mirror Ending D.E.A.th & Pillage Incrementally
Former Prosecutor: "Drug Policy Kills More People Than Drugs"
"If we keep together we shall be safe, and when error is so apparent as to become visible to the majority, they will correct it."
~ Thomas Jefferson
Frank and Paul Urge WH to Respect Marijuana Law
Representatives Barney Frank, a Democrat from Massachusetts, and Republican Ron Paul of Texas, polar opposites on many issues, joined Wednesday in asking the White House to refrain from acting against marijuana users in Colorado and Washington, which became the first states last week to legalize recreational use of the drug. In a letter to President Obama, the duo asked the White House to “respect the wishes of the voters of Colorado and Washington and refrain from federal prosecution of the inhabitants of those states who will be following their states’ laws with regard to the use of marijuana.”
SAM FARR
Member of Congress
Thank you for sharing your concerns with me about the prohibition of marijuana. As you know, lifting any sort of ban on the use of marijuana, whether recreational or even medicinal, faces an uphill battle. However, because I believe the prohibition of marijuana has done more harm than good, I am pleased to be able to tell you that I am a cosponsor of H.R. 2306, the Ending Federal Marijuana Prohibition Act of 2011 .
Additionally, you should know that in the 107th, 108th, 109th, 110th, and 111th Congresses, I have been a cosponsor of legislation (HR 2592, HR 2233, and HR 2087, HR 5842, and HR 2835 respectively) to provide for the use of marijuana for medicinal purposes in those states that have laws allowing it. In addition, I have voted for and worked on amendments to bills on the House floor that would prohibit the Department of Justice from enforcing DEA raids against medical marijuana operations in states that have laws allowing the use of medical marijuana.
In a time when we in Washington have to make hard decisions about our spending priorities, it makes no sense to continue to throw away money on the failed policies like the prohibition of marijuana. After 40 million arrests and a trillion dollars spent to fight drug use, the number of those who have used drugs is up 2,800 percent since 1970. We simply cannot afford to continue funding this kind of failed policy.
I will continue to support the responsible use of marijuana in our state and on a national level. I appreciate you contacting my office and hope that you feel free to contact me again with any further questions or concerns.
Laboratories
As the usual gang of academics in drug policy have, over the years, continually pointed out the uncertainties of legalization given the lack of any actual examples of legalization, I have often publicly wondered at the lack of interest in pushing for a Justice Brandeis-style “laboratory” to give us that actual data.
Now that Washington and Colorado have stepped up to the plate and voted for legalization despite the paralyzing reams of uncertainty that surely must be haunting their every waking moment, it’s nice to see Mark Kleiman appreciating this new laboratory: States as laboratories for marijuana policy.
Using Washington and Colorado as reason to push for federal change.
Jeralyn at TalkLeft has an excellent article about Colorado Representatives drafting bills to keep the feds out of state marijuana laws: CO Reps to Introduce Bill on Marijuana to Protect Amendment 64
Is there a value in incrementalism?
Unlikely allies behind marijuana votes in Washington, Colorado
"It is one of the happy incidents of the federal system, that a single courageous state may, if its citizens choose, serve as a laboratory; and try novel social and economic experiments without risk to the rest of the country."
~ Justice Louis D. Brandeis 1932
Guide To Legal MJ Use Published By Seattle Police
By Phuong Le Huffington Post November 15, 2012 Seattle
When Washington state voters overwhelmingly legalized the recreational use of marijuana on Nov. 6, Seattle police knew they'd be getting a lot of questions. And while many details surrounding the state's Dec. 6 decriminalization of pot remain, the department didn't shy away from answering what questions it could about Initiative 502, posting a funny, question-and-answer blog that has become a big web hit – having been viewed more than 120,000 times and shared more than 15,000 times on Facebook since it was posted Friday.
Pot Legalization Proceeds with Feds Mostly Silent
Does Sharing Marijuana Constitute Distribution?
