This has been building for a little while now, thanks in large part to Tom Angell who started a petition to have the DEA chief removed…
DEA chief says smoking marijuana as medicine “is a joke”
DEA chief Chuck Rosenberg on Wednesday rejected the notion that smoking marijuana is “medicine,” calling the premise a “joke.”
“What really bothers me is the notion that marijuana is also medicinal — because it’s not,” Rosenberg said in a briefing to reporters. “We can have an intellectually honest debate about whether we should legalize something that is bad and dangerous, but don’t call it medicine — that is a joke.”
As more and more states experiment with loosening marijuana laws, Rosenberg said that people shouldn’t conflate the issue of legalizing recreational marijuana with medicinal marijuana.
“There are pieces of marijuana — extracts or constituents or component parts — that have great promise” medicinally, he said. “But if you talk about smoking the leaf of marijuana — which is what people are talking about when they talk about medicinal marijuana — it has never been shown to be safe or effective as a medicine.”
16,000 People and Counting Want DEA Chief Fired for Calling Medical Marijuana a ‘Joke’
More than 16,000 people have signed a petition demanding that the head of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) be fired for calling medical marijuana a “joke” last week. […]
Medical marijuana advocates quickly criticized Rosenberg, complaining that the DEA blocks medical and scientific research on weed. Many of the petition’s signatories include patients with chronic illnesses who say pot has changed their lives.
‘It worries me that he is so ignorant as to say that it’s a joke. My daughter’s medicine is not a joke to me.’
“While it’s nothing new for drug war bureaucrats to oppose sensible marijuana policies, Rosenberg’s comments go way too far,” the petition, posted on Change.org, reads. “Medical marijuana is not a “joke” to the millions of seriously ill patients in a growing number of states who use it legally in accordance with doctors’ recommendations.”
The petition calls for President Barack Obama to “fire Chuck Rosenberg and appoint a new DEA administrator who will respect science, medicine, patients and voters.
Of course, if they were to actually appoint a new DEA administrator who did those things, probably the first thing they’d do is shut down the DEA, or at least significantly change its focus.
The petition was started by Tom Angell, a leader of the pro-pot advocacy group Marijuana Majority. Angell told VICE News he hopes the number of signatures — including one by singer Melissa Etheridge — will “get the White House to take note that this administration’s DEA head is saying things that are offensive to millions of American families who have benefited from medical marijuana.”
Thanks, Pete! The petition is online at http://change.org/nojoke for folks who want to sign and share.
Here’s what I said on the petition:
Isn’t there a law against practicing medicine without a licence? Why is anything Rosenberg says about medicinal cannabis taken seriously? The man is a quack.
DEA Chief Admits Pot Has ‘Great Promise’ As Medicine
Rosenberg’s stance on pot may not be all that legalization proponents would like to hear. However, his attitude is far more reasonable than his predecessors whose rhetoric verged on hysteria and misinformation.
He is saying what all of the Incrementalists are saying, including reform groups. Compromise on insanity. Lower it to schedule #2 for its great promise as a medicine. While so called recreational is left with the schedule #1 drugs. Are we going to petition NIDA’s Nora, NORML, MPP and all of the bipartisan slew of politically correct compromises?
Not wasting my time signing it. Get rid of the DEA altogether.
Concern troll alert!
Thousands Demand Firing Of DEA Chief Over Medical Pot Remarks
A petition calling for President Barack Obama to fire acting Drug Enforcement Administration chief Chuck Rosenberg over his remarks on medical marijuana had gathered over 28,000 signatures, by Thursday afternoon.
Pete: I thought you said petitions were ineffective?
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As a general rule of thumb they are. This one has been at least modestly effective. So what’s your point?
My point was that Pete has said petitions are ineffective. What’s so hard to understand about that? And please describe what has been ‘modestly effective’ about this petition.
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The fact that it’s started a conversation about the idiocy of DEA policy. Life isn’t a series of binary choices. The petition doesn’t have to get him canned overnight to have made a positive contribution to the life of the citizenry. But there are a lot of people who are now aware that Mr. Rosenburg is an idiot, and I’ve actually learned his name. Although I’m not sure the latter point is a positive. Just the other day I was thinking that the fact that I couldn’t name the respective Directors of the DEA and the ONDCP was actually a good thing. It sure didn’t take me long to learn the name John Walters or Michelle Leonheart because both were outspoken buffoons.
