Voters want Feds to Respect State Marijuana Laws

Marijuana Majority today released the results of its third survey of early primary states showing that South Carolina overwhelmingly support ending federal prosecutions of people acting in accordance with state marijuana laws.

Among respondents, 65% agree that “states should be able to carry out their own marijuana laws without federal interference.” Just 16% think that “the federal government should arrest and prosecute people who are following state marijuana laws.”

The survey, commissioned by Marijuana Majority, is a follow-up to other recent polls from the organization that showed supermajority support for respecting local marijuana laws in Iowa and New Hampshire, which are also key early presidential primary states.

“Regardless of whether they personally support legalization, voters in these early primary states strongly support scaling back the war on marijuana so that local laws can be enacted without federal harassment,” said Tom Angell, chairman of Marijuana Majority. “The Obama administration has made some helpful accommodations to let states start to move forward, but overarching federal prohibition laws still stand in the way of full and effective implementation. Presidential contenders in both parties would do well to make marijuana law reform a prominent issue in their campaigns, and they’d be better off doing it before other candidates realize just how much of a winning issue this is with voters.”

You can see more details of the polls at the Marijuana Majority polls page.

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69 Responses to Voters want Feds to Respect State Marijuana Laws

  1. Having a winning issue with the voters is a smart approach for a political candidate.

    Supporting the will of the majority is a function of creating trust between those doing the governing and those being governed.

    Its also the main difference between good government and that of a tyranny.

  2. jean valjean says:

    I wish the media would start to ask Hillary Clinton about her role in the great drug war scam…. I think her lobbying on behalf of drug war profiteers is every bit as important as her lobbying for assorted dictators via her personal email. She should not be allowed to hold any public meeting without an uproar of protest at the countless lives she and Bill and their buddy Newt have ruined.
    http://www.alternet.org/drugs/clinton-dynasty-horrific-legacy-more-drug-war-more-prisons

    • Frank W. says:

      When the media stops being controlled by The Corporation that may occur, but last I heard corporate interests tend to donate to Establishment candidates.
      “Prove me wrong, kids! Prove me wrong.”

    • Servetus says:

      Drug war criminal Joe Biden is taking a political beating over his past support for draconian drug laws, mandatory minimums, and forfeiture. He may never run for political office again, much less president in 2016. Here is what Biden told drug war criminal Senator Orin Hatch:

      ‘“…quotes from Naomi Murakawa’s book, The First Civil Right: How Liberals Built Prison America, in which Orin Hatch accused Democrats of “bowing to the liberal wing of the Democratic Party.” As Bouie explains:

      “Let me define the liberal wing of the Democratic Party,” he [Joe Biden] said to Sen. Orrin Hatch, “The liberal wing of the Democratic Party is now for 60 new death penalties … the liberal wing of the Democratic Party is for 100,000 cops. The liberal wing of the Democratic Party is for 125,000 new state prison cells.”’

      Biden is a strange liberal by most standards. He appears to have been wrong about everything he’s ever done as a law and order candidate, never bothering to consider the consequences of his actions except as it applied to gathering votes for himself as he employed the paranoid style of politics. Now he and others like him will pay a political price.

      • darkcycle says:

        Very true, and we aren’t forgetting anytime soon. In every piece I saw about Biden’s potential candidacy, his drug war record was called out in the comments. People have very short memories, except where things that inconvenience or damage their lives are concerned. We have reached a point at this juncture, with one in one hundred U.S. citizens behind bars, where nearly everyone has had a negative experience with these policies. In poor and middle class neighborhoods it is increasingly uncommon to come across someone who doesn’t have a friend or relative serving time. Joe will not be able to hide from those people, the very people he would need to be elected. He would be constantly decried for his role in this at every stop and in every opinion piece about him. No less than he deserves.

        • B. Snow says:

          I suspect that it won’t be long before we hear Candidates being asked specifically & directly about what they would/will do regarding marijuana legalization…

          So far, they’ve been ‘getting a pass’ on not giving a 100% up-front answer on the subject – as long as they make vague promises about working for “Criminal Justice Reform”, “Over-Incarceration”, or similar *political code* – without having to answer the underlying question that makes me, (and I would assume many of y’all too), Yell & Scream at the TV in Disbelief!

          On one hand – I get it, on the other – It kills me to think that one of them would try to get away with a half-ass ‘policy stance’ on this. Like the “treat it more of a public health issue”, “drug courts”, “reducing crack to powder cocaine sentencing disparities” and “eliminating mandatory minimums” that we got last time (in 2009).

          I suspect that it was part of a deal Obama made with Biden.

          Help me get the white working class/blue-collar votes in Pennsylvania and the Rust-Belt states… -AND- we can keep your recently adopted *drug warrior-lite* policies. Nearly all were on Biden’s Delaware Senator website prior to Biden being announced as Obama’s VP/running mate.
          IIRC, soon afterward 3 of the 4 showed up on their combined 2008 Campaign website nearly verbatim.

          Martin O’Malley was on All In With Chris Hayes this week and Chris challenged him on the ‘Law & Order’ style programs he put in place in Maryland, O’Malley put a spin on some of the semi-positive ‘results’ = whatever…

          But, he knew the audience and right near the end he threw in a “I decriminalized possession of small amounts of marijuana.” (That’s not an exact quote – but it’s close.) I’m pretty sure he made it an infraction/civil offense, but still not legal.

          We can’t let them get away with that = pester them about “is that just the first time?” “So, That doesn’t require an *admission of addiction* and/or some degree of contrition?”
          My question for them would be- So how are we supposed to get these “small quantities of marijuana?”

          And when they say ‘You’re not supposed to..’ = Tell them where to stick their bullshit *pseudo-reform/policy non-change* and find the candidate who answers the questions correctly!

          I almost forgot the most important part of my post = Fuck Joe “We Need a Drug Czar” Biden

  3. DdC says:

    The United Nations Single Convention On Illegal Drugs, 1961
    Guess who benefited from the ‘control of opium’: Glaxo Smith Kline, and Johnson & Johnson’s Tasmanian Alkaloids: GSK and Johnson & Johnson are the world’s biggest opium dealers.

    …and who of all people represented the USA?