Civil liberties activists today challenged prosecutors’ arguments that sharing a small amount of marijuana among friends constitutes drug “distribution.” “The Commonwealth is simply wrong to argue that sharing marijuana constitutes criminal distribution,” Matthew R. Segal, legal director for the ACLU of Massachusetts, said in a statement. “More fundamentally, the Commonwealth’s argument contradicts the will of the voters who approved marijuana decriminalization in 2008. The voters sought to limit marijuana prosecutions, not to invite creative ways for the Commonwealth to increase them.”
With Marijuana Legal in Wash. & Colo. Police Worry
Are we about to see the dissolving of soft opposition?
No softening of anti-drug war
Singapore explains its new adjusted death penalty plans.
You’re merely a mule and have no useful information. Die.
Weed Beat the Recession in Denver vs 60,000 Dead Mexicans
Drug War Creates Mass Death of the Akha (Thailand)
Got SqWAT?
Making Sure Drugs Kill
"I consider the foundation of the Constitution as laid on this ground that 'all powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the
states, are preserved to the states or to the people.'
~ Thomas Jefferson
State Laws Legalizing Marijuana put Obama in Bind
"The feds have no interest in [going after individual users]," says Sam Kamin, a law professor at the University of Denver. "They don’t have the resources to do that, and there's nothing they can do from a legal point of view to make the state reverse that decision."
In 2009, Attorney General Holder told reporters that "given the limited resources that we have, our focus will be on people, organizations that are growing, cultivating substantial amounts of marijuana and doing so in a way that's inconsistent with federal and state law.” And later that year a deputy attorney general, David Ogden, seemed to reiterate that stance in a memo, which stated that federal law enforcement shouldn't focus "on individuals whose actions are in clear and unambiguous compliance with existing state laws providing for the medical use of marijuana."
Gregoire Asks Justice Department About Marijuana
Gregoire Says Feds Undecided About Blocking Law
Marijuana Legalization: States Send Message
Voters in Washington and Colorado didn't just pass historic measures legalizing recreational marijuana use last week, they blew smoke in the face of Atty. Gen. Eric Holder and, by extension, President Obama. The bud stops at your desks, gentlemen.
Gov. Gregoire Meeting with Feds over Marijuana Law
"I consider the foundation of the Constitution as laid on this ground: That 'all powers not delegated to the United States, by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States or to the people' (10th Amendment). To take a single step beyond the boundaries thus specifically drawn around the powers of Congress, is to take possession of a boundless field of power, no longer susceptible to any definition."
~ Thomas Jefferson
Source: letter to George Washington,15 February, 1791
Mexico President Says Pot Votes in US Leaves Washington With No 'Moral Authority' for Drug War
Justin Trudeau Supports Decriminalization of Marijuana
US Pot Votes Show Canada the Way
Marijuana Activists in B.C. Determined to Follow in Colorado's Footsteps
Marijuana Vote a Game-Changer for Canada
Prime Minister Stephen Harper may be dismissive about the fact that the states of Washington and Colorado voted in favour of legalizing marijuana last week, but they have set the stage for a game changer, however complicated.
Canada Toughens Pot Laws, Two U.S. States Loosen Up
Canadian Hemp Growing Like a Weed, Experts Ponder How to Help Industry Blossom
Nov 14 2012
Gov. Brown Tells the Obama Administration to Back Off On Marijuana
California Gov. Jerry Brown said Sunday on CNN that the Obama administration should respect states that choose to legalize the use of marijuana for medicinal or recreational purposes.
Marijuana Prosecutions Dropped
Prosecutors and police in Washington moved Friday to swiftly back away from enforcing marijuana prohibition, even though the drug remains illegal for another month.
Colorado, Washington Await Feds' Response
Federal Government Wrestling with Policy
Marijuana Votes Raise Specter of Pot Tourism
Marijuana's Hazy Future
High Noon on Marijuana Laws
Medical Marijuana Law Will Challenge Overseers
MJ Legalization Could Change Anti-Drug Strategies
The decision by voters in Colorado and Washington state to legalize the recreational use of marijuana has left President-elect Enrique Peña Nieto and his team scrambling to reformulate their anti-drug strategies in light of what one senior aide said was a referendum that “changes the rules of the game.”