Depends on your goals I suppose. I don’t think anybody expects they will fire the new guy. He is, after all only doing his job. But if your goal is to send a message, it can get the job done. In this case, he went beyond the strict mandate, and disparaged not only patients, but doctors, and 80% of the US population. The swift rebuke may actually cause him to be more circumspect in his public pronouncements in the future. If so, then it’s done it’s job.
Yes. They are.
Petitions, as a means of accomplishing the goal of the petition, are ineffective.
What Tom is doing here is using a petition as a way of encouraging the media to cover an issue. That’s a lot more interesting to me. He’s really good at getting media involvement.
Well then, we’ll just have to wait and see what media interest it creates.
The petition is closing in on 75,000 signatures (maybe already hit that mark as I type this). The story has been picked up by Time, the Washington Post, the Washington Times, International Business Times among others. I’m not sure what Tom’s goal was but he’s already attracted at least some media attention. And as the story is reported it will lead to more people signing the petition. It will be interesting to see how many signatures it garners before all is said and done.
I’m not sure how you fire someone for doing their job. Chuck Rosenberg is the Liar in Chief at the DEA. He is doing and saying exactly what is expected — no, demanded — of him.
I remember several years ago when it was announced that it was likely that Michele Leonhart would be named head of the DEA by President Obama. Along with many others, I signed petitions, made phone calls, stomped up and down insisting that someone else be considered for the post. Someone more in line with science, shifting public opinion, etc., etc. The result? Why, Michele Leonhart of course!
The DEA will never change. But it will be increasingly neutered as voters demand change to drug policies (and as certain unquestioning DEA supporting senators and representatives are voted out or die off).
Yeah, that was my reaction too. I mean, saying stupid and scientifically-illiterate shit about drugs is part of this guy’s job. More importantly, it’s quite possibly the least offensive part. Infinitely more offensive is the campaign of systematic human rights violations and violence he’s in charge of overseeing. So… this seems like kind of an odd thing to focus on. It’s a bit like a petition asking the Ku Klux Klan to fire one of their officers for “racially insensitive remarks.”
Chuck Rosenberg’s selection as DEA chief was clearly not designed to be a drug law reform measure. I suspect he’s a lightning rod, someone who gets blamed and draws fire for current drug policies instead of the cowardly politicians whose legislation continues to support the drug war.
Being a lightning rod means that criticizing Chuck is supposed to waste the energies of reformers who should be focusing on other drug issues, although that problem is no longer relevant due to the speed and efficiency of the Internet and its instant petitions.
Ronald Reagan used the lightning rod tactic when he assigned anti-environmentalist James Watt to be interior secretary in 1980. Watt was forced to resign in 1983 due to bigoted press statements he made about the Beach Boys and people with physical handicaps. In 1995, Watt was indicted on 25 counts of felony perjury and obstruction of justice by a federal grand jury, accused of making false statements before the grand jury investigating influence peddling at the Department of Housing and Urban Development, which he had lobbied in the 1980s.
Rosenberg appears to be following the same path.
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Off topic, but something I’ve never been able to figure out and would like to understand: if lightning never strikes the same place twice why the heck do people buy lightning rods?
When Ben Franklin invented the lightning rod, various religious groups condemned the device, saying it thwarted the will of God, who was predisposed to take up Thor’s old job. Ben’s invention became known as “Franklin’s heretical rodâ€.
Unfortunately, lightning was attracted to church spires, particularly church spires built on hilltops. By the time organized religion accepted the existence of the lightning rod, however, more than a hundred bell ringers had been struck dead while ringing the church bells during lightning storms.
The turning point came in Brescia, Italy, when someone stored several tons of black gunpowder in a cathedral thinking it would be safe. Lightning struck the building, setting off the charge, which destroyed a third of the town. Six-thousand people were killed. It was at that point that lightning rods started appearing on churches and many other buildings. (cf: The Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom, A. D. White).
i always assumed the lack of tight regulations and unfettered trafficking in lightning rods has driven demand for rods through the roof. like what will happen the minute we re-legalize cannabis.
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Nice try, but you really should Google these things before you post.
Googling “building code” “lightning rods”
Did you really think that Big Lightning Rods wasn’t going to lobby for laws forcing people to buy their products? Tsk, tsk, tsk. Here’s something just from the first page of returns:
Actually lightning often does strike in the same place more than once.
http://www.weatherimagery.com/blog/lightning-strike-twice/
No Weed. No Phlegm.
