Yes, it’s past time to eliminate the DEA

The DEA is becoming more anachronistic every day, and yet it has tremendous power and has historically been almost completely unaccountable.

They’re fighting hard now, though, to maintain their position. They know that without marijuana as part of their scope, they couldn’t get close to the same amount of budget they have now.

DEA Chief: Marijuana Legalization Just’Makes Us Fight Harder’

Wolf then asked Leonhart whether DEA agents have been feeling demoralized as a result of the legalization.

“Actually, it makes us fight harder,” Leonhart replied.

Leonhart also implied that voters in Washington and Colorado had been misled about the benefits of legalizing marijuana. […]

Leonhart claimed that Mexican drug cartels are “setting up shop” in Washington and Colorado in anticipation of a black market. “Whatever the price will be set in Washington and Colorado, criminal organizations are ready to come in and sell cheaper,” Leonhart said. She claimed that many marijuana shops get their supplies from growing operations controlled by cartels.

The DEA administrator also referred to efforts in the Netherlands to prevent foreign tourists from obtaining marijuana, saying that it showed the country was having second thoughts about its marijuana policies. That change, she said, should have served as a warning to the United States.

“We should’ve learned from that and never gone forward with what we’ve seen in this country,” Leonhart said.

It’s really pathetic.

Oh, yeah, and she tried to get animal lovers on her side…

DEA Chief: Please, Think Of The Dogs Before You Legalize Pot

“There was just an article last week, and it was on pets. It was about the unanticipated or unexpected consequences of this, and how veterinarians now are seeing dogs come in, their pets come in, and being treated because they’ve been exposed to marijuana,” Leonhart said. […]

Leonhart was referencing a story in USA Today which noted that the effects of marijuana could make it more difficult for a dog to breathe or vomit up a product that could kill them, like butter. The USA Today article noted, however, that on its own “marijuana itself isn’t particularly harmful to dogs,” and that dogs typically won’t eat marijuana by itself.

This is the quality of testimony from the head of the DEA to Congress.

I just finished giving a budget presentation in my organization to upper administration. I would never even think of presenting material so ridiculously weak and self-serving in one of my presentations. I’d probably be fired if I did.

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41 Responses to Yes, it’s past time to eliminate the DEA

  1. Howard says:

    “It’s of great concern to us the messages we hear on television, in the radio, in songs — and now, my fear is that kids are hearing it from their own parents,” Leonhart said.

    So, Michele, does this mean as a part of your budget you’re requesting drones to take out those parents who don’t lie to their children like you’d like them to?

    ———

    And at the end of the article;

    “Leonhart declined to take questions from reporters after her testimony.”

    Good move, you far exceeded your embarrassment quota for the day.

    • kaptinemo says:

      Acting just like the old Soviet commissars used to do: give dictation disguised as a ‘press conference’. But given that her goons engage in the kind of behavior that the Kah-Geh-Beh (KGB) used to, the analogy certainly is fitting.

  2. claygooding says:

    Poor Michelle,,she is living in a cloud of pharmaceutical induced dumb.
    Searching for the video from the committee,,I bet she looks just as stoned as the last time she rambled about all addictive drugs are dangerous but couldn’t remember why.

    • claygooding says:

      surprise,surprise,,”This hearing was not webcast”
      This is good transparency.

      • Jean Valjean says:

        They know she’s a liability in giving testimony and previous videos have shown how weak she is. I wonder what backstage deal had to be done to prevent this latest piece of Leonhart incompetence from being recorded?

  3. kaptinemo says:

    Yes, let’s think about Fido, and all his kind who’ve been cruelly, mercilessly, unnecessarily dispatched across the Rainbow Bridge courtesy of adrenaline-tripping police (acting like bipedal mad dogs) slaughtering them off-handedly.

    Anyone who’s ever had a dog, or worked with them (Civil Air Patrol SAR dogs, 1972-79), knows they look at you like you’re a demigod. Their hearts really can be seen in their eyes. And when they give their love and trust to you, there’s no conditions. I can’t imagine what it must be like to have what amounts to a member of your family shot in front of you, and to hear its cries as it died. Filthy murdering swine.

