This morning, the White House is hosting an event: White House Children of Incarcerated Parents Champions of Change. It’s an event to honor some folks who have gone out of their way to work with and help children of incarcerated parents. That’s a good thing.
After all, children of incarcerated parents are generally more likely to end up in trouble with the law themselves, and stopping that cycle is incredibly important.
On the other hand, Rafael LeMaitre (ONDCP Communications Director) tweeted about the program:
Watch live NOW: http://t.co/dXE6CABQOG Children of incarcerated parents. This is why Obama Administration’s #DrugPolicyReform plan matters.
No, this is why real drug policy reform matters. The ideas we have will dramatically reduce the number of incarcerated parents. The ideas put forth by the ONDCP will merely divert a few of the incarcerated into drug courts.
They refuse to acknowledge that the rehab instead of incarceration applies to whites and a few wealthy minority members,,if it goes into effect the present racial incarceration of blacks and browns will continue at it’s present rate unless the Feds and states pick up the rehab and court costs..
If I RC,,rehab per day is more expensive than prison but since the interned patients will be footing the bill it saves the states and feds prison costs,,,it the govt picks up the tab,,the present prison costs will look like a savings in comparison.
“Rafael LeMaitre (ONDCP Communications Director)”
trans: Spin Doctor
We all know what Raphael Lemaitre’s job is, to spew ONDCP’s nonsense. The plan Lemaitre is probably talking about can be found at:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/ondcp/drugpolicyreform
It’s a standard bit of PR rubbish designed to make people think the president is siding for drug law reform:
Reform can take many paths, such as democratic reform done in the best interests of the citizens, or authoritarian reform sanctioned in the name of Obama’s Holy Office of the Prohibition, reform designed to screw the little children with unworkable schemes.
The Obama plan, as stated, tends toward the authoritarian. The plan is allegedly “smart on crimeâ€, but not smart on drugs. The objective, reducing or eliminating drug use, is still the prime directive. The authorities want to help the drug offender avoid a “return to the criminal justice systemâ€, not avoid the system in the first place through the legalization of drugs. “Reentry programs, which help guide former offenders back into society†merely admit that kicking somebody out of society for drug use was wrong in the first place.
Raphael Lemaitre is no Josef Goebbels. In fact, I can’t think of any aspect of drug enforcement that attracts top ranking intellectual talent. It’s a situation that in any sane society would otherwise be seen as a red flag, something to thoroughly investigate. Instead, it’s been a bureaucratic pathology that’s ignored by each successive administration.
Servitus: I think you’re right about Lemaitre not being very good at his job as spinmeister for the drug war. To tweet and draw attention to the real victims of the president’s policies while trying to pretend that such policies just need an image make-over is never going to work. A wiser propagandist would have known when to be quiet.
Instead, it’s been a bureaucratic pathology that’s ignored by each successive administration.
. . . ignored . . .
How about embraced ?
No Mistakes Are Being Made.
The “Drug War/Prohibition” business is a Racket, and has always been about the expansion of the state.
Oh, and then there’s the money, too, and the power, etcetera.
Yeah….those Children are about to get some company. The feds busted ONE HUNDRED AND THREE dispensaries in Southern California. Now I get to wait and find out which of my friends will be sent to jail.
http://www.alternet.org/feds-bust-103-medical-pot-dispensaries-socal-sending-major-blow-patients-area
Things are getting so bad for the reputation of this administration (NSA, IRS etc) that they might as well go for broke. I have a feeling there are an lot of s.Californians who wont be voting for a Democratic candidate again if he or she supports the wod.
Well,,voting Republican sure won’t end the wosd,,,so hopefuly they will at least try to get another Dem that supports legalization in office,,the biggest problem is getting the Dem party to give us a good choice on party candidates,,if the Democratic committee is filled with prohibs then prohib candidates is all we will be offered.
im hopeful the greens will pick up votes on this
Is that accumulative over a period of time or just happening now?
Found it,,,now to see how many of those 103 demand a jury trial,,,the only way we can get a nullification or hung jury is to have a trial,,,of course it would mean being completely within state regulations and having the records and receipts to prove it,,,that is where a Business BD from even a community college would have helped some of the disp owners..