Don’t tell me what’s good for me Mr Bolshevikkk. Back to your Petri Dish. Liar.
Rosenberg has gone way out of his way to provoke this altercation – if he knows of the promise of “constituent parts,†then he has knowledge, too, of the ‘entourage effect’. How might there be an “intellectually honest discussion†if he was any part of it? Bring your “bad & dangerous†research, Chuck, we will refute it with case history. The research will be done as soon as trivializers, obfuscators, & prevaricators are removed from the discussion. Mr. President, this is on you – we need progress not fights with KNOW NOTHINGS.
By Associated Press November 12 at 11:30 AM
BOGOTA, Colombia — Colombia’s justice minister says the country plans to legalize the cultivation and sale of marijuana for medicinal purposes.
Yesid Reyes made the announcement Thursday in an interview with Caracol Radio. Reyes says the new regulations will apply only to medical and scientific uses of the drug.
The news was a surprise in a country long identified with U.S.-backed policies aimed at fighting the production of illicit drugs. The new policy would include Colombia in a wave of changing attitudes toward marijuana that has sparked recent legalization efforts from Mexico to Chile.
http://tinyurl.com/pxd79v4
Marijuana Legalization 2015: Croatia Legalizes Weed For Medical Use
Croatia Legalizes Medical Marijuana, Sort Of
The legalization formally went into effect on Thursday, but Croatian media reported that no medicines containing THC — the active element in cannabis — have been registered in the country.
The health ministry has warned it remains illegal to grow marijuana at home and that medical marijuana can only be prescribed by doctors. The regulations envisage that a patient can receive up to 0.75 grams of THC per month.
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The news was a surprise in a country long identified with U.S.-backed policies aimed at fighting the production of illicit drugs.
I think it’s astounding that so many people either can’t or won’t understand that if something is re-legalized then it’s no longer an illicit thing.
It’s a very odd affliction indeed.
DEA Running Massive Wiretap Program Almost Entirely Through A Single California County Courthouse http://tinyurl.com/o9vq8nw
If this agency has anything running through its veins, its ice water. The DEA is on a Machiavellian quest to maintain its bread and butter death grip on marijuana. Medical marijuana is claimed to be a joke because this agency is tasked with seeing that it is perceived that way.
That is the real joke. So is the war on drugs that they run. Therein lies the real damage.
OT, but probably more effective than firing Chucky.
Fire Lynch. Or Biden and Wasserface. Rosenberg has a lot more bumbling to make fun of… Rid us of the termites, not caterpillars.
Veterans drop hundreds of empty pill bottles in front of the White House
Army veteran Perry Parks, of Rockingham, N.C., reaches to lift a symbolic pill bottle that was dumped in front of the White House after a group of veterans and supporters of medical marijuana marched to the Department of Veterans Affairs and the White House. (Ricky Carioti/The Washington Post)
Happy Veterans Day?
Army Vet Faces Felony
For Helping Other Veterans Treat PTSD With Cannabis
“Marijuana is illegal because it makes people rich,†said Sean Kiernan, who turned to marijuana to treat his PTSD after pharmaceuticals failed him.
Stars, Stripes, and Hemp Fly over Capitol
A plant the federal law says is a Schedule I controlled substance was used to make the U.S. flag that will fly over the Capitol on Veterans Day. Industrial hemp could be a boon for small farmers, say proponents, including the U.S. veteran who grew the hemp used to make the flag.
Recall that Andrea Barthwell used to call MMJ a ‘cruel hoax’.
Chuckie is a career bureaucrat. To expect any originality – when he has so many predecessors to lazily emulate – is asking too much from him.
A Very Lucrative Evil Hoax at that…. Since Nixon rejected the Shafer Commission. Cannabis was placed as a schedule#1 on a temporary basis. Until the Commission completed its report. Freudian slip from Chucky? Just a very profitable joke. On Americans. A trillion tax dollars and untold millions of Americans persecuted. Big Joke. By the same government paid to represent our interest and paid again to represent corporate interest. To protect these same corporate citizens from harm due to competition. Disease, invasions or whacko’s running amuck with hatchets in shopping malls should be using up the tax dollars to stop. Not this cruel flim flam people feel an urge to barter with.