    So, yes, Michelle, you soulless, hypocritical bureaucrat, lets bring up that subject, shall we? Your concern for our four-legged companions seems so…tardy…given what your big, brave DrugWarriors have regularly done to them.

    • Duncan20903 says:

      .
      .

      Now now, everyone knows that they only shoot vicious dogs like Killer. Sure, an 11 year old Vienna sausage dog weighing in at less than 6 kilograms might seem tame at first glance but aren’t ankles just like wrists? When people want to commit suicide, don’t they cut their wrists? If people can die from cutting their wrists why would a JBT want to take a chance of severe ankle injury? If it were such a nice dog, why did it’s owner name him Killer? Really kaptin, you need to start thinking these things through to the end. All dogs are related to wolves! Are you trying to scam people into thinking that wolves aren’t dangerous?

      • Nunavut Tripper says:

        Actually wolves are not dangerous . DEA swat teams are very dangerous.

        • Duncan20903 says:

          .
          .

          Oh right, somebody else in denial! Would you want a wolf piloting your aircraft? Performing neurosurgery? I suppose that you think letting wolves drive motor vehicles wouldn’t be dangerous?!? What about “the children!!!”? Don’t you know that wolves eat children?? What about the piglets? They’ll tell you how wolves are perfectly willing to engage in property destruction if needed in the course of satisfying their natural blood lust!!!! The next time you swim across a river go ahead and let a wolf ride on your shoulders and see if everything just comes up puppies and rainbows!!!!! Hah!!!!!!
          .
          .
          .
          .
          I apologize. After further reflection I believe it likely that I’ve read too many pieces of prohibitionist “reasoning” and likely have gone stark raving mad.

      • thelbert says:

        don’t get mad, get crazy. it a lot more fun.

      • Windy says:

        If an officer (who is likely wearing BOOTS and other armor) is going to claim self-defense against a dog then that dog had better be big enough to take a grown man down and tear out his throat. The department signing off on that self-defense claim is absolutely absurd and if I were the owners of “Killer” I’d sue the whole department and make them pay through the nose and fuck any gag order about the officer’s name, he should be sued separately as an individual. Just the refusing to give the dog’s owner his name and badge number was a clear illegality, that alone should have gotten him suspended without pay.

        The incident happened 4 years ago so it too late to write the chief and the mayor of the town, but whenever people hear about an incident like this they should write, email, or call the department heads and the Mayor and/or Council demanding the removal of the officer from his job, fired without compensation.

    • Plant Down Babylon says:

      I read the Huffpo article and started reading the comments. There were 480 or so, and after I had read about 50, not ONE was pro-DEA.

      Just curious, I decided to scroll down till I found a prohib. The only one I found was around comment 479 and it was this;

      Ken M. (Ken_Maunder)

      110 Fans
      “They should pass a law that edibles need to be kept in a labeled, locked container and raise awareness of the issue so that children don’t get hurt from it”.

      It’s hard to believe that 99.999% of the comments were basically stating that the DEA and their flubby leader suck it, big time! Not that Huffpo is a conservative rag but,

      I’m liking the odds…

  4. NorCalNative says:

    DEA, American-based human garbage employed as lap dogs for Authoritarian assholes.

    But, let me tell you what I really think…

  5. Francis says:

    Wolf then asked Leonhart whether DEA agents have been feeling demoralized as a result of the legalization.

    “Actually, it makes us fight harder,” Leonhart replied.

    Well, yeah, that is generally how a dangerous animal responds when it’s been cornered.

    “What was told to the voters [in Washington and Colorado] is that this [legalization] would collapse the Mexican drug cartels.”

    Yeah, that’s how I remember it. Voters were told that legalizing one illicit drug in two U.S. states would immediately “collapse” the Mexican drug cartels — not that it would, you know, reduce the cartels’ power and profits, be a step in the right direction, or provide a myriad of other benefits for the two states involved. Yep, that’s definitely not a straw man.