Marijuana Vote May Have Effect in Latin America
World Turns on to U.S. Marijuana Legalization
Legal Battle Looms Over Marijuana Initiatives
Voters Ease Marijuana Laws in 2 States
For supporters of legalizing marijuana, it was a historic moment, one that drew comparisons to the end of Prohibition: On Tuesday, voters in Colorado and Washington State made it legal to smoke pot recreationally, without any prescription or medical excuse. But as Gov. John Hickenlooper of Colorado cautioned voters on Tuesday night: “Don’t break out the Cheetos or the Goldfish too quickly.”
How Cheap Will Legal Marijuana Be?
Businesses Expected To Boom After Legalization
Rocky Mountain High
Marijuana Legalization Victories Are Already Ripping the Drug War Apart
Colorado and Washington Make Marijuana History
Cannabis Culture News LIVE: POT TV Nov 9 2012
For the latest news and views on pot politics and the marijuana community.
“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
Methinks Thou Dost Protest Too Much
Was the government to prescribe to us our medicine and diet, our bodies would be in such keeping as our souls are now. Thus in France the emetic was once forbidden as a medicine, and the potato as an article of food. Government is just as fallible, too, when it fixes systems in physics. Galileo was sent to the Inquisition for affirming that the earth was a sphere; the government had declared it to be as flat as a trencher, and Galileo was obliged to abjure his error. ... Reason and experiment have been indulged, and error has fled before them. It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself.
-- Thomas Jefferson, "Notes on the State of Virginia," 1787
Why the Federal Government Will Not Reschedule Marijuana
Trillion spent is a Trillion earned.
Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs
Cover-Ups, Prevarications, Subversions & Sabotage
"We are grateful to the Washington Post, the NY Times, Time Magazine, and other great publications whose directors have attended our meetings, and respected their promises of discretion for almost 40 years. It would have been impossible for us to develop OUR PLAN for the world if we had been subjected to the lights of publicity during those years. But, the world is now more sophisticated and prepared to march towards a World Government. The supranational sovereignty of an intellectual ELITE and World Bankers is surely preferable to the national auto - determination practiced in past centuries."
~ David Rockefeller CFR Kingpin,
Founder of the Trilateral Commission,
NOW Godfather / June 1991
Former Prosecutor: "Drug Policy Kills More People Than Drugs"
"If we keep together we shall be safe, and when error is so apparent as to become visible to the majority, they will correct it."
~ Thomas Jefferson
Frank and Paul Urge WH to Respect Marijuana Law
Representatives Barney Frank, a Democrat from Massachusetts, and Republican Ron Paul of Texas, polar opposites on many issues, joined Wednesday in asking the White House to refrain from acting against marijuana users in Colorado and Washington, which became the first states last week to legalize recreational use of the drug. In a letter to President Obama, the duo asked the White House to “respect the wishes of the voters of Colorado and Washington and refrain from federal prosecution of the inhabitants of those states who will be following their states’ laws with regard to the use of marijuana.”
SAM FARR
Member of Congress
Thank you for sharing your concerns with me about the prohibition of marijuana. As you know, lifting any sort of ban on the use of marijuana, whether recreational or even medicinal, faces an uphill battle. However, because I believe the prohibition of marijuana has done more harm than good, I am pleased to be able to tell you that I am a cosponsor of H.R. 2306, the Ending Federal Marijuana Prohibition Act of 2011 .
Additionally, you should know that in the 107th, 108th, 109th, 110th, and 111th Congresses, I have been a cosponsor of legislation (HR 2592, HR 2233, and HR 2087, HR 5842, and HR 2835 respectively) to provide for the use of marijuana for medicinal purposes in those states that have laws allowing it. In addition, I have voted for and worked on amendments to bills on the House floor that would prohibit the Department of Justice from enforcing DEA raids against medical marijuana operations in states that have laws allowing the use of medical marijuana.
In a time when we in Washington have to make hard decisions about our spending priorities, it makes no sense to continue to throw away money on the failed policies like the prohibition of marijuana. After 40 million arrests and a trillion dollars spent to fight drug use, the number of those who have used drugs is up 2,800 percent since 1970. We simply cannot afford to continue funding this kind of failed policy.
I will continue to support the responsible use of marijuana in our state and on a national level. I appreciate you contacting my office and hope that you feel free to contact me again with any further questions or concerns.