Stockholm Syndrome? Have we been oppressed so long we feel obligated to give thanks for any mercy? To cooperate with any compromise or plea bargain or snitch witness’ and warrants. Oh looky, they said they won’t shoot us, and we can smoke a joint if we stand right here. Unless someone smells it. Or its in the same galaxy as a school, park or indoors. Or you have 7 plants or smoked a joint this month. Demonizing, dumbing down and stigmatizing stoners as the butt of a joke BLM would be grabbing mic’s over. Women would be screeching sexism! Its like some revenge of the nerds taking kids from their mothers. Locking up fathers, usually the main provider. Forfeiting the home, confiscating the family car all in the name of Family Values. What a joke.
The Catch 22² strawman they use to legislate punishment is anything but a joke. It is real and it ruins lives. Those preaching while persecuting are doing harm to millions of Americans and hundreds of millions following our lead. Time to pull this act off stage with a big hook. The FDA hasn’t tested cannabis in 45 years. The HHS hasn’t ask them too. They have evidence it is not an acceptable schedule#1 narcotic, except the HHS hasn’t read the 1999 IOM report. Similar to Nixon not reading the Shafer Commission. Both re-evaluations of previous Commissions back to the 1800s. Boy if the politicians only had more research to go on. Thats a joke.
No evidence, the FDA employee tells a yellow journalist he has never found any evidence of cannabis having medicinal value. The headline says the FDA, who apparently never tested Hemp either. But they are used as a lack of evidence, evidence, and to trash legalization measures and initiatives. To prevent cops from acknowledging it has medicinal value because the CSA made the determination since the FDA said it never found any. Maybe if they didn’t ban research in 74 NIDA could have done something good for the people.
So all of the hogwash spewed for all of these years are based on a straw man. It must be dangerous, because the FDA hasn’t approved it. It must be harmful because chemically laden cigarettes are harmful. It must cause cancer since it has more tar, that isn’t carcinogenic. It must do brain damage because people smoke it illegally. Has to be dangerous on the roads because alcohol takes more lives than prescription drugs. And tobacco takes more lives than religion and they’re legal. So cannabis has to be as Anslinger said, the most dangerous narcotic in the world orld ld ddd… It would make a good stoner flick if it wasn’t so violent. The real joke is, prohibition does the harm and we pay for it.
“Have we been oppressed so long we feel obligated to give thanks for any mercy?”
This question has been asked in various forms and I think it is one of the most interesting. I often picture the “powers that be” — local, state, federal, etc. — wondering, “What is the bare minimum of freedom we need to bestow that will placate the rabble just enough to make them put down their pitchforks and go home?” I know there are plenty of drug reform activists who believe that any change in drug laws, no matter how minor, represents progress. More work can be done over the years to further change laws. But as has been discussed here before, that can lead to what seems like infinite incrementalism. All the while, arrests are still being made if some arbitrary “limits” are exceeded, fines are still being imposed, urine samples are still being demanded in the name of maintaining some sort of bizarre purity. Texas might end up being an unfortunate example of snails-pace incrementalism. A very restrictive CBD-only bill was passed in the last legislative session and is only aimed to help those with intractable epilepsy. Have problems with painful spasticity, PTSD, neuropathic pain? You’re out of luck. I have no doubt that certain Texas legislators have the attitude, “We gave you your CBD, there’s your medical merrywanna, now get off our lawn!” The clue as to how fast — or slow — Texas intends to embrace reform will be revealed when other cannabis bills are considered during the next legislative session — in 2017.
Anyway, I guess what would initially placate me would be the ability to grow my own. But to hell with it if I have to sign a registry or pay a fee. And I would certainly continue to advocate for the least restrictive laws possible in other areas — taxation, regulation, etc. Although I understand it, I’m no ardent fan of the “baby steps” mentality. But then am I guilty of “letting the perfect be the enemy of the good?” The evolution of of cannabis laws, in particular, is going to be very interesting to watch as we head down the road. Especially variations in law reform thresholds that cause a critical mass of reformers in various locales to proclaim, “OK, good enough”.
I say stop begging for crumbs like regulated and taxed cannabis for people over 21, as long as they use it only in their own homes and no one else can smell it, as long as they don’t share it even with a spouse, and as long as they don’t ever drive anywhere! I say:
* Statutes ain’t laws, people, laws MUST comply with the Constitution, this prohibition of certain ingestible substances does not comply in any way with the Constitution, therefore not law.
http://soundofcannons.blogspot.com/2010/12/do-we-have-to-follow-unconstitutional.html
If Rosenberg thinks its a joke maybe he should pay the Autism community a visit to see how Cannabis does better than Ritalin
Or epilepsy. See how it does SO much better than Dr Ben Carson’s crippling hemispherectomy in reducing seizures. No wonder he opposes medicinal cannabis.