    • kaptinemo says:

      …fight harder”…against well over half the population, with the majority of those 18-35 the biggest supporters of re-legalization? The very people who were the first victims of their ‘drug free society’ social engineering project?

      (Raucous, mocking laughter) Ol’ Michelle remains as clueless as ever. She just can’t admit it. Just can’t admit that the game is OVER. She and they LOST. They lost an entire generation courtesy of their mendacity. And that generation will hold the taxpayer-supplied purse strings. And they don’t want to pay for the prohibition that is designed to attack them…and they don’t want to pay salaries for those who promote it and benefit from it.

  6. Duncan20903 says:

    .
    .

    Well it only took 15 months, but the prohibitionist parasites and their sycophants feel they have now been vindicated in their predictions because a guy allegedly got high on legal cannabis edibles and fell or jumped to his death about 3 weeks ago.

    Marijuana edible contributed to Levy Thamba’s fatal fall, coroner says

    /snip/
    What happened? According to Denver Office of the Medical Examiner spokeswoman Michelle Weiss-Samaras, Thamba and at least one additional person consumed a marijuana cookie. Shortly thereafter, she says, “another kid got sick and [Thamba] had this happen.”

    After Thamba’s death, toxicology revealed what a coroner’s office release describes as “post-mortem chest cavity blood results (basic, synthetic cannabinoids and bath salts panels).” They showed a Delta-9 THC reading of 7.2 ng/mL and a Delta-9 Carboxy THC of 49 ng/mL.
    /snip/

    So when do we get to see people squealing like stuck piglets about military service causing people to go postal? I think we can count on someone somewhere to start a campaign to inform people that they’re doing experiments with chemical mind control at Ft. Hood. I don’t know, maybe it was the roses after all?

    • claygooding says:

      Especially ironic is that the shooter was a cop on National Guard duty and recently returned from AFG,,they are being vague about the possible PTSD link.
      That is the rumor,,I am sure the spin doctors are working on it.

      Any bets he was a tactical officer?

    • kaptinemo says:

      I feel sorry for his parents, but then, I can’t help but ask: So what of all the drunks who give themselves Darwin Awards in exactly the same fashion? Are they any less noteworthy?

      Despite Society’s best efforts to legislatively reduce the likelihood the mentally deficient will not experience maximum personal entropy courtesy of said deficiency, as a title of a Mario Puzo novel explains succinctly, “Fools die.”.

      I am not being callous here. To die so young is a tragedy. But tragedies have been used by the cynical to manipulate the passionate into trajectories fraught with misery, as the reform community suffered until so very recently.

      No, I am warning about those whose characters house that cold-bloodedly cynical quality, as well as many others even less salutary: the prohibs. Just as they did with Len Bias, they will shed crocodile tears while they cynically attempt to use this as a means to try to thwart our progress.

      The operative word is ‘try’. For, now, they’ve been outed. We know their modus operandi, and so do the prohib’s former lab rats, the DARE Generation…who have an even bigger axe to grind, thanks to the mass insult-to-sentience/social engineering experiment they were forced to endure, called DARE. They know all the tricks and traps used on their elders, and are not gonna take this time.

      To the prohibs, I say: given what you’ve done and continue to do, if you want to get a glimpse your true fate as opposed to your fantasies about winning, consider the numbers…and then ponder the name ‘Custer’.

      • darkcycle says:

        Dollars to donuts either alcohol or depression were the reasons this kid went over. I’m leaning in the depression direction.

  7. Paul McClancy says:

    OT, I recently had a prohib complain about the notion of drug use being a victimless crime. This is his response:

    “So now we have different levels of victimization. The girl killed by a drunk driver wasn’t killed by a drunk driver, she was kill because of the car crash. A kid swallows drugs his parents left laying around and dies. He didn’t die because of the drugs he died because of neglectful parents. Parent drowns the kid in the tub, but the kid wasn’t killed by his parent, the kid died because the water was too high.
    A victim is a victim. If an action causes a string of events everyone affected is a victim of that event.
    But to you everything is a victimless crime. Doing heroin is a victimless crime. What the people do on it or to pay for it isn’t related. Robbing a bank is victimless since, no one really loses their money. Pointing a gun at someone and pulling the trigger is victimless, the crime is putting the bullet in them.”