Laboratories
As the usual gang of academics in drug policy have, over the years, continually pointed out the uncertainties of legalization given the lack of any actual examples of legalization, I have often publicly wondered at the lack of interest in pushing for a Justice Brandeis-style “laboratory” to give us that actual data.
Now that Washington and Colorado have stepped up to the plate and voted for legalization despite the paralyzing reams of uncertainty that surely must be haunting their every waking moment, it’s nice to see Mark Kleiman appreciating this new laboratory: States as laboratories for marijuana policy.
Using Washington and Colorado as reason to push for federal change.
Jeralyn at TalkLeft has an excellent article about Colorado Representatives drafting bills to keep the feds out of state marijuana laws: CO Reps to Introduce Bill on Marijuana to Protect Amendment 64
Is there a value in incrementalism?
Unlikely allies behind marijuana votes in Washington, Colorado
"It is one of the happy incidents of the federal system, that a single courageous state may, if its citizens choose, serve as a laboratory; and try novel social and economic experiments without risk to the rest of the country."
~ Justice Louis D. Brandeis 1932
Guide To Legal MJ Use Published By Seattle Police
By Phuong Le Huffington Post November 15, 2012 Seattle
When Washington state voters overwhelmingly legalized the recreational use of marijuana on Nov. 6, Seattle police knew they'd be getting a lot of questions. And while many details surrounding the state's Dec. 6 decriminalization of pot remain, the department didn't shy away from answering what questions it could about Initiative 502, posting a funny, question-and-answer blog that has become a big web hit – having been viewed more than 120,000 times and shared more than 15,000 times on Facebook since it was posted Friday.
Pot Legalization Proceeds with Feds Mostly Silent
Does Sharing Marijuana Constitute Distribution?
Civil liberties activists today challenged prosecutors’ arguments that sharing a small amount of marijuana among friends constitutes drug “distribution.” “The Commonwealth is simply wrong to argue that sharing marijuana constitutes criminal distribution,” Matthew R. Segal, legal director for the ACLU of Massachusetts, said in a statement. “More fundamentally, the Commonwealth’s argument contradicts the will of the voters who approved marijuana decriminalization in 2008. The voters sought to limit marijuana prosecutions, not to invite creative ways for the Commonwealth to increase them.”
With Marijuana Legal in Wash. & Colo. Police Worry
Are we about to see the dissolving of soft opposition?
No softening of anti-drug war
Singapore explains its new adjusted death penalty plans.
You’re merely a mule and have no useful information. Die.
Weed Beat the Recession in Denver vs 60,000 Dead Mexicans
Drug War Creates Mass Death of the Akha (Thailand)
Got SqWAT?
Making Sure Drugs Kill
"I consider the foundation of the Constitution as laid on this ground that 'all powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the
states, are preserved to the states or to the people.'
~ Thomas Jefferson
State Laws Legalizing Marijuana put Obama in Bind
"The feds have no interest in [going after individual users]," says Sam Kamin, a law professor at the University of Denver. "They don’t have the resources to do that, and there's nothing they can do from a legal point of view to make the state reverse that decision."
In 2009, Attorney General Holder told reporters that "given the limited resources that we have, our focus will be on people, organizations that are growing, cultivating substantial amounts of marijuana and doing so in a way that's inconsistent with federal and state law.” And later that year a deputy attorney general, David Ogden, seemed to reiterate that stance in a memo, which stated that federal law enforcement shouldn't focus "on individuals whose actions are in clear and unambiguous compliance with existing state laws providing for the medical use of marijuana."
Gregoire Asks Justice Department About Marijuana
Gregoire Says Feds Undecided About Blocking Law
Marijuana Legalization: States Send Message
Voters in Washington and Colorado didn't just pass historic measures legalizing recreational marijuana use last week, they blew smoke in the face of Atty. Gen. Eric Holder and, by extension, President Obama. The bud stops at your desks, gentlemen.