    “… the primary reason to outlaw marijuana is its effect on the degenerate races.”
    ~ Harry J. Anslinger
    Anslinger held office an unprecedented 32 years in his role as commissioner (of narcotics) until 1962. He then held office two years as U.S. Representative to the United Nations Narcotics Commission. The responsibilities once held by Anslinger are now largely under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Office of National Drug Control Policy.

    Why the Federal Government Will Not Reschedule Marijuana
    ☛ Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs
    ☛ Trillion spent is a Trillion earned.
    ☛ The Controlled Substances Act – a federal law of the United States that was implemented in order to comply with the various international treaties, including the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs and Convention on Psychotropic Substances. The Controlled Substances Act categorizes each controlled substance into five categories, with Schedule I being the most restrictive category. Cannabis was placed in Schedule I in order to comply with the treaty.

    Now in some funky reverse engineering. The same culprits use the Convention as reason to justify the Controlled Substance Act after Leary v US had the Marihuana Tax Act overturned. The Act backing Anslinger when adopting the UN Convention. So instead of a CSA, we should overturn the Convention on the same grounds as the MTA.

  4. Francis says:

    We’ve obviously known for a while that support for cannabis prohibition is quickly evaporating, but what polls like this really drive home is how weak most of the support that remains actually is. Sure, you might still get forty-some-odd percent of Americans to say they oppose “legalization.” But here we see less than half that number willing to endorse the actual enforcement of federal prohibition where it conflicts with state policy.

    Of course, part of the reason the number is so low is the wording of the question — “the federal government should arrest and prosecute people…” It’s easy to support prohibition in the abstract, i.e. oppose “legalization.” (Well, ok, it’s easy if you’re an idiot, or, more charitably, if you’re someone who has never really given the subject much thought.) But it’s substantially harder to support prohibition when you’re forced to confront the thuggish reality of what that actually means.

  5. kaptinemo says:

    Just as there is a positive tipping point, there can be a negative one. In the case of the prohibs, that was when demographic support for cannabis law reform crossed the 50%+ in favor .

    As to when that happened exactly, I can’t say. But it is obvious that the prohibs are engaged in a hopeless media campaign using tools inappropriate for the current target audience because authoritarianism doesn’t work on this audience.

    Said audience simply doesn’t believe the propaganda, partly because it was engineered for earlier (authoritarian-prone) generations and has no real cultural relevance today.

    Hey, kids, betcha hafta to google who Jack Webb and what Dragnet was! As they used to say when I was younger, “Authoritarian city!“. Endless holier-than-thou moralizing from those whose morals weren’t any better than those they castigated; hypocrisy rampant.

    Count yourself fortunate you didn’t have to watch that crap on TV. But that’s honestly what a lot of Greatest Generation members really thought real life was like, pre-Reagan phase of the DrugWar. Like DrugWar propaganda and Faux Nooz, it played on their prejudices about ‘the way thing’s s’posed to be’, quite successfully. Hence the ever-increasingly Draconian drug laws to beat up on those ‘deviants’ who wanted out of illegal wars and a cleanup of corrupt government.

    And it’s partly due to past Gub’mint mendacity on this issue forcing the need to fact-check using the Internet that has led to the loss of so much trust in government. Those who ran it (and run it) have only themselves to blame.

    The prohibs are being tuned out of the perception of those they want to influence…and whose abused, battered credulity they need to survive. “Fool me once…” and all that. They are fooling fewer and fewer, thankfully.

    And it’s showing up in poll after poll after poll. Which serves as a refutation of the continued (pointless!) efforts of those who wish to ‘protect’ us from ourselves.

  6. Servetus says:

    International law recognizes the potential mental harm to citizens generated by an arrest alone, as do most Americans. But it’s clear the federal prohibition industry is generally lacking in similar empathy for citizens whom they claim to protect from the alleged evil menace of drugs.

    Depending on the emotional strength and sensitivity of an arrestee, a suicide or heart attack is a finite possibility for someone finding themselves suddenly tossed into the judicial machinery. This fact is one that Kevin Sabet and other federal prohibs, drug testing companies, and drug treatment professionals, refuse to consider when objecting to states’ rights to determine their own drug laws with regard to marijuana and other substances.

    Prohibitionists are fanatics. They’re true believers in the drug war who rationalize that illicit drug consumption merits the worst aspects of arrest, judicial processing, and drug treatment—for drug paraphernalia if nothing else. Many of them are as crazy as former Pennsylvania Judge Mark (zero-tolerance) Caivarella, but unlike Mark, they don’t necessarily get sent to federal prison for 28 years for falsely incarcerating juveniles while benefitting from thousands of dollars in kickbacks from the judicial industrial complex.

    So it may come as no surprise that for many people a personal awareness, one due to personal experience, or the related experiences of friends, relatives, and acquaintances, puts them light years ahead on drug topics when compared to the federal government and its banality of evil.

  7. DdC says:

    Dire need?
    and the incremental spider climbed up the spout again…

    Historic California medical cannabis regulations set to pass

    “California is in dire need of a strong bipartisan consensus to manage medical marijuana,” said Assemblymember Lackey, a 28-year veteran of the California Highway Patrol. “With this bill we are demonstrating that we can bring solutions to complex issues. I am proud that this will pave the way for a comprehensive study of strategies to cut down on marijuana-impaired driving which is a growing problem nationwide. AB 266 will make California a leader in drugged driving identification and prevention.”

    • DdC says:

      Correa is like mold, right when you think its cleaned up it re-infests itself. Why they feel a need to include cops and pisstasters as having the slightest bit of knowledge concerning cannabis is something only the bottom IQ’s can comprehend.

      Are You Drunk Correa?
      CA Bill SB 289 and Sen. Lou Correa Cultivate Clueless Legislation
      SACRAMENTO: Hearings on Sen. Correa’s zero-tolerance DUI bill SB 289 have been set for April 23rd before the State Senate Public Safety Committee. The bill would outlaw driving with ANY detectable amount of marijuana or other controlled substances in the blood unless taken on an MD’s prescription. Because traces of marijuana can remain in the blood for days or even weeks after last use, the bill would potentially criminalize every driver who uses marijuana, no matter how responsibly. Since medical marijuana is not prescribed but recommended, the bill would jeopardize medical as well as non-medical marijuana users – but not drivers who misuse more dangerous prescription drugs.

