Take re-scheduling to Congress

Clearly, the DEA has a lot of vested interest in keeping marijuana in schedule 1, and there’s absolutely no chance that change will happen through that agency. This means that it must happen from another direction, which means Congress.

The good news is that there are finally members of Congress who also believe this needs to be changed, so there’s actually some reason to start working on that normally backwards body. (Quotes via Tom Angell at Marijuana.com)

“There are Americans who can realize real medical benefits if this treatment option is brought out of the shadows, and choosing to ignore the medical value of marijuana defies common sense and the scientific evidence.” – Sen. Cory Booker

“Bad news: @DEAHQ refused to reschedule marijuana. This has wide implications for med research, law enforcement & business. … I’ll keep pushing our federal agencies to reschedule marijuana as part of crafting a rational research & public health strategy.” – Sen. Elizabeth Warren

“Time for #DEA to remove marijuana from Sched 1 to expand #medicalmarijuana research & ensure families in need get legal access to treatment.” – Sen. Kirsten Gellibrand

“It’s well past time for us to take marijuana off the federal government’s list of outlawed drugs. …Keeping marijuana in the same category as heroin is absurd. The time is long overdue for us to remove the federal prohibition on marijuana. … If we are serious about criminal justice reform, we must remove marijuana from the federal Controlled Substances Act. – Sen. Bernie Sanders

“Disappointed by @DEAHQ. We must act to allow access to banking for marijuana biz in states with legalized marijuana” – Sen. Jeff Merkley

“The @DEAHQ is keeping federal law on marijuana behind the times. Will continue to press for rescheduling.” – Sen. Ron Wyden

So perhaps this is a good time to get the Senate to start moving on re de-scheduling. Go here to easily write your Senator.

This entry was posted in Uncategorized. Bookmark the permalink.

51 Responses to Take re-scheduling to Congress

  1. thelbert says:

    i have rescheduled marijuana in my own backyard. this year i’m growing the seeds for next year’s legal grow. even if california doesn’t legalize in november, my crops are going to be right on schedule. when the bill of rights is a sham you have to seize your rights.

    • NorCalNative says:

      Thumbs up!

    • allan says:

      ditto, I went with comm’l clones this year and will be pollinating for seed stock. Next year I’d love to grow a true Thai, start indoor early (march), outside greenhouse until end of May and plant that sucker in the ground and see how my 180 degree sky does with Thai at the 45th parallel.

  2. Mouth says:

    Pete, your ‘write to your senator’ link just laughed at me when I tried opening it. The ‘I’m not a robot Captcha’ to enable my email to be sent to a republican in my state told me I had to click on all the matching pictures of Donald Trump giving his candidate speeches at American Mosques full of Hispanic citizens before it will fulfill my submission request.

    Since writing to politicians is a time proven method that doesn’t work in my area, I feel that Wall Street will provide the answer . . . just like using strains of the virus to make the cure, works best.

  3. Dante says:

    Why not just get rid of the DEA?

    Seems obvious – cutting them saves money and ends a whole laundry list of problems.

    Who wouldn’t want that?

    Oh, yeah. The DEA.

    Protect & Serve (themselves!)

    • Duncan20903 says:

      .
      .

      Well all of the cool kids are doing it!

      In Shock Move, Israel’s Anti-Drug Authority to Be Dissolved
      August 10, 2015

      Agency has been in existence for 27 years, but treasury says it was bloated and spent too much money on information campaigns.
      /snip/

      • cy klebs says:

        Welcome news but the link is a source of browser grabbing pop-up ads and behind a paywall.

        • Duncan20903 says:

          .
          .

          I didn’t experience any of that. The paywall is after reading 10 free stories no? I seem to recall that was the deal but I’ve been reading a few stories a month on Haaretz Maybe Adblock Plus is why I didn’t notice the pop ups popping.

          I’d have recommended ABP a couple of months ago but I’ve noticed that a bunch of websites have started using a work around. Less than 10% in the here and now but I’ll wager it’s 90% by this time next year.

        • Freeman says:

          Open Link In New Private Window works well for me on those X free stories sites.