    What’s the best way I can refute this comment, other than pointing out that all those events he described had someone on drugs initiate force.

    • Francis says:

      Here’s an old comment of mine on this point that I really like.

      Drug use isn’t a victimless crime? I’d say that drug prohibition isn’t a victimless policy. The logic of prohibition says that because an individual MIGHT use drugs in an irresponsible manner, thereby harming others, we should arrest him, lock him in a cage (thereby separating him from his family), give him a criminal record, permanently impair his future employment prospects, and make him ineligible for various government benefits. Guess what? You’ve just created several DEFINITE victims. And those are just some of the ways in which the drug war victimizes individuals — it doesn’t include, for example, the gang violence that’s inevitably fueled by prohibition, the opportunity cost of trillions spent (both directly and in the form of foregone tax revenue) on a futile war, the massive official corruption that’s promoted by prohibition, the decline in respect for the law, the poisoning of police / community relations, and the undermining of our fundamental constitutional rights.

    • Duncan20903 says:

      .
      .

      Paul, I’ve got boilerplate for that one. You can use it if you like:

      “Anyone who is unable to differentiate between infanticide/bank robbery/impaired driving/intentional homicide/Dragnet and choosing to enjoy cannabis is in desperate need of a check up from the neck up.”

      It’s been a couple of years now since the prohibitionist adherents to the Humpty Dumpty school of sophistry completed their re-definition of the word “victim” because they found the phrase “victimless crime” highly annoying. So now the word “victim” includes anyone who is evenly mildly annoyed by people who refuse to follow orders.

      IMO there’s just no percentage in arguing with idiots and have taken to referring to non-consensual participants. This will work for a few years until the Humpty Dumptys decide to redefine the word “consensual” and/or the word “participant” to suit their arguments.

      In the alternative I also like using the phrase “malum prohibitum violation(s)” because Latin makes their brains seize up.

      PS Just in case the Dragnet reference above escaped someone there was an episode where Sgt Friday and Officer Gannon raided a pot party and found an infant drowned in the bathtub because Mom & Dad were so stoned they forgot that they were giving it a bath. I don’t know why someone would give an infant a bath during a pot party but there you go.

      “The story you are about to see is true! The facts were changed to make it fiction.”

    • Pete says:

      Part of the problem is the person is arguing from a position of incoherence, which is almost impossible to refute. There’s no logical structure to that list of things. It’s like asking someone “Do you walk to school or take your lunch?” or “How many pancakes in a mile? True or false?”

      But, if you look at the position that the person seems to be intending and not the drivel coming out, then the response is this.

      “I think that people should be responsible for their actions. If they drive recklessly and cause an accident, then it’s their fault. Period. Don’t blame it on the alcohol. They’re responsible. Blaming drugs doesn’t do anything but attempt to give guilty people an excuse for their irresponsible actions, and at the same time, punish responsible people who aren’t causing harm.”

  8. N.T. Greene says:

    I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: the end times for this Prohibition racket are nigh.

    All that’s really left is the shaming and the blaming in all the departments slated for elimination. Some analysts are predicting large-scale legalization within five years — and since the CO and WA “experiments” have gone on unimpeded so far, it sounds like a pretty balanced prediction.

    That which was once a tiny crack in the wall has become a torrent of public resistance to the basic tenets of the drug war. As time passes, our numbers only grow — and our message spreads faster with every news story and editorial.

    I, for one, am glad I found the couch. I don’t even know how long I’ve been here. Is that a good or a bad sign?

    • darkcycle says:

      Seriously…I’ve tried to remember when it was I wandered in Pete’s front door and sat down with you strange people. Seems like forever ago. Like, way before we legalized and everything…

    • Duncan20903 says:

      .
      …an island of sanity in a river of prohibitionist sewage, no doubt.