    • free radical says:

      Right! Dire need!
      Which is exactly why they stonewalled any form of regulation, for twenty years,… Because it was so direly needed. And that’s why it’s only finally being enacted once it’s inevitable that recreational cannabis will be legal in California.
      Fascists. Pirates.

      • DdC says:

        Nation of sheep appeasing the insane.
        What kind of reform is it when cowards lay down with the tyrants?

        “I know that most men, including those at ease with problems of the greatest complexity, can seldom accept even the simplest and most obvious truth if it be such as would oblige them to admit the falsity of conclusions which they have delighted in explaining to colleagues, which they have proudly taught to others, and which they have woven, thread by thread, into the fabric of their lives.” – Tolstoy

        Who’s Really Fighting Legal Weed
        ☛ 3/4th of a Century of Gossip and Gutter Science
        ☛ A Very Lucrative Evil Hoax
        ☛ Only 13% of the medical schools surveyed
        mention the endocannabinoid science to our future doctors.
        ☛ “Professionals” are more of a problem, than solution.

        California Cops Are Trained ‘Marijuana Is Not A Medicine’
        Then how in the hell can they add to the discussion?

        For all intent and purpose “recreational” cannabis has been legal since 1996 by wording the CUA for anyone for any reason. This politicians farce only does what is constitutionally illegal and the entire reason for a citizens initiative in the first place. The politicians do not care about the people. They have no jurisdiction to change prop 215 and this is not doing what they neglected almost 20 years. It’s eliminating what we voted on originally and makes it another bogus medical marijuana law. Not a compassionate use law.

        I’ve been saying the feds answer is to lower it to a schedule#2 and give fat pharma a monopoly and eliminate the states funky initiatives all together. These tweaks of justice are not for patients or those just wanting to stay out of jail for a safer alternative. Letting cops and rehabs into the discussion is also why a citizens initiative was voted on, to keep them out.

        They have no earthy business dealing with cannabis in any form. Not for medicinal use or to reduce stress and enjoy smoking it without a medicinal condition as we have been doing all along. Now a state registry that can get people fired and evicted and no one balked? As long as they can sell it I guess. I’m enjoying the dispensaries and deliveries while they last and then back to the growers.

        Note. Compassionate Use Act not the MMJ Act

        HS 11362.5. (a) This section shall be known and may be cited as the Compassionate Use Act of 1996.

        * has been recommended by a physician

        * person’s health would benefit

        * or any other illness for which marijuana provides relief.

        * no physician in this state shall be punished,

        * Illegal possession and cultivation of marijuana,
        shall not apply to a patient, or to a patient’s primary caregiver

        * upon the written or oral recommendation or approval of a physician

        * The department shall establish and maintain a voluntary program for the issuance of identification cards to qualified patients who satisfy the requirements of this article and voluntarily apply to the identification card program.

        * “Qualified patient” means a person who is entitled to the protections of Section 11362.5, but who does not have an identification card issued pursuant to this article.

        * It shall not be necessary for a person to obtain an identification card in order to claim the protections of Section 11362.5.

        * A qualified patient or a person with an identification card

        * Any individual who provides assistance

        * A designated primary caregiver who transports, processes, administers, delivers, or gives away marijuana for medical purposes

        * (a) Subject to the requirements of this article, the individuals specified in subdivision (b) shall not be subject, on that sole basis, to criminal liability.

        The DEA Legalizing THC?
        So, in other words, if a pharmaceutical product contains THC extracted from the marijuana plant, that would be a legal commodity. But if you or I possessed THC extracted from the marijuana plant, that would remain an illegal commodity.

        Wait, it gets even more absurd.

        Since the cannabis plant itself will remain illegal under federal law, then from whom precisely could Big Pharma legally obtain their soon-to-be legal THC extracts? There’s only one answer: The federal government’s lone legally licensed marijuana cultivator, The University of Mississippi at Oxford, which already has the licensing agreements with the pharmaceutical industry in hand.

        Calif. Lawmakers Reach Agreement on Med Marijuana

        The proposal would create a new state office (Bureau of Medical Marijuana Regulation (BMMR)) that, along with cities, would issue licenses for medical cannabis dispensaries. Marijuana growers also would face regulations enforced by the state.

        Assembly Speaker turned lobbyist Willie Brown
        Brown has served as a lobbyist for Oakland’s Harborside Health Center

        Incremental Illness

    • kaptinemo says:

      Said it many times before: DEA is CIA’s ‘bitch’. Been that way since DEA’s inception. It’s why DEA was thrown out of Venezuela a few years back, for being a CI front.

      They’re just so useful, you see. Perfect cover. Who can be against an agency that is for protecting your precious liddle tykes from (evil organ music blare) “DRUUUUUUUUGS!” Why, you’d have to be a closet dope-peddlin’ (insert name of racial and ethnic boogeyman-du-jour here ____________________) pre-vert to be against such a noble agency!

      And so it goes. But with all the political changes coming courtesy of the generational attitudes shifting against drug prohibition (if only from simple attrition), the usefulness of such a mask for CI is increasingly in doubt.

    • Servetus says:

      I really liked this part:

      The White House approved the plan and in May 1971, Kissinger presented a $120 million drug control proposal, of which $50 million was earmarked for special operations. Three weeks later Nixon declared “war on drugs,” at which point Congress responded with funding for the SIO and authorization for the extra-legal operations….

      And everyone was supposed to believe Richard Nixon was interested only in keeping military personnel and other Americans safe from the scourge of drugs, when in fact the auspicious marriage he and Kissinger arranged between the CIA and DEA provided a plausible denial for black-op CIA assassination teams and a massive international Nixon crime wave. Wow. No wonder Pinochet felt he could act as he did; he was an amateur compared to Tricky Dick and his entourage.

      • jean valjean says:

        holy shit.

      • B. Snow says:

        Yep, I thought this was common knowledge, when he bragged about “a seven-fold increase in spending up to 600 million” (screw the budget) [although by my math that would be 85 million?] = IDK how big they were lying about the source, nor destination of all that money – but that’s a fraking boatload of cash.

        Here’s an article with the quote where Nixon announces he’s giving the government *Carte Blanc* to spend unlimited funds doing – in the light of that article God only knows what!?