      • Amram Williams says:

        In December 2014, IADA’s CEO, Yair Geler, was arrested for bribery. The Israeli police corruption task force, found that Geler and the IADA bribed government officials. According to Israeli police, IADA reached agreements with corrupt Israeli officials, by which they will reroute government funds to the IADA, and in return, Mr Geler and the IADA created rigged bids, which were used to transfer a set percentage of the funds, back to officials that approve them.

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel_Anti-Drug_Authority

    • Mouth says:

      I’ve always lived by the philosophy that actions speak louder than words: the DEA are Muslim Terrorists i.e. Mumbai 2008. The DEA would illegally arrest a mid-size drug cartel or small batch of drug runners who were also providing funding for those we considered to be on our side (Kurds or any Shia or Sunni currently not trying to kill us) in the Middle East. What this did was open up new business connections for Al Qaeda, the Taliban etc . . . kind of like, if your preferred plumber could no longer do the job, you’d call in another plumber to fulfill the job. I’ve come across scientists who’ve been able to distinguish ducks from turtles through scientific reasoning: “If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, flies like a duck, then it must be a duck”.

      One reason why Israel got rid of their ‘anti-drug task force’ is because they most likely became Radical Muslim Terrorists via keeping drugs on the black market for the enemies of Israel to sell and be financed. I’ve yet to find a bag of weed or coke tell it’s whole life story from plant to distribution to final sell.

      If it was the Flying Nuns who attacked us and fought us, I’d call the DEA and Cops: Piece of shit Flying Nun Sympathizers . . . but as of right now, the DEA and police (thanks in part to their sponsored and backed 1961 U.N. Singles Law) are Muslim Terrorists and Latin American killers . . . Sharia Law–Barrio style.

      Not enough Americans see that . . . add the above truth and how much they cost and their eroding of our Constitution, then it becomes easier to dissolve the DEA and War on Drugs. If you look at the fine detailed pictures of 9/11, you’ll notice it was Law Enforcement trying to push down the two buildings as well.

      P.S. in the past, a few with brain damage from syphilis or from too much head butting with rams have seriously believed that I believe American Cops and DEA had literally pledged their allegiance to ISIS or that they all face Mecca during prayer. I would say over 99% of Law Enforcement have no clue that they are Muslim Terrorist Sympathizers. I don’t forgive ignorance for the same reason legs don’t grow back after your humvee explodes in Baghdad or Qalat.

      • Duncan20903 says:

        .
        .

        I don’t care who’s paying the vig, vice cops enforcing vice laws attract corruption like day old shit attracts flies.

  4. Servetus says:

    Getting Congress to reschedule marijuana will not eliminate the problems associated with a drug classification system designed to serve the illogic of prohibition. Scheduling’s illogic is tied to arcane legal practices rooted in a cultural tradition at least two-thousand years old, one that’s always given a dual purpose to violent drug laws, ostensibly intended to protect individuals or the public, but serving instead as a structured provocation to entrap, identify, persecute, or eliminate social outliers and personal enemies. Outliers include rebellious teenagers with teen brains wired for risk, making drug consumption inevitable in many cases.

    The current scheduling system is far too useful to the wrong people: Big Pharma, militant policing and its greedy industries, a bloated legal system, authoritarians, religious fanatics, racists, bigots, scapegoaters, paranoiacs, hypochondriacs, hack policy makers, and political despots who use it to shield human rights crimes. So inherently evil is the designated category of drugs, not even legitimate research that seeks specific medical benefits can be allowed lest it give a child something good to say about a prohibited substance.

    Scrapping the current drug scheduling system and starting over with a new reality-based system would avoid the pitfalls associated with ignoring the entourage effect of herbal-based substances. Frenetic fears over drug delivery systems that deliver burnt plant materials in addition to active ingredients should be offset by the far greater need for beneficial medical or anti-anxiety effects provided by multiple cannabinoids and other synergistic compounds found only in marijuana.

    A good start for a new scheduling index would drop drugs from the Schedule I category “a high potential for abuse. The drug or other substance has no currently accepted medical treatment use in the U.S.”, to a newly designated and separate schedule citing “a high potential for human consumption and value for scientific research and medical science development ”, thereby dropping the prohibitionists’ vague and beloved word “abuse”; along with the connotation that certain compounds have no medical value because they can cause pleasurable feelings, or can make people introspective about their lives and culture. Schedule I would no longer be chained to the prohibition paradigm, as it is likely few if any existing drugs would qualify for the category under an objective review. Prohibition would eventually die lacking its scheduling lynchpin, to be replaced by non-violent harm reduction and regulation policies based on science rather than hysteria.