Isn’t that essentially a lobotomy in a lot of ways? As I understand it, physically severing brain connections is a bad idea 99.9_% of the time. It might alleviate symptoms, just as lobotomies often did. The problem was that, as it turns out, removing the frontal lobe is just not a good idea.
It’s the complete removal of a hemisphere of the brain with certain hemiparesis on the opposite side of the body. Sometimes it reduces seizures, other times not. It always adds physical impairment to mobility and hand skills. Carson built his surgical career on this procedure which may be regarded in the future as a discredited operation like lobotomy.
Here’s a good article about Carson’s attitude to cannabis:
“It should shock nobody that yet another mainstream presidential candidate is standing firm for the status quo, especially in an electoral system funded heavily by corporate interests strongly invested in the trillion dollar War on Drugs. That doesn’t make it any less discouraging to witness a respected and groundbreaking medical doctor use his influence to peddle half-truths and outright lies about cannabis.”
http://marijuanapolitics.com/ben-carsons-stance-on-marijuana-enforce-federal-prohibition-laws-let-big-pharma-handle-the-medical-side/
By the way, he doesn’t “oppose” medical cannabis, he just wants to make sure the “component parts” are synthesized and marked up by Big Pharma by 2000% before any sick people can get hold of it…if they have the money.
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Good idea or not I’d really like to understand the thought process that even leads to the idea and why the heck it was taken seriously instead of getting the lunatic who dreamed it up committed. But then again ECT (electro-convulsive therapy) was treated as a procedure with valid medicinal utility for decades.
Hmm, maybe if we graft a lighting rod to Mr. Rosenberg’s skull it would cause improved critical thinking? Heck, it’s worth a try, don’t you agree?
The procedure is the severing of the Corpus Callosum, it involves the destruction of the interaneural fibers. They are the nerve channels that allow the left and right hemispheres of the brain to communicate. Imaging has allowed us to map seizure activity spreading through the brain, and full seizure status is reached only after the activity has propagated to both hemispheres. The procedure is supposed to confine it to the hemisphere it originated in. It’s pretty drastic.
Exactly, n.t., my hubby worked in a mental institution early in our marriage, all the “inmates” who’d been given lobotomies had no emotion, they were like automatons. One of my grandsons, now age 15, was brain damaged at birth, the part of his brain destroyed is in the frontal lobe, the part that governs impulse control. Believe me I fully understand that severing that part of the brain is NOT a good thing.
OT
The 2015 International Drug Reform Conference Is Next Week in DC
Is anyone going?
I would if I could but they won’t let me enter the Land of the Free at this time, so I have a lot of identification with the “Criminalized, Marginalized and “Otheredâ€: Lessons and Strategies for Fighting the Drug War in Hard Places.”
For me the political is definitely personal.
http://www.alternet.org/drugs/2015-international-drug-reform-confernence-next-week-dc
Fuck them all,,puff and pass,,NJ became the first state to allow students to use cannabis in school,,,that has to be twisting Christie’s tail.
I am happy.
put me in the “lovin’ life” column and prohitches like rosenberg in the “hatin’ life” list.
i’m lovin’ life and forgettin’ how to spell prohibitch.
May 300 million more soon join you…next year, I hope. 🙂
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Well here’s your problem…the stupid spell check dictionary doesn’t include prohibitch. I guess it’s our fault because we invent new words faster than they can add them. Just click on the word, click “add to dictionary” and problem solved! 😉
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Something that really bugs me is that every day I search Google news for the keyword “marijuana” at least once. (OCD) I’ve been doing that on this machine since early 2011. It’s bad enough that I have to search that word. Even though I’ve accepted that the conspiracy theory with Harry J using the word to fool people into missing the fact that he was on a crusade to criminalize cannabis I still find the word repulsive. But for the love of infinite diversity in infinite combinations, isn’t that punishment enough for my sins?
A couple of months ago I had occasion to go to the (gack) merrywanna anonymous website. Once. One time. Not twice, not three times, once. Now every day when I type in mari the friggin’ browser prepopulates with that friggin’ website address. What the heck did we do to make the gods hate us so? Haven’t we suffered enough?