        June 17, 1971 – Nixon declares War on Drugs and calls drugs “Public Enemy Number One” at a press conference

        RN: ”I am glad that in this administration we have increased the amount of money for handling the problem of dangerous drugs seven-fold; it will be $600 million dollars this year. More money will be needed in the future. I want to say, however, that despite our budget problems, to the extent that money can help in meeting the problems of dangerous drugs, it will be available. This is one area where we cannot have budget cuts. Because we must wage what I have called total war against Public Enemy Number One in the United States – the problem of dangerous drugs.’

        Its from the Minnesota NORML site & here’s the link to the article I found that quote in just earlier.
        40 Years Ago: The Beginning of Nixon’s Drug War in His Own Words

        Now, I’ve been thru most of the transcripts from that year or so -with Haldeman & Linklater and Shafer, etc.

        Note: the audio links on that page are broken but they are locate-able if you want to guess at some of the so called “unintelligible” lines in the written transcripts = are clearly apparent to my ear.
        (The many “uh”,”ums” & broken words also carry part of the tone/inflection of the clearer words.)

        But there are two things that I didn’t recall/realize until now = it was in large Linklater who talked Nixon’s drunk ass the ‘logic’ of a prototype *gateway theory * they talk about/around it on several occasions.

        The most interesting of these times is when Nixon compares “the straight society and the drug society” and really digs in deep into his idea of homophobia-land.

        In a prior conversation its stated – “You see, homosexuality, dope, immorality in general: These are the enemies of strong societies. That’s why the Communists and the left-wingers are pushing the stuff, they’re trying to destroy us.”

        *I think Russ B. Put this article together for his stash-blog = the broken link appears to have led there to a page that’s now gone or made to look a bit more professional, just as the overall movement has done.*

        This offers some real insight into how this all went down over the course of a year and a half – in preparation for his 1972 Presidential campaign.

        While putting this together (carefully stylus typing) I found someone who covered this far better than I could ever hope to,

        Our friend = Doc Aggarwal:

        Health Scientist Blacklisting and the Meaning of Marijuana in the Oval Office in the Early 1970s
        by Sunil Kumar Aggarwal MD PhD

        (I believe he first published this on Dec. 2nd, 2014) – I’m not sure if/when it was [uhm,subheaded?] as the following on CASP with all the photos & mobile-friendly format…

        Unpacking the Nixon Tapes: The Meaning of Marijuana for the U.S. Presidential Administration Which Created and Placed It in Schedule I
        July 1st, 2015

        I hadn’t seen or heard of CASP (Cannabis And Social Policy) Communications = until today.
        This is the their “most recommended article” – and I can see why, it’s absolutely worth the read!

        • Servetus says:

          In the daisy chain leading up to that fateful meeting between Art Linkletter and Richard Nixon was the Power of Positive Thinking guru, Methodist Minister Norman Vincent Peale. In a Linkletter TV interview I saw many years ago, Linkletter said it was Rev. Peale who convinced him to become active in the drug war, effectively turning Linkletter’s grief over his daughter’s recent suicide into public activism against drug consumers.

          Rev. Peale believed in positive thinking as a remedy for all people, and by making Linkletter a devotee of positive anti-drug thinking, he helped make illicit drugs a scapegoat in a consumer war dictated by a paranoid leader whose positive thinking led him to believe he could get away with doing anything he wanted simply because he was the president.

          In Peale’s Wiki entry, it notes “His ideas were not accepted by mental health experts.[1] ”. No kidding.

          We’re left with two other professional categories that specialize in happiness, the mental health experts, and the licit and illicit drug merchandizers, both categories are competitors for Rev. Peale’s happiness market.

          If I were to compare the marketing successes of these three happiness industries in descending order, I would rank licit and illicit drugs first, the mental health industry second, and Norman Vincent Peale dead last.

          ***

          [1]Park, Robert L. (2009). Superstition: Belief in the Age of Science. Princeton University Press. p. 127. ISBN 978-0-691-13355-3 “Peale’s self-hypnosis technique was heavily criticized by mental health experts, who warned that it was dangerous. Critics denounced him as a con man and a fraud. As a minister, however, Peale was spared from any requirement to prove his assertions.

        • DdC says:

          Nixon lied to schedule Ganja #1
          http://endingcannabisprohibition.yuku.com/topic/1650

          Looks like drug worriers have to keep killing and doing harm,
          so they don’t look like blood thirsty idiots, admitting they were wrong.

          What Motivates the Leaders of the Drug War? October 29, 2007
          Following this week’s departure of DEA Administrator Karen Tandy, Pete Guither explores the motivations of the shot-callers in America’s brutal war on drugs. Are they serious? Cynical? Smart? Stupid? Insane? Who would want to put their name on something so grotesque, only to walk about each day insisting that it is gorgeous? (story left an old link)

          To wake up and acknowledge this colossal error is to trivialize the incalculable sacrifices we’ve already made. For all the lies told and lives lost, those responsible have a powerful incentive to maintain that victory awaits atop the hill. This is necessary so they may sleep at night, and also to placate the many Americans who still willfully sacrifice their tax dollars to the war and their neighbors to the gulag.
          ~ Eric Sterling at CJPF
          paraphrased by smorgan,
          stopthedrugwar.org/speakeasy

        • kaptinemo says:

          Thank you to the nth degree for that article from Dr. A.

          Been saying for years that the sociological aspect of reform has not been addressed, namely, that we are and have always been fighting an authoritarian mindset, a zeitgeist, if you will, that was common in the generation that supported the ramping up of the DrugWar. Nixon’s willfully ignorant malevolence was far more common than you might like to think. In fact, it was enshrined into drug policy long before Tricky first tracked his slime through the White House front door.

          That authoritarian zeitgeist has been easily observable through such ‘vectors’ as media. The insertion of anti-drugs propaganda into popular media as a means of circumventing laws meant to protect the American public from from such propagandizing, knowing full well the intent was unlawful, was a perfect example of this authoritarian ‘ends justify the means’ attitude at work.

          That attitude has fostered well-earned distrust in those who were forcibly subjected to it in school, leaving a decidedly bad taste in most of a generation’s collective mouth. That it was hypocritical was always suspected, and with all the revelations regarding scandals, Billions in taxpayer dollars wasted, etc. that suspicion has been borne out.

          The generational ‘new boss’ is decidedly NOT the same as the old one, and wants this insanity ended. The DrugWar was not just a weapon of racial and ethnic bigotries. It has always constituted a weapon held by one generation against the following ones.