  5. Duncan20903 says:

    .
    .

    .
    .

    So I’ve spent a couple of hours reading the fallout from the latest DEA inaction WRT phytocannabinoid medicines for humans. IMO this may be the most moronic tactic attempted to manipulate reality ever. I think that there’s a very good chance that the sycophants of prohibition are about to be hoisted by their own “what about the children?” petard.

    In general the entrenched cannabis law reform advocates never paid much attention to phytocannabinoid medicines which are bereft of ∆-9 THC. With my 20/20 hindsight I’m coming to the conclusion that it was indeed the best tactical choice. It’s allowed a significant cohort of parents with very sick children to network and organize. It was their work which made it much easier to make a list of State’s which have no allowance for medicinal cannabis patients rather than a list of States which do since there now only 7 totally brain dead States.

    They did it through their respective State Legislatures which puts a human face on suffering pediatric patients and their emotionally devastated mothers who are being forced to suffer more than humanly possible to avoid.

    Their campaigns have been highly effective. While those efforts do bring to mind the image of the proverbial mother bear protecting her cubs I’m still hard pressed to conclude that those reformed laws would have been approved in the face of Federal law by so darn many State Legislatures in the absence of extremely compelling evidence. Texas? Virginia? Alabama? Oklahoma? A couple of years back I’d have thought you to have gone quite mad if you suggested those States (among others) were likely to ever pass laws that “conflict” with Federal law. Well as long as the lawmakers don’t like the proposal.

    The facts presented to the Legislatures by the parents should have made a significant impression in the minds of those legislators and were done very recently.

    Georgia parents furious over marijuana ruling

  6. Amram Williams says:

    “This is bad news for Elephants needing medical treatment. The DEA will accuse those pill head elephants of not really needing it and just being junkies that like to get high. Then some mother of an overdose “victim” will lobby congress to get the stuff banned. The DEA will raid zoos and arrest veterinarians prescribing Carfentani to their elephants. The DEA will start prosecuting veterinarians who continue to treat their elephants, and finally the American Veterinary Medicine Association will determine that pain in elephants isn’t important and the elephants will have to rely on yoga and meditation to deal with their pain. Poor elephants. Imagine if this happened to humans”.

    http://tinyurl.com/BadNewsForJumbo

    • Duncan20903 says:

      .
      .

      Those elephants need to quit dancing on the graves of squealing mice because it’s a dead giveaway.

      Anyone for Tennis?

  7. dissent is treason says:

    Editorial written by racist thoughtcriminal scum:

    http://theantimedia.org/malia-obama-weed-drug-war/

    • Duncan20903 says:

      .
      .

      They must have changed the destination of that link you’ve provided or you’re posting on the wrong website. We all for liggle-azzaytion ’round these parts.

    • Amram Williams says:

      Is that you, Mr Wiggles, after an overdose of lurchin’ boogaloos?

  8. DonDig says:

    .

    Slightly OT.
    Beautifully stated.
    From an article on the Berlin march to legalize cannabis today,
    “Legalizing cannabis would cause less damage than the current ban has caused in the last 45 years,” parade spokesman Steffen Geyer said.

  9. jean valjean says:

    “In short, the DEA is providing a roadmap for Big Pharma to enter the marijuana drug development market.”

    http://www.alternet.org/drugs/did-dea-kick-open-door-phamaceuticalization-pot

    • DdC says:

      Cory Booker, Kirsten Gellibrand and Rand Paul did that with the CARERS Act compromising on reality with insane people. Or Barthwell laying the ground work before that with GW. Another incremental hopeful for the reformists. Not dealing in the laws of physics but following arbitrary political dictation of a traitorous madman. Killing Americans extending the Vietnam War, escalating the bombing. Then terrorizing 30 million Americans granting them criminal records. For 45 years this is what they beg for? While the GOPers Grassley thinks even that is too dangerous to chance, so it will never get a vote. Around the Mulberry Bush one more time, the monkey’s chase the weasels. Weasels running out of places to lie. Pop go the weasels!