@Duncan
In case you don’t know, if you have a Google account and sign into the news page, you can personalize it to add Marijuana in the News and The Final Days in the War on Drugs sections to your news page. There are other similar feeds.
Simply click on Personalize, then on the right, at the top, will be shown the various news sections. At the bottom of the list is Advanced. After clicking that, do a search for Marijuana there, and a list of news feeds will pop up. The two I mentioned will be right at the top.
Who wants to be that tonight’s attacks in Paris utilized drug money (as well) and that the illicit drug black market gave them access to non-drug black markets. I was there Dec 08′ when the bathroom at Prentempts was filled with explosives without detonators, as a warning for them to leave Afghanistan.
Legalize Drugs and we reduce global violence and wars.
I meant: ‘Who wants to bet’ not ‘Who wants to be’.
We all want to ‘be’.
Hillary just got pilloried for bragging about Bill’s success in orchestrating Plan Colombia and carrying it out. 2016 may be the year politicians finally discover the drug war has turned radioactive — touch it if you dare.
http://www.alternet.org/drugs/sorry-hillary-plan-colombia-drug-war-disaster
Every mainstream media is claiming Hillary leads Sanders but Sanders keeps drawing the largest crowds and breaking his own records for attendance at each one,,yet Hillary wins “they’re” polls.
Hillary ME2 Clinton is loading the web up with trolls and any Sander’s support comments are attacked by the “He can’t wins” and “nobody is going to vote for a Socialist” trolls.
When you ask them which “socialist” programs should we overturn first,,S/S,Medicare,public schools,,county hospitals,public highways,public transportation,unemployment benefits,,etc,,they go to crawfishing and shut up.
Everybody wants to reform the ones that they are not using.
Yet to hear any mention of increased voter registrations but they are rising and the polls by MSM do not ask young voters,,,cause everybody knows young voters don’t vote,,,but Bernie is bringing them in with his marijuana reform.
And both parties hate it.
” but Bernie is bringing them in with his marijuana reform.
And both parties hate it.”
Tell Bernie it worked for Justin.
Same thing that was done to Ron Paul, twice, by the republicraps. You can bet that when it comes time for the damnocrats to nominate their candidate for POTUS it WILL be Hillary, no matter what the base wants; and Bernie’s delegates will be disenfranchised by the party bosses just like Ron Paul’s were by the GOP bosses. The duopoly elites will maintain their power by any means necessary.
The memories of pols can be measured in nanoseconds.
Only one thing smells worse than a lie, and that’s a stale, old lie. Medicate, take a deep breath and then hold your nose. Then read a blast of intestinal gas from the past: Clinton Vows To Get More Anti-Drug Aid to Colombia, November 1999
From the article:
“Mexico, meanwhile, has emerged as a bright spot in the administration’s counterdrug efforts. McCaffrey, after two days of high-level discussions with Mexican officials, was effusive about Mexican drug interdiction efforts.
“The numbers are spectacular,” he told reporters. “There has been enhanced vigilance and effectiveness by both Mexican and U.S. authorities to seize drugs from these criminal cartels.’
This was after McCaffery learned that the guy he was working with was dirty.
We all have the benefit of hindsight to know that what we had the foresight to warn about – and be ignored – would happen. It did, in spades. The tunnels, the mass graves, the ‘House of Death’, all of it thoroughly predictable. And predicted. And ‘came to pass’. The gullibility of bureaucrats seems endless. Like my late Marine Da would say, Suckers!
The murders of the American missionaries over Peru in 2001 (and the CIA trying to cover up its part in the fiasco) were a direct result of Clinton’s ‘success’. As were the untold thousands of innocent people killed in the name of ‘drug control policy’, slaughtered by US-provided weapons. And those are just two examples; there are too many sins to enumerate.
Those billions spent down there bought nothing but misery, as it usually does. Misery…and earned, virulent hatred for the US and its citizens. All avoidable.
And, do I have to say it? Do I? ALL OF THIS WAS PREDICTED TO HAPPEN BY REFORMERS. EVERY. SINGLE. BIT. But, of course, nobody wanted to listen to the ‘dopers’.
With ‘success’ like that, I’d hate to see what she considers failure.
And while we’re at it:
Remember Reagan’s astrologer?