AlterNet got it wrong…the Feds only sent letters to those dispensaries, no raids…yet.
…and they have taken the page down.
If the administration really wants to help kids of incarcerated parents, it can begin by not incarcerating drug users, problematic or casual, in the first damn place. The criminal justice system has no place in an effective and humane program for dealing with drug use or abuse. It’s a health issue. Doesn’t take a genius to figure it out; even politicians and policy-makers should be able to get this one right. Legalize and regulate all drugs–at minimum, we should follow Portugal’s lead. Unfortunately, regarding drug policy, the government has completely politicized it and are full of it. It’s failed us.
On a better note personally, going to Portland and Seattle in a few days for va-cay. The weather will be a nice change from the Satan’s armpit temps around here. Maybe I’ll find a nice park in Seattle with friendly, sharing people. Should’ve delayed vacation for a half year. Oh well, I’ll just go to Colorado next.
some of you know about Oregon’s recent raids in Medford and Eugene. Among those arrested were Lee and Lori Duckworth, long active in OR pot politics. They now are barred from contacting one another and total sentencing on all counts adds up to a life prison term. For gardening and helping patients…
My friend Anthony Johnson has a well done write-up with links to benefit and fundraising info here:
http://nationalcannabiscoalition.com/2013/06/southern-oregon-justice/
Nice, but is there any way to “mainstream” this? The local news outlets just reprint or rebroadcast Chamber Of Commerce plugs, like the Walmart PR hiring show. I mean is there any way Rachel Maddow will stop prostrating herself to her Obama God and say what’s happening in the world? The Duckworths will never figure into political prisoner “debates”.
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Somewhat OT:
http://bit.ly/13DQkeB
The article is a bit dated and much of it we already know. I am sharing because I feel that it really added to my drug war perspective. The first 1/4 of the page is an introduction so you may want to scroll down to get to the meat.
Seems nearly all the Free Thinkers I know are dead and gone or fading fast. Zombie Apocalypse Looms. Won’t BoreYa with my Survival Skills. Hint: He with Cigarettes is King.
Since Sativex was rescheduled to CSA schedule 4 on April 10, 2013, (according to procon.org http://tinyurl.com/7l3lo6w), and with the recent patent application of GW for treating cancer itself, (not the pain, nausea, etc. http://tinyurl.com/d7ajl72), I wonder if they have released or are about to release the clinical trials and are about to release that drug for cancer therapy here, and have done this in order to make life more difficult for dispensaries, etc. (as well as attempt to divert attention from Washington). The timing and scope of this (based solely on what I’ve read here) is chilling. They’re certainly not going to give up easily!
Yet, at the same time, I’m still sure sanity (we) will eventually prevail!
Above comment was meant as response to Darkcycle’s 11:36 AM post. Sorry.
Has that patent been granted or just applied for? If it’s been granted, that would seem like a big deal, accepted-medical-treatment-in-the-US-wise. Wouldn’t that mean the DEA could no longer claim there’s no FDA approval? At the very least, you’d think it would force their hand at rescheduling raw cannabis.
They’d probably just fall back on harping about it having “a substantial potential for abuse” – no matter whether that too = is a total crock.
That patent was granted. They hold it.
On a medicine in the public domain.
I don’t understand how these types of patents work. There are several existing patents on cannabis-derived compounds. Obviously none of these people created or “invented” any of these compounds, as they exist in nature. So what exactly is being patented? Is it a unique combination of cannabinoids? Is it the use of those compounds in treating a particular disease? Can someone explain what this patent really means.
Here, you can read the patent yourself: http://www.freepatentsonline.com/7344736.html
But the way I understand it, the patent will not come before a court until they attempt to enforce it.
That’s a different patent, It’s for an extraction method. That I understand.
I’m talking about this patent: Phytocannabinoids in the treatment of cancer, http://www.google.com/patents/US20130059018
And as far as I can tell, that patent has not yet been granted (it’s not clear on that though).
Oops…linked you to the wrong document…. let me hunt the right one up….
Sorry about that, this is the correct one.
http://www.freepatentsonline.com/y2013/0059018.html
And it was granted.