      Did the DEA Just Kick Open the Door for the Pharmaceuticalization of Pot?

      Only if you got here during intermission.

      Is The DEA Legalizing THC?
      http://endingcannabisprohibition.yuku.com/topic/1680

      First there is a mountain,
      then there is no mountain,
      then there is.

  10. Amram Williams says:

    Boycott against Publix in Tampa after Carol Jenkins Barnett (a shareholder and a builder for the grocery chain) donates $1.8 million to stop people medicating with a particular plant.

    Michael Minardi, Campaign Director for Regulate Florida.com took part in the protest. He says, “They’re fighting against the patient. They’re fighting against the sick and dying. It has to stop and the only way to stop and the only way to make it stop is to make our presence known. Educate people that these types of corporations are the reason cannabis prohibition still exists today and why it happened originally.”

    http://tinyurl.com/BoycottAllScum

  11. DdC says:

    “Most people who have used marijuana in the past year are in full control of their use, and are generally happy with that use,”
    ~ Jonathan Caulkins

    What makes marijuana users different from everyone else

    When Teens Have More Access to Marijuana, This is What Happens

    We’ll probably never know for sure, but when it comes to marijuana, we can throw that conventional wisdom out the window.

    Why? Because marijuana legalization is actually having the opposite effect on usage rates in the teenage population. Just take a look at this chart, produced by Quartz:

    The data used to populate this graphic, taken from a study published in The Lancet Psychiatry Journal, shows marijuana legalization has actually led to a decline in teen use rates — and rather significant declines. A drop of 2% among 8th graders alone was witnessed, and in total, a 1.8% drop among all high schoolers.

    Germans demonstrate in Berlin for legalization of marijuana

    • jean valjean says:

      ‘“We don’t talk about marijuana or cannabis,” said Dr. Brian Murphy, CEO of Nemus Bioscience. “We talk about cannabinoids……..
      “The tricky bit is getting the drug in the body correctly.”

      Translation: “Don’t worry folks, nobody’s getting high here in Orange County.”

      • Frank W. says:

        Doctor Brian sounds like Michael Palin’s Luigi Vercotti assuring us that he runs a clean business and they “don’t have any of That, That was right out”. But I love the idea of Actionnewsteam trying to pronounce ‘cannabinoids’. Maybe it’ll even catch on with Spellcheck…

    • NorCalNative says:

      Wow, that’s some effed-up shite.

      For example: Scroll down to the part where it talks about glaucoma. They want to implant something in the body that will deliver THC for glaucoma patients.

      I recently gave some whole-plant cannabis tincture that mimics Sativex (1:1) ratio to a woman with glaucoma. She was ecstatic with the relief she got. She didn’t need to have surgery to implant something foreign into her body. Everyone knows that implants are risk free, right?

      While her husband was explaining their discontent with Kaiser because they weren’t managing her eye-pain, she kept saying, “I did laundry, I did laundry!”

      thelbert, those girls in your backyard garden? Freedom Trees. Freedom from greedy bastards who would steal our human birth-right for profits.

      I admire Pete’s call on this post to contact congressional critters. I’m considering bothering old bag FunkenStein with my concerns. I’ve already got a small collection of her bullshit reply letters to me about MMJ and perhaps I need to update my collection.

      Also, Mouth recently commented he wouldn’t be bothering his critter in Oklahoma. A while back I checked his dude out on his website. Besides the American Flag and lots and lots of stuff about prayer, I had little idea I was on a website representing the American people.

  12. DinkieVonCampsmount says:

    Senator Leila de Lima on Monday said that President Rodrigo Duterte may be charged with crimes against humanity at the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague for the spate of drug-related deaths which have increased since Duterte assumed the presidency.

    De Lima said that while she does not intend to threaten the President, she said that the drug-related deaths in the country could constitute crimes against humanity as there has already been “widespread” and “systematic” use of force against civilians.

    “There are some experts who are saying that…if this spate of killings go unabated and unchecked, it could reach that point that the ICC could send a prosecutor to our country and investigate all these for possible prosecution under the Rome Statute. That is not a joke.

    http://tinyurl.com/offToKlink

  13. Servetus says:

    Brian C. Bennett at Rice University Baker Institute has produced some useful drug use charts:

    HOUSTON – (Aug. 15, 2016) – An extensive and easy-to-use collection of charts that present findings from decades of government survey data of drug use in the United States is now available on the website of Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy.