La Clinton had something similar.
How many warnings do we need? Do these power-crazed loons have to come at us personally with a knife before we see the danger in letting people that screwed-up have power?
And if one word summarizes her hypocrisy about drugs, It’s Mena.
She reminds me of all that when on back then. She also reminds me of a line from a favorite movie of mine:
‘Old men, covered in blood, it never touched them but they’re drowning in it.”
That’s what is really behind the DrugWar, hypocrites like her and her husband. Direct beneficiaries of that which they rail against publicly.
How many died? No telling, but some were kids. And not from overdosing.
How long will it take for the Hillary camp to turn the Paris attacks to their fear-mongering advantage. If it works for Bibi it will work for Hillary. Anything to distract away from her role in the drug war.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/14/us/politics/democratic-debate-to-get-new-terrorism-focus-after-paris-attacks-cbs-says.html
Idon’t sign many….but this one just m8ght get their attention….I am glad to sign
Just some more injustice from prohibitionists in charge of meting out “justice”:
https://theintercept.com/2015/11/14/michigan-prosecutors-lab-falsify-medical-marijuana-results/
I posted this as a reply earlier above, but I’m going to repost it so it doesn’t get buried in the thread.
Many of you who use Google News probably already know this, but here it is just in case. I’m pretty sure I learned this from someone here. Anyway . . .
—————————————————-
In case you don’t know, if you have a Google account and sign into the news page, you can personalize it to add Marijuana in the News and The Final Days in the War on Drugs sections to your news page. There are other similar feeds.
Simply click on Personalize, then on the right, at the top, will be shown the various news sections. At the bottom of the list is Advanced. After clicking that, do a search for Marijuana there, and a list of news feeds will pop up. The two I mentioned will be right at the top.
tensity1, I was using Google+ as an alternative FB. With Yahoo news accounts and signed in, you can request more articles that are similar. Never checked google news. thanks. Yahoo seems maybe a bit more conservative. Looks like many of the same stories. Leafly is growing. I Found this yesterday.
The DEA is the “joke”! Why do they keep changing heads? Google DEA/CIA Drug Smuggling History Bush/Clinton/Nixon/Johnson. This is the real reason behind the so called “War On Drugs”! All drugs should be legal, unregulated, untaxed. If this were to happen there would be no black market, prices would go down, anyone could produce or grow their own. Drug abuse could be treated medically much cheaper than the cost of current criminal system of treatment. Portugal has taken steps in this direction, the rest of the world should wake up and demand the politicians do the same. Cannabis IS Medicine used historically by many different cultures past and present. The “joke” is the DEA still considers cannabis to have no medical use and it is a schedule 1 drug the same as heroin.
Not sure what you mean by “Why do they keep changing heads?” Michele Leonhart was head of the DEA from November 2007 to May, 2015. Rosenberg was then named, and there’s no indication that he’s going anywhere.
Troll video sent to Project SAM, Kevin Sabet, David Frum, Patrick Kennedy, CADCA, Linda Taylor and the rest of the prohib nutjobs:
http://youtu.be/eSPuboIYiBI
Prohibs being bombed or air striked is a nice form of entertainment
EXCLUSIVE:
Leafly Has Obtained the Full Mexico Supreme Court Ruling
and It Will Shock You
In a 4-1 vote announced Wednesday in Mexico City, the five-justice panel declared the personal recreational use of marijuana legal under the right of “free development of personality.†In the same paragraph, however, the Court cautioned that its groundbreaking decision applied only to the four plaintiffs who filed the case. It did not, in the Court’s words, “imply a general legalization.†In Mexico, cannabis is now legal–but only for four Mexican citizens.
The whole thing has left legalization advocates elated but puzzled.
The petition has 75,ooo signatures now.
I wonder if Rosenfell has ever read Judge Young’s decision on marijuana efficacy.
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Judge Young’s ruling has no effect on the typical sycophant of prohibition because of it’s age. While I’m not sure where or why they’ve gotten the idea that facts expire it really doesn’t matter because there’s nothing to be done about the age of his ruling. How does one “reason” with people who will assert that “we just don’t have enough research” on one day yet will turn around and assert the Judge Young’s ruling is obviated by subsequent research? Subsequent research which is never cited or even identified?
If you figure it out please don’t hesitate to share. I’ll be very pleased to revisit this opinion and positively giddy if I can kick it to the curb.