          It’s an unusual situation: the ideological paymasters of the DrugWar mercenaries hired to fight their war are dead, and as far as the generation for whom the war was ostensibly fought for are concerned, the war is over, but the mercs carry on the fight because of leftover money still spilling from the trough.

  8. Mr_Alex says:

    Since Kev-Kev (Kevin Sabet) wants to lie more about Cannabis, I say Kevin Sabet and Dr Christian Thurstone should be made to join in a debate in the same room as Dr Raphael Mechoulam, if Dr Raphael Mechoulam destroys Kevin Sabet or Christian Thurstone’s view on Cannabis, both Kevin Sabet and Christian Thurstone should be liable to public scrutiny

  9. Windy says:

    Sort of OT:
    John Novak wrote:
    The person in charge of designing the drug monitoring program in Washington State like the one mentioned in this article is also the same guy designing the MMJ registry.
    http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015/09/11/clash-over-dea-no-warrant-searches-patient-records-heats-up/

    • FinalParagraphs says:

      “To put it simply, lying to frame defendants, which has always been unstated policy, is now official policy: no longer considered corruption, it is how your government manages the judicial system on behalf of the rich political elite.

      As outlined in this article, the process tracks back to Nixon, the formation of the BNDD, and the creation of a secret political police force out of the White House. As Agent Bowman Taylor caustically observed, “I used to think we were fighting the drug business, but after they formed the BNDD, I realized we were feeding it.”

      The corruption was first “collateral” – as a function of national security performed by the CIA in secret – but has now become “integral,’ the essence of empire run amok.”

    • Windy says:

      My eldest granddaughter was there with 4 of her friends, she’s at LAX, right now, waiting for her mom, my daughter, to land so she can drive her home (she’s exhausted and was afraid of driving home alone, afraid she’d doze off at the wheel, her mom is a professional driver). Waiting with bated breath to hear all about her experience and see pictures (I hope there are pictures, I’ve wanted to do Burning Man for a long time).

  10. Mouth says:

    A documentary about Freeway Rick, talked about how the U.S. government used black American children and adults in L.A. to engage in bloody combat operations against Soviet Communists in the form of the Crack Wars . . . since the coke was used to buy weapons meant to kill commies in Nicaragua–hence the Bloods and Crips being significantly utilized in the Cold War the way we utilized bombers, war ships and CIA spies in the cold war. So, instead of sending in our troops to help the contras, we let our black citizens fight each other so communists could be destroyed.

  11. jean valjean says:

    Left winger Jeremy Corbyn has been elected leader of the British Labour Party. In the coming primary I believe Bernie Sanders could defeat Hillary for the Democratic nomination. Both candidates have been compared to each other and, ironically, these two veteran campaigners are hugely popular with younger voters, including the DARE generation. The chickens are coming home to roost for prohibition.

  12. DdC says:

    Not dealing with presidents committing treason has been known to lead to states incremental illness… Not dealing with the Ganjawar is leading people to compromise on reality and give states special powers to define their own laws of physics. Not dealing with Nixon, makes us the land of the sheep and the home of the depraved…Fuck the USA! Qaeda

    “Look, we understood we couldn’t make it illegal to be young or poor or black in the United States, but we could criminalize their common pleasure. We understood that drugs were not the health problem we were making them out to be, but it was such a perfect issue…that we couldn’t resist it.”
    – John Ehrlichman, White House counsel to President Nixon on the rationale of the War on Drugs.

    “[Nixon] emphasized that you have to face the fact that the whole problem is really the blacks” Haldeman, his Chief of Staff wrote, “The key is to devise a system that recognizes this while not appearing to.”
    The Racist Ganjawar

    Nixon’s Treason
    In late October 1968, Beverly Deepe, a 33-year-old Saigon correspondent for the Christian Science Monitor, came upon a story that could have changed history. A six-year veteran covering the Vietnam War, she learned from South Vietnamese sources that Richard Nixon’s campaign was collaborating behind the scenes with the Saigon government to derail President Lyndon Johnson’s peace talks.

    Admissions on Nixon’s ‘Treason’ Consortiumnews
    Special Report: Definitive proof of a historical mystery is often elusive, even with archival documents and memoirs. Skeptics can always say some witness or some evidence isn’t perfect. But the case that Richard Nixon sabotaged the Vietnam peace talks in 1968 to win that pivotal election is clear

    The Almost Scoop on Nixon’s ‘Treason’
    At the end of Campaign 1968, as Richard Nixon feared his narrow lead could disappear if progress were made on Vietnam peace, a U.S. correspondent in Saigon got wind of a cabal between Nixon and South Vietnamese leaders to block peace talks and secure his victory. History was at a crossroads

    LBJ’s ‘X’ File on Nixon’s ‘Treason’
    In the dusty files of Lyndon Johnson’s presidential library in Austin, Texas, once secret documents and audiotapes tell a dark and tragic story of how Richard Nixon’s team secured the White House in 1968 by sabotaging peace talks that might have ended the Vietnam War four years earlier

    Profiting Off Nixon’s Vietnam ‘Treason’
    The notion of Wall Street bankers meeting in private to discuss profiting off a plot to extend the Vietnam War and risk the lives of thousands of American soldiers may sound like a conspiracy movie script, but it is a tragic reality reflected in once secret White House documents

    Nixon’s Biggest Crime Was Far, Far Worse than Watergate
    One week before Election Day, Johnson got a tip that Nixon was trying to sabotage the negotiations. It came from a highly credible source, the legendary Alexander Sachs.

    A furious president telephoned the highest elected Republican in the land, Senate Minority Leader Everett Dirksen of Illinois, and declared, “This is treason.” He wasn’t exaggerating. The Logan Act of 1799 prohibits private citizens (including presidential candidates) from interfering with negotiations between the U.S. and foreign governments.

    Nevertheless, Johnson decided not to go public with what he’d learned. He had many reasons, one of which remained secret until his own White House tapes were released in the twenty-first century. The others trickled out faster: LBJ didn’t want to compromise U.S. diplomatic intelligence sources, didn’t want to cripple Nixon’s presidency before it began, and didn’t have “smoking gun” proof that Nixon himself had broken the law.