    The Brian C. Bennett Drug Charts provide a more accurate and illuminating picture of drug use — from alcohol to methamphetamines and tranquilizers — than is typically presented in popular media or reflected in the country’s drug policies, said William Martin, director of the Baker Institute’s Drug Policy Program.

    Originally created by nonresident contributing expert Brian Bennett and updated by the Drug Policy Program, most of these charts trace the pattern of the use and abuse of individual drugs over more than 40 years.[…]

    Martin and Neill said important findings in these two publications include the following:

    Alcohol causes far more personal and social damage than any other drug. Illegal drugs comprise less than 20 percent of substance-use disorders in the U.S.

    Marijuana’s reputation as a “gateway” drug is not supported, even for more marijuana use. More than half of respondents under 60 have used it during their lifetime, but fewer than 10 percent use it regularly.

    Far fewer people progress to harder drugs. Current monthly use of cocaine is 0.6 percent; for heroin and methamphetamines, only 0.2 percent.

    The vast majority of people with a “substance-use disorder” after age 26 developed it before age 18.

    Problematic drug use has been stable for decades, calling into question the success of the war on drugs.

    Some cities, states and countries have devised proven successful alternatives to prohibition and harsh punishment for drug use and abuse.

    Now that about 90 percent of new heroin users are white, politicians and other officials are starting to treat opioid addiction as a disease and public health problem rather than a crime deserving harsh punishment.

    Traumatic childhood experience, mental illness and economic insecurity are more significant predictors of substance abuse than availability of the drugs.

    AAAS Public Release: New Baker Institute charts provide picture of drug use in the United States

    The Brian C. Bennett Drug Charts: http://bakerinstitute.org/bennett-charts

    “Drugs By The Numbers: The Brian C. Bennett Drug Charts” issue brief: http://bakerinstitute.org/media/files/files/8b79cbd3/BI-Brief-080116-DRUG_Charts.pdf

    • NorCalNative says:

      Sans slant and spin of the normal drug-war propaganda, those charts have a very benign appearance. Hardly the stuff worthy of creating a civil war.

  14. DdC says:

    Look right☛ Organizations

    Brian Bennett’s Truth – the Anti-Drugwar
    http://www.briancbennett.com/

    • jean valjean says:

      DEA: a cuckoo in the nest of democracy.

    • Tony Aroma says:

      I’d think at the very least, given the confirmed schedule 1 status of marijuana, that patent would be difficult to enforce, and possibly even null and void. If the DEA has essentially voided all cannabis-related patents, that would leave the field wide open for someone like pharmaceutical companies to secure those patents at some point in the future. I wonder if that might’ve been the DEA’s intention.

    • Duncan20903 says:

      .
      .

      It’s an easy question to answer. The Federal government sponsors boatloads of research. Any patent resulting from research sponsored by the United States belongs to the United States. Research scientists consider a patent resulting from their work to be a bonus to their CV. Since the United States doesn’t have to pay any of the fees or costs any other patent applicants have to pay there’s no monetary disincentive to patenting things with no real value, e.g. #6630507. The researcher gets his CV enhancement, the United States ends up owning a worthless patent and paranoid people who believe that a patent is something more than the glorified time stamp that it is get to be deluded into thinking that …well, whatever it is that paranoid kooks believe.

      BTW, 6630507 was assigned to a pink sheets stock sales scam in 2011 for the purpose of giving their dog and pony show a patina of legitimacy.

      BTW, did you know that the original patent holder for synthetic dronabinol (AKA Marinol®) was the United States of America? The only difference being that synthetic dronabinol has some commercial value.

  15. DinkieVonCampsmount says:

    REFRAIN:

    If I knock on your door / Don’t try to cover up
    If you don’t sing / I will kill you
    Let’s use violence / There are no laws
    Fuck human rights / In the war on drugs the price is life
    So you must change
    Let’s just take up Zumba
    Just go to church
    If you still want to live

    http://tinyurl.com/dadadadodo

  16. Fred Bunnion says:

    The majority of New Zealanders think possession of cannabis for personal use should be either legal or decriminalised,

    Prime Minister John Key says decriminalisation sends the wrong message to young people and people are unlikely to get prosecuted for small recreational use.

