Drug WarRant

Another in the lost list of incidents of law enforcement not knowing (or apparently caring) what marijuana actually is… and doing so with extreme prejudice.

The Ridiculous Warrant Application Behind a Fruitless Marijuana Raid. A Texas cop was sure those hippies were growing pot on their farm

I would say the raid was fruitless, except that the code enforcement officers did uproot and cart away a bunch of hackberry bushes.

Why were the cops so sure that the Garden of Eden was a front for drug trafficking? Because it was a bunch of fucking hippies growing stuff, so of course they were growing marijuana. As detailed in a federal lawsuit filed last month by Eaker and four other victims of the SWAT raid, the justification for this armed invasion was not much stronger than that.

You know, sometimes I hear police (or apologists for current methods of policing) say that the kinds of judicial reform that many of us seek will tie the hands of police officers and make it harder for them to do their jobs.

What job? When you see things like this – and we do way too often – it doesn’t look like a job. A “job” presents the image of training, procedures, skills, intent to further an appropriate goal, and so forth. This looks more like your dog sniffing around the floor putting everything in its mouth that its nose touches in the hopes that it might be a scrap of food that fell off the table.

So, one of the big pieces of recent news was this:

Teen Marijuana Use Not Linked to Later Depression, Lung Cancer, Other Health Problems, Research Finds

Chronic marijuana use by teenage boys does not appear to be linked to later physical or mental health issues such as depression, psychotic symptoms or asthma, according to a study published by the American Psychological Association.

Researchers from the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and Rutgers University tracked 408 males from adolescence into their mid-30s for the study, which was published in Psychology of Addictive Behaviors®.

“What we found was a little surprising,” said lead researcher Jordan Bechtold, PhD, a psychology research fellow at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. “There were no differences in any of the mental or physical health outcomes that we measured regardless of the amount or frequency of marijuana used during adolescence.”

This, of course, is the best kind of research, as it actually tracked young people over the course of many years, and controlled for other factors such as cigarette smoking, health insurance, etc. (Note: in this particular study, only boys were tracked.)

For years, now, the federal government, led by science-impaired NIDA, plus all the prohibitionists, have claimed that we can’t consider legalizing marijuana for adults because it will inevitably mean more use by teens, leading to all sorts of damage.

Of course the actual truth is that there is no evidence that legalization for adults results in increased use by teens, and now this study shows that the purported dangers of teen use are dramatically overstated.

The same thing happened with the Chicken Little claims of highways devastated by stoned drivers.

Of course, as some of our commenters have pointed out, this is no surprise to us.

It’s just another variant of “where are the bodies?”

Teens have been smoking pot for a very long time, and there should be hard and obvious evidence of the negative impact by now, if the danger was anywhere near what was claimed.

Oh, and by the way, here’s the amazing thing — the Daily Mail actually covered this!

New DEA Chief: ‘Heroin Is Clearly More Dangerous Than Marijuana’

The new Drug Enforcement Administration chief has finally made it clear: Marijuana is safer than heroin.

DEA head Chuck Rosenberg told reporters Wednesday morning at the administration’s headquarters that “heroin is clearly more dangerous than marijuana,” clarifying a less definitive statement he made last week, when he said marijuana is “probably not” as dangerous as heroin. Rosenberg said cannabis is still “harmful and dangerous,” but that his original remarks should have been clearer. […]

The statement lines up with the science that has long been clear on the plant being one of the least dangerous recreationally used drugs. And while Rosenberg’s comments may initially seem benign, they represent a significant shift in the point of view of an agency that continues to classify marijuana as one of the “most dangerous” drugs, alongside heroin and LSD.

Nice to know that the head of the DEA is starting to learn the basics, even though he clearly has a long way to go.

This would be like the head of NASA finally admitting that astrology is not the same as astronomy.

Tom Angell’s got a pretty good scoop:

Exclusive: Justice Department Admits Misleading Congress on Marijuana Vote

Justice Department officials misinformed members of Congress about the effects of a medical marijuana amendment being considered by the U.S. House of Representatives, according to an internal memo obtained by Marijuana.com.

The amendment, which lawmakers approved in May 2014 by a vote of 219-189 despite the Obama administration’s objections, is aimed at preventing the Department of Justice from spending money to interfere with the implementation of state medical cannabis laws.

But in the days leading up to the vote, department officials distributed “informal talking points” warning House members that the measure could “in effect, limit or possibly eliminate the Department’s ability to enforce federal law in recreational marijuana cases as well,” according to the document. [Emphasis added.]

This is the most bizarre thing I’ve read all week.

Suspended Cops Say Video of Them Eating Marijuana Edibles During a Raid Violated Their Privacy

You may remember this – the video was widely circulated of cops who had raided a medical marijuana place, gotten all the cameras (they thought) and then spent quite some time there eating marijuana edibles and goofing around.

Among other things, their lawsuit argues that the officers thought they had disabled all of the security cameras at Sky High Holistic and therefore had a reasonable expectation of privacy. The cops complain that the dispensary never got their permission to record them as they searched the premises.

“All police personnel present had a reasonable expectation that their conversations were no longer being recorded and the undercover officers, feeling that they were safe to do so, removed their masks,” says the complaint, which was filed in Orange County Superior Court. “Without the illegal recordings, there would have been no internal investigation of any officer.”