Just as I thought, the prohibs are suggesting that the availability of assault rifles used by the Paris terrorists can be blamed on “drug gangs.” Well, we know what would make that threat go away don’t we. How long has it been since “beer gangs” fought it out on the streets?
Let’s be careful about unfairly maligning, disparaging, or otherwise denigrating (innocent) guns.
They have no say in the matter when their owners/possessers decide to use them in the commission of a crime.
And let’s also avoid “gun control” *please* its just another sort of Prohibition, and going into intellectually hypocritical talk about people not being responsible for their actions – whether its about drugs or guns.
Blaming an object or a substance for the personal behavior of a human using the object/substance – shirks off the accountability of the individual – if yhey commit a violation of – or a crime against another person or property.
More OT: I don’t care what sort of guns they had it was the more the grenades & ultimately the suicide-vests that (each of them wore) which led to them achieving that horrible level of carnage = (7 of the 8 vests going off successfully is awfully damn ‘reliable’ as those things go).
They did seem to have had some small-arms training (firing short bursts, effective covering & maneuvering, and practiced reloading on the move), Presumably having trainiled doing all of the above “under fire”…
And, as I said above knowing how best to utilize the explosives they had was almost certainly key, being willing and/or eager to die (as martyrs) gives them another tactical advantage that more normal criminals wouldn’t have they won’t be negotiable when faced with police/swat.
I wouldn’t discount the power of a 7.62mm round. It’s pure gore what that round can do to flesh and bone. Guns may have no volition, but there is great power in them that must be considered.
I haven’t read or watched much coverage about the attacks because it’s so saddenning, but it wouldn’t surprise me if the majority of the deaths were attributable to AK’s.
Guns are just another type of scapegoat. They distract us from the inconvenient observation that many people are basically f%#ked up. Give them guns, and some of them will shoot themselves, or someone else. If you didn’t give them guns, they would find another way to self-destruct.
In American politics, gun laws are an extension of the battle between rural and urban cultures. Rural cultures need guns, especially in more remote areas of the country, whereas urban cultures don’t, necessarily.
For example, you can’t fire a weapon in your densely populated neighborhood without your neighbors complaining, or maybe even someone getting injured. That’s why we, in urban neighborhoods, rely on rapiers, machetes, intensive MMA training, and other reliable instruments of destruction, like that thing we built in the lab.
The culture war in the U.S., operating between urban and rural cultures, has been ongoing for more than two centuries. Politicians have taken note of the self-protection conflict, and have made gun law interpretations in the U.S. a political football. Senator Frank Church in Idaho was booted out of office simply because he voted the wrong way on gun laws. So it goes today.
The scapegoats in the situation I described are the human-beings forever linked by association with the world of violence engendered by prohibition, simply for using drugs at one time or another. Can an inanimate object be a scapegoat? We know that the war on drugs is nothing of the sort, and is in fact a war on “people we don’t like.” This Parisian drug gang meme is a continuation of the Bush era TV ads that spuriously (and hilariously) “linked” terrorism to drug use. Remember them?
A great anthropologist, writing in the “Golden Bough†in 1911, in the volume entitled “Scapegoatsâ€, Sir James George Frazier noted that the assignment of evil to a material object is one step away from foisting it onto a living human being.
People aren’t evil merely because they ingest drugs. You can’t turn a good person into a bad person by doping them. The repressors claim drug consumers are evil, nevertheless. The “evil†in this case is assigned by a repressive governing body, seeking their will to power.
Cannabis is only responsible for creating one terrorist group. The D.E.A.
From the Gossip Rags…
The maulers scratching and tearing ex wives no less.
EXCLUSIVE The pot-smoking Paris suicide bomber: Ex-wife reveals ‘blood brother’ terrorist was a jobless layabout who spent his time taking drugs and sleeping… and never went to the mosque
Leave it to yellow journalism to twist truth into paid gossip. Pitiful…
Isis burn down marijuana farm in Syria – video
Congressman Calls For DEA Chief’s Removal
After He Calls Medical Marijuana A ‘Joke’
Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.) said Wednesday that acting Drug Enforcement Administration chief Chuck Rosenberg should be replaced after calling the notion of smoking marijuana for medical purposes a “joke.”
“Rosenberg is clearly not the right fit for the DEA in this administration,” Blumenauer said during a speech on the House floor Wednesday morning.
Thousands Demand Firing Of DEA Chief