    Ms Davidson says, “that’s not the experience of Maori people. I think it’s unacceptable that so many Maori are in prison for possession. Indigenous peoples around the world have long used herbal substances like cannabis for pain relief or for ceremonies.”

    http://tinyurl.com/maoriOverEncarcerated

  17. Duncan20903 says:

    .
    .

    The Federal Court referred to in the article linked is from the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. The only place left to go for the sycophants of prohibition is to the SCOTUS. Based on past events it’s not very likely that the Roberts Court will grant certiorari.

    A Federal Court Just Gave a Huge Victory to the Medical Marijuana Industry
    The federal government cannot pay to prosecute state-sanctioned marijuana use, the federal court said

    The Department of Justice cannot spend money to prosecute people who violate federal drug laws but are in compliance with state medical marijuana laws, a federal court ruled on Tuesday. The ruling prevents federal law enforcement from funding prosecution of anyone who obeys a state’s medical marijuana laws.
    /snip/

    Reality just isn’t being very nice to the prohibition mongers anymore. They haven’t even finished celebrating the non-event of the DEA refusing to re-schedule cannabis. Poor poor pitiful prohibitionists indeed.

  18. Duncan20903 says:

    .
    .

    Is anyone here feeling a bit peckish? Well have I got a tasty treat for you. How about a heaping helping of some extra dry statistics? Now settle down..there’s no need to mob me because there’s plenty for everyone!
    ————————————
    It’s time for prohibition to go the way of the Norwegian Blue and I don’t mean just pining for the fjords. In 2015:

    A barrel of oil sold for $37.20
    Colorado’s population was approximately 5,456,574.
    The CBI says that there were 23,140 arrests for DUI in Colorado.

    In 2012: the Colorado voters approved Amendment 64 which decriminalized petty possession, petty cultivation and allowed limited retail sales. Also in 2012:

    A barrel of oil sold for $111.47.
    Colorado’s population was approximately $5,189,458.
    The CBI says that there were 23,323 arrests for DUI in Colorado in 2012.

    In 2008 George Bush the lesser and his faithful ward Dick nearly caused the collapse of the American economy as a consequence of their pillaging the US Treasury. Also in 2008:

    A barrel of oil sold for $151.72.
    Colorado’s population was approximately 4,935,213.
    The CBI says that there were 29,022 arrests for DUI in Colorado in 2008.

    In Y2K Colorado Colorado voters approved Amendment 20, The Colorado Medical Use of Marijuana Act.which provides patients utilizing phytocannabinoid medicines. protection from criminal sanctions for petty possession and petty cultivation. Also in Y2K:

    A barrel of oil sold for $45.78.
    Colorado’s population was exactly 4,301,261
    The CBI says that there were 36,135 arrests for DUI in Colorado in Y2K.

    The Colorado Bureau of Investigation provided the number of arrests, the US Census provided the body counts and the Chicago Board Options Exchange provided the historical prices for a barrel of oil.

    I picked 2008 because the prohibitionist LEO’s seem to get cranky when we don’t include an acknowledgement that the Legislature authorized medicinal cannabis dispensaries in 2010. Also because I rarely pass up an opportunity to denigrate ex-President Bush the lesser.

    The price of a barrel of oil is inversely correlated to the number of miles people are wiling to drive.

    • jean valjean says:

      And yet still our corrupt media produces articles like this to keep the rubes in line, complete with stock photo of a black man smoking a joint…..scary!

      “Each person was killed by a person high on marijuana. And it is only going to get worse, given the trend towards increased legalization and liberalization of marijuana laws in the United States.”

      http://www.cnsnews.com/commentary/cully-stimson/stoned-drivers-are-killing-more-and-more-innocent-victims

    • Fuck Spell Check says:

      Duncan, you’ve got an excellent vocabulary. Why not put it to work feeding the hungry?

      Freerice.com gives away rice if you’re able to pick the correct definitions for words. It’s fun and it’s for a good cause.

      I didn’t know they were still around until a few minutes ago. I did this a few years ago and got kicked off for giving away too much rice.

Comments are closed.