    Or Reagan Bush

    Gary Webb’s “Dark Alliance” Returns to the Internet

    Iran Contra Anniversary
    The Lost Opportunities of Iran-Contra 25 Years Later

  13. Windy says:

    Calling ALL MMJ patients:
    https://www.facebook.com/NCPWall/photos/a.422149164599956.1073741828.419929601488579/542114882603383/?type=1&theater

    ATTENTION WE ARE MAKING PLANS TO MOVE FORWARD WITH OUR CLASS ACTION CIVIL SUIT! GET ON BOARD NOW MAKE SURE WE HAVE YOUR CONTACT INFO SO WE CAN KEEP YOU UPDATED AS WE DO THIS. heart emoticon heart emoticon PLEASE READ, LIKE, COMMENT & SHARE heart emoticon heart emoticon
    Take a minute to give us your contact information so we can keep you in the loop as we learn what we have to do to get this civil case filed and started. We are very excited because we believe this is the only thing our government will pay attention to. https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1GozbEbg0jeD2hztOlYJglT_I4RIjAyb1U0fd7wP5Bys/viewform

    READ MORE ABOUT OUR IDEAS HERE
    http://www.ncpwall.org/#!ncpwcivilsuit/c14lf

    • jean valjean says:

      Thanks for the heads up Windy…..I registered for updates. Is NCPWall proposing any class action for people whose rights were violated in the past by controlled substance convictions (and who still suffer violation from the long term fall-out from such a conviction) ?

    • DdC says:

      click the smiley
      Find the smiley symbol you want and then copy/paste the html

    • Tony Aroma says:

      That text is in some serious need of editing. Maybe it’s just me, but all those errors make it look less than professional.

      • Windy says:

        My fault, I should have removed those heart emoticons since they wouldn’t post as hearts, I was tired and that was the last thing I posted before going to bed.

  14. jean valjean says:

    Massive self-projection going on here:

    “Conservative MP Sarah Wollaston, chairman of the Health Select Committee and a former GP, said that it was “factually incorrect” to say the UK was losing the war on drugs, adding that drug use was falling, thanks to the government’s policy.

    She added: “I don’t have any moralistic view on taking drugs other than the fact that I object to people supporting one of the most evil businesses and cartels worldwide.”

    She and her policies are the only support the “cartels” are getting.

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-29821698

    • kaptinemo says:

      I’ll bet the champagne corks are popping all over Narcolandia for a week. Their prohibs, oblivious to the extant to which they service the cartels by mindlessly baying support for prohibition a la Pavlov, have come through, once more.

      Prohibs and narcos, conjoined at the wallet. The cartels couldn’t survive without them. The illegal trade is safe with such as la Wollaston ‘fighting’ against it. The cartels have even better odds than paper bags would in combat with her and her fellow prohibs.

      Useful idiots. The cartellistas don’t need toilet paper. The prohib useful idiots are plentiful, and cheap at the price, as many work pro bono for their real masters, unawares. Like having your very own Fifth Column, tirelessly toiling to maintain your profit flow with continued (strenuously hysterical) support for prohibition. But they don’t even know who they are actually working for.

      And the prohibs wonder why they never win…

  15. kaptinemo says:

    OT: Project SAM gets caught data cherry-picking…again.

    Leading anti-marijuana group got its facts wrong

    When will they realize they’ve lost their schtick? Seriously. Game over, guys, game over.

    Because, if you’ve been paying attention to the economy, we won’t be able to afford this farce for much longer. Google IMF global currency reset.

    Let the wise consider themselves warned.

    It’s real, this time, no bull. A major crunch is coming that will force a REAL reduction in size of government…or result in its collapse. What you see happening in the greater world is all connected to this issue, as it has to do with (dirty money laundering) banking, and the imminent failure of the (dirty money laundering) banking system.

    The piper has come for his due…and he won’t be put off any longer.

    • DdC says:

      I posted that here yesterday Unfortunatly it was after I found
      New DEA Head Believes Medical Marijuana Should Remain Schedule I Sabet is noise, the DEAth Head is the bottom line with the ability to actually do something. Dry drunks are notorious for fixing everybody. To admit cannabis is less harmful and continue to classify it as just as harmful is either schizophrenia or leading to schizophrenia. Either case our tax dollars shouldn’t be enabling them to worsen their disease. Or given to Sabet to spread the disease.

      I liked that Crossfire interview with Zappa you left. Compared to the religious nuts nowadays, that guy seems tame. If memory serves the guy on the “right” for Crossfire was for legalizing while Zappa hated pot. Strange days indeed.

      • DdC says:

        I think I might be confusing NOVAK with someone else… Maybe an earlier Buckley debate?

        • kaptinemo says:

          No, I think you’re right, it was Novak.

          The NeoCon elite like Novak were only just starting to flex their manic wings back then; they left the political rough-and-tumble and outright histrionics to their Religious Right shock troops…who were themselves being shocked by the sexual and fiscal antics of their politicized high-and-mighty TV preachers back then.

          If I recall, 3 of them were exposed in the span of two weeks, one bimbo-hurled and corruption-fueled bombshell after another.

          Several TV preachers of megachurches made tearful confessions on TV…while the money still rolled into their coffers from the far left end of the intelligence curve. They were strange days, indeed.

  16. Servetus says:

    PROPAGANDA ALERT: Researchers are correlating (linking) marijuana consumption to prediabetic symptoms in people, but not full diabetic conditions:

    13-SEP-2015 — The authors conclude: “In conclusion, marijuana use, by status or lifetime frequency, was not associated with incidence or presence of diabetes after adjustment for potential confounding factors. However, marijuana use was associated with the development and prevalence of prediabetes after adjustment. Specifically, occurrence of prediabetes in middle adulthood was significantly elevated for individuals who reported using marijuana in excess of 100 times by young adulthood. These results contrast with those previously reported on marijuana use and metabolic health. Future studies should look to objectively measure mode and quantity of marijuana use in relation to prospective metabolic health.”

    The authors’ conclusion will likely not be that of prohibitionists, who, if tradition serves, will claim at some point marijuana causes full blown diabetes Type 2.

    AAAS Press Release here.

    • DdC says:

      I was collecting news to post on other sites and decided this crap has to stop. At least the headlines said “may” this time. Still not newsworthy. So what is their point besides getting grant money? To scare off potential diabetics from using it? Pushing the alternatives and their side effects. How far will society sink before they get the fact that more tax paid grants for research or potential maybes are what is doing harm to people? I would like to see the victims of prohibition taken to a football stadium and the drug worriers marched around so everyone can see them and boo them in shame. Then take their bank accounts, homes, cars and jobs. Pisstest them weekly and deny them food stamps for life. In a just world maybe.