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It was Great Britain that re-scheduled Sativex on 4/10/2013 and was duly reported here by me on 4/12/2013. It’s not bloody likely that I would have missed re-scheduling in the U.S. but you did make me look. The first clue that it wasn’t U.S. scheduling is saying that it was moved to schedule IV. Moving it to a scheduling lower than that of synthetic dronabinol is even less likely than my missing the event.
I think it’s interesting just how many people think that a patent is government certification that something works. Where is it that I go to buy a perpetual motion device? You know, it’s an item that simply can not work within the bounds of physical law as we know it. I’m still waiting for someone who believes that patents are certifications of utility to tell me where I can buy one of the hundreds of different perpetual motion devices that people have patented. Why the hell am I still worried about the price of gas if I can just buy a perpetual motion based energy production device?
Say darkcycle, do you have a printer hooked up to your computer, specifically one that uses ink in the process? Now why is it that you’re paying over $1000 a gallon for something that was commonly sold before Christopher Columbus was even a dirty thought in his daddy’s head? Hint: it’s because of something called a design patent. It’s not the ink in the cartridge that’s patented, it’s the shape of the cartridge. Which of course is the only way to get the ink delivered to the printer for use.
GW Pharma does not have a patent on any analog of THC or CBD. They’ve got a patent on several proprietary strains of cannabis. They got a patent on the device the patient uses to spray it into his mouth. They’ve got a patent on a specific formulary with X mg of THC and Y mg of CBD. Here’s another similar medicine that was patented, It’s called Excedrin by the original patent holders:
Obviously the manufacturer didn’t own a patent on Aspirin or caffeine.
The reality is that a patent is nothing more than a government issued time stamp. Most patents expire without anyone making a penny on the thing that was patented, just like 6,630,507 is going to expire worthless. A patent is only as valuable as the thing that’s patented.
Here, knock yourself out looking over items returned in a search of the USPTO data base for the keywords “perpetual motion device”.
Where did I say anything about “utility”? Just the same, the patent I linked to (the second link, not the first) is real, it was awarded, and the trouble I have is that as an imaginative sort, I can see OTHER uses for a patent… Like, for instance, suppose there was a competing medicine or process you become aware of through your research? Owning the patent on that device, or process, or medicine can also mean you have the ability to suppress it on the market. Or maybe there’s a drug which has properties that make it a threat to many profitable drugs already on the market….
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You’re using the same “logic” as the prohibitionists who think because people like to get high it means that they can’t also acknowledge the medicinal utility of cannabis.
By now you should know that I scoff at grand conspiracies. If a patent owner were to try to suppress a valuable invention because they’re making money on something less valuable they’d be damn fools. People that chase the almighty dollar simply do not care where those dollars come from.
Where’s my 250 mpg carburator? Gosh, for years I heard about that conspiracy, how the car manufacturers and the oil companies conspired to suppress that technology.
A patent lasts for 20 years, before 1995 it was a term of 17 years. The alleged suppression of the high efficiency carburetor by the patent holder had to end when the patent period expired. That was decades ago. The holder of an expired patent just can’t suppress something that’s in the public domain. That doesn’t even take into account the countries that just don’t give a frack about US Patents.
Hey wait a second, my cars don’t even have carburetors any more?? WTF?
I’ll just listen to some Dr. Dre, Wu-tang, Twizted, ICP,Bone etc to see what the drug war has done to the children and the neighborhoods they grow up in. I wonder if the ONDCP etc will ever claim responsibility to the trauma and stress of the children who’s parents went to war, are currently at war, were killed at war or wounded in war? Are the ONDCP etc not responsible for drug prohibition and isn’t drug prohibition responsible for illegal drug money and isn’t illegal drug money responsible for financing terrorism and insurgencies? What about all the kids affected by a Drug War/War on Narco-Terrorism created recession? Would not a multi-trillion dollar War on Narco-Terror/Narco-insurgencies not help create a recession?
OT
Drug war inspired corruption in L/E (again)
http://tinyurl.com/q89lfwh
I’m guardedly relieved the Alternet story was inaccurate. It shows there’s still time to overcome the prospect of a mediocre legacy. If they do continue the policy then this DoJ and DC agencies kindly take full credit. I try to back them up not to…anywhere!