity?"
That has got to be the single most comical statement I have ever heard in response to cannabis legalization. I used to say that prohibitionists are trying to make it out like the world will end if we legalize cannabis. Realistically that was a bit of an exaggeration, as I never actually heard a prohibitionist try to make those claims before. But today is a new day! If you want to make sure your side doesn't get taken seriously, start talking more like this. The average American citizen out there knows full well how very unrealistic stuff like that is. You talk as if we don't already have 10 percent of the American population using cannabis every year. You talk as if almost 1/2 of the American population hasn't tried marijuana at some point in their life.
George Soros, by the way, made his money on Wall Street well before the marijuana issue was on the table. No one is making money off the efforts to legalize cannabis. The push for legalization is being made by non-profit organizations funded by American citizens that believe in this cause. Soros is spending money, not making it.
I DO GET THIS!
We are a society of free people. We get to live our lives according to our beliefs and desires, in pursuit of happiness. That is exactly why we are moving toward legalization... for our pleasure!
I'll skip the part where you think it is a "known cancer causing agent" since its been quite adequately shown to be false via science.
Instead lets focus on how insulting and stereotypical your statements about everyone "stoned and walking around like drones". How can you believe that &%$@? People who use cannabis ARE NOT STONED-OUT LOSERS! They come in all shapes, sizes and levels of "success" as our society measures it. It is the same thing as saying that a depressed man is depressed because he smokes pot, when in fact he is depressed because his life sucks and uses a drug to help him cope. It'd be better if he used Cimbalta or one of those other pharmaceuticals you can get legally... we're just puppets right?
You go as far as to suggest that we're just following the leader (i.e. Soros). Um... who ever smoked pot because they were told to do it? Its the same reason prohibiting pot doesn't affect who uses it. People use it if they like it and most people don't like it, therefore most people don't use it.
Black market
Again, how will marijuana legalization eliminate the black market?
Supply and demand
We are all familiar with the concept of supply and demand. The War on Drugs bans reputable supply and punishes demand. This is the extent of the control it attempts to exert over illegal drugs in America. So as we all know demand for illegal drugs remains despite the health and punitive risks. Since we don't allow a reputable source for these substances a black market inevitably fills the void. The black market now has a monopoly on marijuana in North America. And they wouldn’t have it any other way. We set up a perfect storm of violence and drug money
So what would cannabis legalization do to eliminate it? Well nothing will completely eliminate it. The question really should be how would cannabis legalization be more effective than prohibition in dealing with these organizations? Estimates are 60-75% of the money that is going into these Mexican drug organizations comes from the black market sale of cannabis. Americans first choice would not be obtaining cannabis on the street from criminals. It's the only option at this point. Giving adults the option to get their cannabis from a legal and regulated source and not having to deal with these dangerous street elements would steer these people (and their money) away from these drug gangs. Several posts have appeared on this site about the abuse of the California medical marijuana program. Why do you think that is? People would much rather go to a reputable and legal storefront and buy cannabis than go to street dealers. Even if it's taxed. Even if it's more expensive. The cannabis community does not want to support drug gangs. We want to pay taxes and support our law-abiding communities here in America.
Calvina Fay made a comment on CNN the other night something to the effect of... these gangs deal in far more than marijuana. They are involved in kidnapping and terrorism and they aren't going to drop that and go legit. We do not expect them to. They can keep the black market. The legal cannabis market we will create will muscle out the criminal elements, replacing them with American jobs and much needed tax revenue. These drug gangs will have no part of it. These groups may still be in the violence and terrorism business, but their profits from cannabis sales will be gone. It's that 60-75% that funds the larger scale crime. The bodies that are piling up in cities like Tijuana, Juarez, Oakland and Chicago are over that 60-75%. With legalization we not only take away the money that funds terrorism, kidnapping and human smuggling, we remove the incentive for violence between these organizations. With legalization we also open up use of industrial hemp. With hemp oil replacing petroleum, we take profits from dangerous Middle Eastern oil cartels and help America become energy independent. All the while creating many, many more American jobs.
They DO change from previous administrations!
What is the basis of the statement made above the the Bush administration did not target patients and dying people?
During the Bush administration there were frequent raids by the DEA on clinics that were not under investigation by state authorities.
Most of the times these raids amount to stealing money from dispensaries as few arrests are made, pot and money are taken and then no charges are leveled. However, given supreme court rulings that occurred during the Bush administration, the DEA can and has made raids that target ANYONE who has cannabis.
HERE is an example. http://cannabisnews.com/news/14/thread14005.shtml
In this event (2002) the DEA raided a cannabis farm without communicating with state agencies and despite the fact that the facility operated in concordance with state laws. Please explain how this is consistent with the statement the DFAF made above?
Medical cannabis sales should not be confused with illegal street sales of cannabis, which do in fact benefit the mexican cartels. Medical cannabis must be of a high quality and therefore is typically grown at home or in state. The businesses that distribute the so-called medicine pay state (and likely federal) taxes.
So in what way does the medical cannabis industry do anything but TAKE money from the cartels and put it in the hands of non-violent, tax-paying, god-fearing, family-raising AMERICAN citizens?
Answer that one.
Thank God!
Finely a president with some damn brains. I am thankful for this law, I am not a marijuana user or medical marijuana user, however, I have family members (2) who have cancer and with traditional medication and the chemo was killing them faster then the cancer was. They couldn't even eat with out throwing up thanks to medical marijuana not only can they keep stuff down and actually get nutrition in their body's, but because they can function they can also still have a good quality of life during this hard time.
The point I'm getting at is that there are valid reasons for medical marijuana, and the federal government often stuck there noses were it didn't belong during the Bush administration and arrested medical marijuana users even though their state laws allowed for its consumption. It is time for this country's citizens to take back their country. It is time for the lobbyists to dig them selves a whole and crawl inside, we don't need you anymore, go away and leave this country alone.
If you don't allow this comment to go through then you are afraid of the other side of the argument, which means I'm write. Just so you know I have your Lobbyists society on yahoo answers you should check out what the people of this country is saying.
Pro-cannabis posters: Please
Pro-cannabis posters: Please be careful with spelling and grammar on this site and others like it. Little things like that are all these people need to believe it is okay to chuck you in jail and throw away the key. They will brand you a stoned-out loser and thereby morally justify discriminating against you... and worse!
Hope that makes the point!