Gov. Gregoire Meeting with Feds over Marijuana Law
"I consider the foundation of the Constitution as laid on this ground: That 'all powers not delegated to the United States, by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States or to the people' (10th Amendment). To take a single step beyond the boundaries thus specifically drawn around the powers of Congress, is to take possession of a boundless field of power, no longer susceptible to any definition."
~ Thomas Jefferson
Source: letter to George Washington,15 February, 1791
Mexico President Says Pot Votes in US Leaves Washington With No 'Moral Authority' for Drug War
Justin Trudeau Supports Decriminalization of Marijuana
US Pot Votes Show Canada the Way
Marijuana Activists in B.C. Determined to Follow in Colorado's Footsteps
Marijuana Vote a Game-Changer for Canada
Prime Minister Stephen Harper may be dismissive about the fact that the states of Washington and Colorado voted in favour of legalizing marijuana last week, but they have set the stage for a game changer, however complicated.
Canada Toughens Pot Laws, Two U.S. States Loosen Up
Canadian Hemp Growing Like a Weed, Experts Ponder How to Help Industry Blossom
Nov 14 2012
Gov. Brown Tells the Obama Administration to Back Off On Marijuana
California Gov. Jerry Brown said Sunday on CNN that the Obama administration should respect states that choose to legalize the use of marijuana for medicinal or recreational purposes.
Marijuana Prosecutions Dropped
Prosecutors and police in Washington moved Friday to swiftly back away from enforcing marijuana prohibition, even though the drug remains illegal for another month.
Colorado, Washington Await Feds' Response
Federal Government Wrestling with Policy
Marijuana Votes Raise Specter of Pot Tourism
Marijuana's Hazy Future
High Noon on Marijuana Laws
Medical Marijuana Law Will Challenge Overseers
MJ Legalization Could Change Anti-Drug Strategies
The decision by voters in Colorado and Washington state to legalize the recreational use of marijuana has left President-elect Enrique Peña Nieto and his team scrambling to reformulate their anti-drug strategies in light of what one senior aide said was a referendum that “changes the rules of the game.”
Marijuana Vote May Have Effect in Latin America
World Turns on to U.S. Marijuana Legalization
Legal Battle Looms Over Marijuana Initiatives
Voters Ease Marijuana Laws in 2 States
For supporters of legalizing marijuana, it was a historic moment, one that drew comparisons to the end of Prohibition: On Tuesday, voters in Colorado and Washington State made it legal to smoke pot recreationally, without any prescription or medical excuse. But as Gov. John Hickenlooper of Colorado cautioned voters on Tuesday night: “Don’t break out the Cheetos or the Goldfish too quickly.”
How Cheap Will Legal Marijuana Be?
Businesses Expected To Boom After Legalization
Rocky Mountain High
Marijuana Legalization Victories Are Already Ripping the Drug War Apart
Colorado and Washington Make Marijuana History
Cannabis Culture News LIVE: POT TV Nov 9 2012
For the latest news and views on pot politics and the marijuana community.
“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
Methinks Thou Dost Protest Too Much
Was the government to prescribe to us our medicine and diet, our bodies would be in such keeping as our souls are now. Thus in France the emetic was once forbidden as a medicine, and the potato as an article of food. Government is just as fallible, too, when it fixes systems in physics. Galileo was sent to the Inquisition for affirming that the earth was a sphere; the government had declared it to be as flat as a trencher, and Galileo was obliged to abjure his error. ... Reason and experiment have been indulged, and error has fled before them. It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself.
-- Thomas Jefferson, "Notes on the State of Virginia," 1787
Why the Federal Government Will Not Reschedule Marijuana
Trillion spent is a Trillion earned.
Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs
Cover-Ups, Prevarications, Subversions & Sabotage
"We are grateful to the Washington Post, the NY Times, Time Magazine, and other great publications whose directors have attended our meetings, and respected their promises of discretion for almost 40 years. It would have been impossible for us to develop OUR PLAN for the world if we had been subjected to the lights of publicity during those years. But, the world is now more sophisticated and prepared to march towards a World Government. The supranational sovereignty of an intellectual ELITE and World Bankers is surely preferable to the national auto - determination practiced in past centuries."
~ David Rockefeller CFR Kingpin,
Founder of the Trilateral Commission,
NOW Godfather / June 1991