Wow.

John Walters. He keeps showing up. I feel like I have a long-term dysfunctional relationship with this man. It’s been so many years that this blog has had to deal with him in one way or another. After he left the ONDCP, I hoped that would be it, but he keeps popping up with the same misdirection, fractured logic, and fake moral highground.

Marijuana legalization movement makes no sense by David Murray and John P. Walters.

His material is always a good lesson for analyzing the talking points of prohibitionists.

I’ll just point out one logic dodge. You can have fun with the rest.

First he tries to avoid the clear proof that marijuana is safer than alcohol by saying that it’s improper to compare them.

Or consider the argument that marijuana is “safer to use” than alcohol. That alcohol is dangerous all acknowledge, costing the health of thousands. But the proper argument is that each intoxicant presents its own unique threats. It is not productive medically to “rank” them.

Each is unique. I see.

Now just one paragraph away…

A major dimension of alcohol damage is the sheer prevalence of use, some six times greater than the prohibited marijuana, driving up the “disease burden.” Were regulated marijuana to reach the proportions of use of alcohol, the public health impact would be staggering.

What happened to “each is unique”? Now, suddenly, without any evidence whatsoever, legalization of marijuana will cause a “staggering” public health impact because it’s just like alcohol.

Go home, John. And take Davey with you.

Oh, this is just fun.

Anti-MDMA Campaign Warns Teens About Dangers Of Feeling More Connected To Others

ROCKVILLE, MD—Explaining that most young people mistakenly believe the popular drug to be safe for recreational use, officials from the National Institute on Drug Abuse unveiled a new anti-MDMA campaign Friday warning teens about the dangers of feeling deep emotional connections to others. “Too many of our nation’s children don’t realize that even a single dose of MDMA—or Molly, as it’s known—has the devastating potential to make users feel like they’re part of one big human family, connected to all those around them by a single cosmic thread,” said NIDA spokesperson June Kessler, who noted that 13- to 18-year-olds were especially at risk of succumbing to a profound warmth and admiration toward their peers that knows no bounds.

“Teens need to know this isn’t just a benign party drug; it comes with serious consequences, and it can and will cause users to see the world from the eyes of the people standing next to them and, within minutes, realize they love them that much more for it. The only way to avoid these disastrous side effects is to stay away from Molly altogether.” Kessler added that if a sudden rush of empathy wasn’t scary enough, MDMA has also been known to cause things to look, taste, and feel exponentially better.

Awww… too bad.

This article really makes me smile.

Congress’ Summer Fling With Marijuana.
How Congress turned on the DEA and embraced weed. by James Higdon.

[…] The next day, Leonhart retired, a move Chaffetz and Cummings deemed “appropriate.” That was April.

In May, the Senate made history by voting in favor of the first pro-marijuana measure ever offered in that chamber to allow the Veterans Administration to recommend medical marijuana to veterans. Then when June rolled around, it was time for the House to pass its appropriations bill for Commerce, Justice and Science. That’s when things got interesting. The DEA got its budget cut by $23 million, had its marijuana eradication unit’s budget slashed in half and its bulk data collections program shut down. Ouch.

In short, April was a bad month for the DEA; May was historically bad; but June was arguably the DEA’s worst month since Colorado went legal 18 months ago […]

The string of setbacks, cuts and handcuffs for the DEA potentially signals a new era for the once untouchable law enforcement agency—a sign that the national reconsideration of drug policy might engulf and fundamentally alter DEA’s mission.

“The DEA is no longer sacrosanct,” Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.) tells Politico. […]

But unlike such dire warnings in the past, when Congress could be assured of protecting funding for a law enforcement agency seen for decades as key to winning the War on Drugs, the shine has now clearly come off DEA—and that means the agency’s problems might just be beginning.

This has been a long time coming.

This refers back to one of the items in the “Odds and Ends” post this week…

Kyle Carriker found not guilty of felony murder

WICHITA, Kan. — Jurors have reached a not guilty verdict in the murder trial of a man accused in a deadly drug deal.

Kyler Carriker was one of five men charged in the 2013 death of Ronald Betts. Specifically, Carriker was charged under the state’s felony murder rule. […]

Carriker left the courtroom and hugged his mother, former Kansas gubernatorial and Wichita mayoral candidate Jennifer Winn. She and other protesters said from the beginning, marijuana offenses should not be grouped in the same category as inherently violent felonies.

Good that the jury saw through this farce, even if the District Attorney still defends the prosecution.

Remember when former head Michele Leonhart refused to say that marijuana was less harmful than heroin?

Well, her predecessor, Acting Administrator Chuck Rosenberg, has taken a bold step toward… oafishness.

New DEA Leader: Pot Probably Not as Bad as Heroin. ‘I’m not an expert,’ he adds.

“If you want me to say that marijuana’s not dangerous, I’m not going to say that because I think it is,” Rosenberg said. “Do I think it’s as dangerous as heroin? Probably not. I’m not an expert.”

He added: “Let me say it this way: I’d rather be in a car accident going 30 miles an hour than 60 miles an hour, but I’d prefer not to be in a car accident at all.”

Now that’s leadership.