  9. Paul McClancy says:

    ” Leonhart said. She claimed that many marijuana shops get their supplies from growing operations controlled by cartels.”

    What a crock of sh*t. Where’s her evidence? I don’t suppose the cartels in turn get their supply from the Prohibition Fairy.

    • claygooding says:

      They store it in all those DEA warehouses all,over the country,,then the DEA loads it on the trucks going to their drops and writes out a receipt for destroyed marijuana.

  10. Servetus says:

    Portrait of a failure: DEA Director Michelle Leonhart’s worldview shatters right before her eyes.

    She doubles down on anti-marijuana enforcement. She finally thinks of the dogs. She continually demands a life of stigmatization for possessing a common weed, a genus viewed by scientists as the most unique and useful plant on earth. “If one person can’t have it because he or she might become ‘addicted’, then no one can have it…” her royal ideologue-ness proclaims. Social abuse of science and medicine. Political abuse of democracy and freedom. Self-abuse of Michelle’s own sanity as she herself rejects the magical mental melodies bestowed by marijuana consumption. Ms. Leonhart is the poster child of foul and cowardly bureaucrats everywhere. She’s what Bakunin and Kropotkin had in mind when they invented anarchism.

    And that’s what makes Michelle Leonhart the perfect candidate to lead the DEA in its race to the bottom, and its inevitable bureaucratic breakup and extinction.

  11. Duncan20903 says:

    .
    .

    If it’s all about price, then why don’t we all live in trailer parks? You can get a top of the line trailer home for $50,000! Yes, yes, I know that it’s very expensive to live in the Lawrence Welk Resort Village but that really is one of those “exceptions that prove the rule.” Also, when you consider the neighborhood demographics it’s still the cheapest place to live in the general vicinity. So when does Ms. Leonhart move to Kentucky trailer park?

    Oh well, I know that I could be wrong. So I sent her an invitation to have a friendly discussion of her position over a glass of bathtub gin at a Capone’s Speakeasy convenient to her. I’ll make sure to let everyone know how it goes!

  12. Jean Valjean says:

    The committee failed the public and democracy in general by not asking Leonhart what she meant by “fight harder.” She should have been directed to expand on how DEA proposes to fight harder against the will of the people who voted in CO and WA. The committee and Leohart have all sworn to uphold the Constitution and yet she’s determined to overturn or ignore the vote.

  13. Dave in IL says:

    “Oh, yeah, and she tried to get animal lovers on her side…”

    Ah yes, after they wail, “think about the children,” they move on to the puppies and kitties to tug at your heart strings and divert your attention away from the government violence that lies at the heart of the drug war. This is Reefer Maddness 2.0. The further we go with this process, the more shrill the drug warriors will sound. It should be entertaining and maybe a bit cathartic.

  14. Duncan20903 says:

    Spring Break Drunkeness a Dangerous Tradition

    /snip/
    A recent study found that the average male college student had 18 drinks per day and the average female college student had up to 10 drinks a day during spring break, according to a Silver Hill news release.

    Each school year, drinking results in nearly 600,000 accidental injuries among U.S. college students aged 18 to 24, and more than 1,800 college students in that age group die from alcohol-related accidental injuries, according to the U.S. National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.

    Nearly 700,000 college students are assaulted by other students who have been drinking, and nearly 100,000 college students are victims of sexual assault or date rape related to alcohol.

    Collins said college students need to know their limits when it comes to drinking, and should call 911 or go to an emergency room if they suspect they have alcohol poisoning.

    Other advice for spring break revelers: Stay hydrated, don’t accept drinks from strangers, never leave a drink unattended and don’t drink and drive.

  15. DdC says:

    DEA: Think Of The Dogs Before You Legalize Pot
    Michele Leonhart, the head of the Drug Enforcement Administration, has a message for those considering legalizing marijuana: Please, think of Fido.

    Tell that to SWAT!

    Ganjawar Puppycide
    just another in a long line of dead dogs resulting from a small marijuana bust.