      However, marijuana use was not linked to an increased risk of having type 2 diabetes, according to the study, published today (Sept. 13) in the journal Diabetologia.

      But we know this mere fact won’t stop the gossip rodents.

    • Plant Down Babylon says:

      Sooooo, you get the munchies because of cannabis, you eat a crap load of processed sugars and get diabetes later in life?

      Sounds like that’s the evil weed’s fault. Idiots.

      I prefer fresh Hawaiian fruits and veggies when I’m baked. Nuts are yummy too. Not to hard to control what I eat. Maybe others are unable to be responsible for their own actions.

      Actually, the sugar police should storm into your house, shoot your soon to be diabetic dog and jail you for your own safety. Coming soon to a small town near you…..

  17. jean valjean says:

    Moronic stuff from Tucker Carlson:

    “Well, I think there is wide consensus that the Clinton administration went a little overboard in the sentencing, for sure,” Carlson agreed. “On the other hand, the crime rate went way down. And everyone benefited from that, particularly in black neighborhoods, which always have the highest crime rates.”

    http://www.alternet.org/media/fox-news-host-everyone-benefited-putting-more-blacks-prison-drugs-1990s

  18. Crut says:

    WHY is cannabis being held to a standard that no other substance on the planet is required to meet?

    fool.com/investing/general/2015/09/13/findings-from-a-long-term-study-on-marijuana-use

    Lawmakers are unlikely to change their tune on marijuana until it can be decisively shown through clinical studies that marijuana poses no long-term threat to the physical or cognitive functions of the body and brain of a user.

    I just don’t understand why politicians and pundits aren’t being called out on this. Of course it’s not harmless, NOTHING is without risk! So why can’t the media talk about, or even mention the actual, measurable harm that the drug war is causing?

    • Frank W. says:

      I saw that headline on Yahoo and it’s one of their clickbait “stories”. As long as people click on it the adware is gratified and money flows where the adware wanted it to go. I guess Yahoo “knows” whatever websites you patronize.
      I rage against the machine 30 times before breakfast but things go on as usual…

    • Duncan20903 says:

      .
      .

      Don’t pay any attention to those clowns. You can have your own column on the Motley Fool just like Sean if you want. I know for a fact that they’ll “hire” anyone. They’ve solicited me 4 times. Its got to be an automaton because I have a special, dark, iced over part of my heart for the Fools an some here might have noticed that I don’t censor my feelings. Anyway I thought that I’d given them enough choice epithets about their offers that would make them quit. Any human being would have put my name on the do not bother list. Still I can’t hate them. If it wasn’t for the Motley Damfools I’d have never met Rev. Shark and never learned how to trade the securities markets. I very much preferred being a Shark to being a Fool.

      After solicitation #3 for a (very) brief time I thought of the idea of taking them up on it specializing in the nascent cannabis industry. That was when I became aware of Sean who had already claimed the space. The point is that the Fools get paid by the click and all he’s doing is trying to get you emotional. He absolutely does not have any true expertise in the corporate cannabis industry. On the other hand he’s pretty good at baiting people into generating clicks.

      OK, now don’t get me started about Jim Cramer still haunting me…

      The Motley Fools are the epitome of Wall Street platitude #23, “The secret to making a small fortune in the stock market is to start with a large fortune.” But I guess they’ve provided more value to society than Paris Hilton, even if it’s just comedic relief. Sheesh, it’s almost 20 years later and they’re still trying to find the answer to the question, how many people will call themselves “Fools” and publicly disseminate or solicit “Foolish advice” if approached correctly? Discounting H.L. Mencken, who’da thunk it could be so many?

  19. I'm Voting for Bernie says:

    “11. Hillary Clinton is against the decriminalization of marijuana. Bernie Sanders supports the decriminalization of marijuana.”

    25 Reasons
    http://tinyurl.com/ose59na

  20. Plant Down Babylon says:

    Any way you good couch folks can help our brave friend Mike Ruggles out would be appreciated. He’s a good man who bravely stuck his neck WAY out for us.

    I’m all about making baby steps, he went ALL IN.

    He actually came to my court cases on the other side of the island. Love this brother and wish him a speedy dissolution to this travesty.

    http://www.westhawaiitoday.com/news/local-news/police-say-pot-activist-operated-unlicensed-medical-marijuana-dispensary

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V05QtsStkIE

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VV4tneMYbmE

  21. DdC says:

    Why You Think Cannabis is Illegal vs.
    Why Cannabis is REALLY Illegal

    Why Do YOU Think They Call it DOPE?

    DEA blasted for no-warrant searches of patient records, court battle heats up
    Drug Enforcement Administration agents have been accessing personal medical files without a warrant, generating a backlash from doctors and privacy advocates who say the practice is intrusive and unconstitutional — and have taken the agency to court.

    What Motivates the Leaders of the Drug War? October 29, 2007
    Following this week’s departure of DEA Administrator Karen Tandy, Pete Guither explores the motivations of the shot-callers in America’s brutal war on drugs. Are they serious? Cynical? Smart? Stupid? Insane? Who would want to put their name on something so grotesque, only to walk about each day insisting that it is gorgeous?

    To wake up and acknowledge this colossal error is to trivialize the incalculable sacrifices we’ve already made. For all the lies told and lives lost, those responsible have a powerful incentive to maintain that victory awaits atop the hill. This is necessary so they may sleep at night, and also to placate the many Americans who still willfully sacrifice their tax dollars to the war and their neighbors to the gulag.
    ~ Eric Sterling at CJPF
    paraphrased by smorgan,
    stopthedrugwar.org/speakeasy

    Hey Pete, the link is salon old in this story.
    Got Link?

  22. Servetus says:

    THC is being produced in labs using yeast cells, according to this New York Times article.

    Hyasynth Bio is one company working to produce both THC and cannabidiol by the yeast method.

    The Technical University of Dortmund reported an engineered strain of yeast that produces THC. The Dortmund group also say they have unpublished data for a yeast strain that produces cannabidiol.

    The yields of the yeast productions for THC and Cannabidiol are very small compared to what a plant can produce. However, European researchers hope they will curtail illegal farming by producing yeast grown vats of cannabinoids, at least until marijuana growers adopt their own yeast methods to produce THC.