    Here we go again. Species by species of reefer madness.

    Pot for pets? Seattle vets develop cannabis for dogs and cats

    Veterinary marijuana?
    With pet owners already using the drug as medicine, veterinarians need to join the debate

    Miles was dying.

    The 12-year-old black Labrador Retriever–type dog had developed a splenic tumor that eventually metastasized to the liver and lungs. Miles was given two months to live and tramadol for the pain.

    But, Miles’ owner didn’t like the way tramadol affected her pet. “Every time we gave it to him, he would just sleep; he wouldn’t even move. He’d just lay there like he was dead,” said Denise, who asked that her real name not be used.

    Sitting outside a West Hollywood, Calif., café with Miles at her feet, Denise recalls how a friend suggested she try a glycerin tincture of marijuana that is sold as a pet medicine in dozens of licensed medical marijuana dispensaries throughout Los Angeles. Within an hour after she gave Miles the tincture, the dog’s appetite returned, and he was no longer vomiting. “It couldn’t have been a coincidence,” Denise said.

    Vet recommends medical marijuana for pets in pain
    This Feb. 8, 2013 photo released by Vet Guru Inc., shows Dr. Douglas Kramer and his dog Mason inside his mobile surgical truck during an application of cannabis oil to the skin of Mason who had already undergone multiple surgeries to remove cancerous growths. Stories abound about changes in sick and dying pets after they’ve been given marijuana. There is a growing movement, led by Los Angeles veterinarian Doug Kramer, to make it more widely available. Others, however, urge caution until there’s better science behind it. (AP Photo/Oscar Anaya, Vet Guru.. Inc.)

    * Medical pot for Fido: Seattle vets offer cannabis cure for pets
    * California Veterinarian Says Medical Marijuana Could Help Some Pets
    * Medical Marijuana For Pets Recommended By Veterinarian Doug Kramer

    Veterinary marijuana?
    http://endingcannabisprohibition.yuku.com/topic/1920

  16. DdC says:

    FEINSTEIN ON CARTEL PAYROLL?
    http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v14/n299/a04.html
    Re “Hello, legalization” by Ngaio Bealum ( SN&R The 420, March 27 ):

    Like all good drug warriors, Sen. Dianne Feinstein has a habit of using the drug war’s collateral damage to justify throwing good money after bad public policy. Statistically, the vast majority of marijuana consumers do not move on to harder drugs. Those who do can thank Sen. Feinstein and her fellow drug warriors. Federal marijuana prohibition keeps violent drug cartels in business. When cartels control marijuana distribution, consumers are exposed to illegal cocaine, meth and heroin.

    Marijuana prohibition is a gateway drug policy. Colorado has closed the gateway, and Washington state will soon follow. Marijuana legalization will raise new tax revenue, provide consumers with a comparatively safe alternative to alcohol, and close the gateway to hard drugs by taking marijuana distribution out of the hands of criminals. Perhaps Sen. Feinstein is on the payroll of Mexican drug cartels. It would certainly explain her efforts to protect their market share.

    Robert Sharpe

    policy analyst, Common Sense for Drug Policy

  17. DdC says:

    Actually, it makes us fight sick people harder,” Leonhart replied.

    Cops standing on the porch mumbling. Say they got a warrant to look for probable cause. But it’s a no knock warrant and the door’s open. One cop thought he smelled something peculiar and the other said it was just the Burrito he had. Better call it in.

  18. Jay Chong says:

    This must be awkward for President Obama. A majority of Americans favor decriminalizing marijuana, but his underlings and his co-equal branch (Congress) wants to increase prosecution of marijuana. http://lawblog.legalmatch.com/2014/03

  19. DdC says:

    Obama Needs to Slap Down His Rogue DEA Chief
    http://bitly.com/OdDCkw
    by Phillip Smith, April 02, 2014

  20. jean valjean says:

    ot
    fort hood again. treating ptsd with cannabis would send the wrong message so we better get used to this insanity. and im not referring to spc. lopez.

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