    • Duncan20903 says:

      .
      .

      So what’s next? Some mad scientist in a government laboratory succeeding in causing yeast spores to produce ∆-9 THC and CBD is going to be one tough act to follow.

      On the bright side we may well be moving into a sea change in the cannabis edibles industry’s reality.

      Does anyone want to start a betting pool with the goal to accurately predict when the first prohibitionist parasite accuses the biscuit industry of marketing drugs to “the childrens” because of their use of the Pillsbury Doughboy as a roll model to promote the insidious products sold by the greedy dirtballs of Big Biscuits?

      But all of that raises at least one very important question which needs to be answered. If the police (or police equivalents) were to serve a search warrant at one of the biscuit cartels retail production ops and one or more shoots the Pillsbury Doughboy in “self defense,” would Mr. Doughboy deflate or explode? Would it perhaps depend on where he was hit?

  23. DdC says:

    Rauner Rejected These 11 Conditions for Treatment by Medical Marijuana in Illinois

    Rauner vetoed Senate Bill 39, which would have included post-traumatic stress disorder among the 39 other approved conditions, and the Illinois Department of Public Health said that 10 medical conditions recommended by the Medical Cannabis Advisory Board would not be added to the list of ailments for which marijuana is a legal treatment.

    This Is The Number One Health Problem Soldiers Face
    Deployed soldiers are sleeping as little as three hours a night.

    Historian Finds Oldest Use Of F-Word Hidden In Medieval Court Papers
    It could be “fourteenth-century revenge porn.”
    Once decoded, the line read “fvccant vvivys of heli,” a mix of Latin and English that meant “they fuck the wives of Ely,” as noted by Medievalists.net.

    The sinister science of addiction

  24. viggoPiggsko says:

    “The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights has recommended the decriminalisation of possession and use of drugs. This follows a withering critique of the negative impacts of the war on drugs on human rights across the world, in a new report for the UN Human Rights Council to inform its contribution to the upcoming UN general Assembly Special Session on drug (UNGASS).

    The call for decriminalisation is one of a number of key recommendations aimed to protect the right to health, the rights of children, women, prisoners, indigenous populations and other marginalised groups – that, as the report describes, have been systematically undermined by drug law enforcement.”

    See the full document here: http://idpc.net/publications/2015/09/study-on-the-impact-of-the-world-drug-problem-on-the-enjoyment-of-human-rights

    (From the Transform FB page; http://www.facebook.com/transformdrugs )

    • jean valjean says:

      Wonder how that’s going down with UNODC? I seem to recall that they were justifying what they do as essential for the “human rights of the child?”

      • jean valjean says:

        Read through most of the comments on the CNS site. Didn’t find any that support Feulner’s position. Good bye dinosaurs.

        • kaptinemo says:

          There’s one…exactly one. Must have paid troll duty for that article, as he’s pretty persistent. Usually, then they get blasted by a barrage of facts, they turn tail and run. This one’s probably a merc.

          But, like most of them, Inigo’s not as good as he thought he was; he’s realized he’s in over his head (especially after sparring with Malcolm) and now he’s engaging in deflection tactics, not addressing the comments made to him(?). Typical prohib Escape Maneuver One.

          Too bad he’s splashing around so much in a river full of hungry reformer piranhas.

          He should have stayed in the prohib kiddie pool.

      • DdC says:

        The Double Standard on Tobacco vs. Marijuana
        Editor’s Note: This piece was originally published by The Heritage Foundation. What do you expect, truth?

        What? The internal combustion engine operates on a series of tiny explosions! We must ban them immediately. Just before the piston reaches the top again, the spark plug fires, igniting the air-fuel mixture (alternatively, the heat of compression ignites the mixture). The mixture on burning becomes a hot, expanding gas forcing the piston down on its power stroke. WTF are they thinking? They even let 16 year old kids use them.

        Anti-Asthmatic Cigarettes:

        Asthma
        More than 15 million Americans are affected by asthma. Smoking cannabis (the “raw drug” as the AMA called it) would be beneficial for 80% of them and add 30-60 million person-years in the aggregate of extended life to current asthmatics over presently legal toxic medicines such as Theophylline prescribed to children.

        “Taking a hit of marijuana has been known to stop a full blown asthma attack.” (Personal communication with Dr. Donald Tashkin, December 12, 1989, and December 1, 1997.) The use of cannabis for asthmatics goes back thousands of years in literature. American doctors of the last century wrote in medical papers that asthma sufferers of the world would “bless” Indian Hemp (cannabis) all their lives.

        Emphysema
        Medical research indicates that light cannabis smoking might be useful for a majority of mild emphysema victims. It would improve the quality of life for millions of sufferers and extend their life spans.

        Lung Damage Reports
        However, unlike tobacco smoke, cannabis smoke does not cause any changes in the small airways, the area where tobacco smoke causes long term and permanent damage. Additionally, a tobacco smoker will smoke 20 to 60 cigarettes a day, while a heavy marijuana smoker may smoke five to seven joints a day, even less when potent high-quality flower tops are available.

        While tens of millions of Americans smoke pot regularly, cannabis has never caused a known case of lung cancer as of December 1997, according to America’s foremost lung expert, Dr. Donald Tashkin of UCLA. He considers the biggest health risk to the lungs would be a person smoking 16 or more “large” spliffs a day of leaf/bud because of the hypoxia of too much smoke and not enough oxygen.

        Tashkin feels there is no danger for anyone to worry about potentiating emphysema “in any way” by the use of marijuana—totally the opposite of tobacco.

        Cannabis is a complex, highly evolved plant. There are some 400 compounds in its smoke. Of these, 60 are presently known to have therapeutic value.

        Expectorant
        Cannabis is the best natural expectorant to clear the human lungs of smog, dust, and the phlegm associated with tobacco use. Marijuana smoke effectively dilates the airways of the lungs, the bronchi, opening them to allow more oxygen into the lungs. It is also the best natural dilator of the tiny airways of the lungs, the bronchial tubes—making cannabis the best overall bronchial dilator for 80% of the population (the remaining 20% sometimes show minor negative reactions).

  25. cy klebs says:

    But decriminalization is still discrimination against the smoking public, has the Donald come out for our rights in the 80’s?

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