Top DEA agent won’t admit heroin more harmful than marijuana
During a House Judiciary Subcommittee hearing on Wednesday, Drug Enforcement Administrator Michele Leonhart repeatedly refused to admit that anything was more addictive or harmful than marijuana.
Democratic Rep. Jared Polis of Colorado pressed Leonhart on whether illegal drugs like methamphetamine and crack, as well as legal prescription drugs, caused greater harm to public health compared to marijuana. But within a three minute time-span, Leonhart dodged his questions eleven times.
“Is crack worse for a person than marijuana?†Polis, who has called for an end the prohibition on marijuana, asked.
“I believe all illegal drugs are bad,†Leonhart responded.
“Is methamphetamine worse for somebody’s health than marijuana?†Polis continued. “Is heroin worse for somebody’s health than marijuana?â€
“Again, all drugs,†Leonhart began to say, only to be cut off by Polis.
“Yes, no, or I don’t know?†Polis said. “If you don’t know this, you can look this up. As the chief administrator for the Drug Enforcement Agency, I’m asking a very straightforward question.â€
So, this is the agency that is in charge of the classification of our drugs, yet Leonhart is just seeing them as all equal as a law enforcer?
This agency has to discern in order to classify. This is obvious proof the DEA should not have charge over the classification of drugs. Leonhart can’t tell the differences between the dangers and exhibits the proof that she has no discernment which I am sure is a definite job requirement if one must choose the order of things by classification. No wonder marijuana is classified as schedule one.
Darn, and I’ve had this bit of boilerplate in the rotation for about 6 weeks now:
But seriously, has anyone given a bucket of water a try? IIRC that’s the traditional substance used as a catalyst to melt wicked witches. It’s a lot easier to find than the truth at a drug enforcement bureaucracy.
Leonhart is a deceptive, political hack who is only interested in preserving and expanding her agency’s bloated multi-billion dollar budget. This pathetic and ignorant functionary should read the book “Marijuana Gateway to Health: How Cannabis Protects Us from Cancer and Alzheimer’s Disease.”
You would think with all the money these profiteering prohibitionists are making at the cost of American citizens, the Anti-Drug oligarchy would train its actors to be a little more convincing when these kind of questions are being asked at them.
I haven’t felt this good since Kerli was grilled by Kucinich.
Where are the contempt of congress charges for refusing to give an honest answer?
Polis is too good for the House. We need him in the Senate, where he can block presidential appointments like this clown Leonhart!
She did not enjoy that at all. Good. The more often she feels like she is on the losing end of the argument and looking like a fool, the less she will want to defend the party line, and the tougher it will be to fill the post when she leaves. The internet is the new town square where everything is seen by everyone. Gotta love it.
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After studying her responses and slack jawed expression,,they better check her purse for illegal drugs,,,she is on Prozac or something.
all drugs are equally harmful? what a dangerously irresponsible message to send our children.
Classic display of wide spectrum incompetence.
No doubt a member of the Police Officers Wives Club.
From driving one to Drugs and Drink, then recovery thru prisons, group homes, therapists, and counselling, they are there, hiding in plain sight, costing tenfold what it would to have just given the victim Welfare without a mental whuppin and browbeating in the first place.
I haven’t seen a video meltdown like Michele’s since Senator Joe McCarthy got whacked by Senator Karl Mundt during the Army-McCarthy hearings involving HUAC.
One difference from McCarthy is that instead of being unable to come up with a precise number of commies in the government, Michele can’t distinguish between drugs. Wow. Total, willful, scientific illiteracy.
No big surprise, of course. Had science determined the illicit drug question, the drug war would’ve been over a long time ago.
Another non-surprise would be finding a sign on the door of the DEA Human Resources Office proclaiming ‘only know-nothings need apply’.
“aaaalll…schedule I drugs…..are addictive….”
This woman is an embarrassment. I can’t believe this is the opposition. Wow.
Shje ain’t the opposition,,she is the dressing in the window,,she gave so many blow jobs getting where she is that her eyes sunk in,,has that fresh fucked zombie look.
oh, come now claygooding, where’s your gallantry?
The cops confiscated it in their last bust at my house,,,said it was gained through proceeds from drug sales.
her rote scratched record response of “all illegal drugs are dangerous” instantly fell apart when she was asked about prescription drugs, but she was too stupid to notice this
Drugs are bad , m`kay?
Thanks Jared , I haven’t had a good laugh in a while now.
I almost felt sorry for her. Can’t understand how a bonehead like her got that position. They really are puppets aren’t they ?
Only a bonehead would accept the appointment.
hey what the hell?!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
why – woah, wait a minute
pot elitism is awful. its got no place in the proper reform world. what the hell? oh im sorry the headline and subsequent article upset me beyond belief.
wheres someone to talk about how the General of Medicine from British Columbia recently went public to say how safe E is and how it should be regulated and legalized?
wheres the article about the latest on needle exchange, which is back in the paperwork now?
what i mean this is inexcusable. i dont get it and i am offended. yes i am a heroin lover, purveyor, consumer, and yes i do not enjoy marijuana but i do not enjoy marijuana bias and elitism in the reform community more than i do not enjoy the dankness it’self. ahh i mean, naturally this isnt the only site i look at at my daily routine but it has always been one of the best written, well presented, well educated and, despite the pot elitist stuff – i mean the level of pot bias here and how its put out i mean its really not bad compared to others. i dont check out 4:20 exclusive reform sites, if your title is all about pot, it would make sense that your page would be all about pot, thats not what my deal with reform is. this site isnt about pot, thats how i found it. but… you read a comment like that
now, i have no qualms telling anybody how much i love heroin and opiates and for how many years and how i have been beyond knee deep in every facet of this subculture and i love it, well, as best i can love it in spite of prohibition. ok, i mean, i have STDs, i have permanent nerve damage from a messed up shot, i have a criminal record, i mean, not trying to brag im just saying that im not some occassional dope banger whose been messing with pain killers for awhile then found them to be too expensive and has now switched to dope for a few months lol (sound like anybody) so i am a legit voice here and i am saying to you that i have, like most every other person like me, had my fair share of “hey dude why dont you just smoke pot maaaannn” and everything else. the concept of addiction is flawed. the idea of addiction as a disease has been refuted – countless times. the whole thing is wrong and propaganda at the most – nevertheless ive had a far easier time finding men in their later years whove proudly smoked “since Garcia was a live, duuuuude” versus people like me. give me a break man. this is b.s this is pot bias at its worst. im real disappointed. for real. this was one of the places i was kinda proud to tell other people about who wanted to learn more about reform, who wanted to get involved. and maybe im just too wound up right now, im not dumb enough to admit sometimes i make emotional decisions i can come to regret later but jeez that headline really pissed me off.
so do you agree with ml that all illegal drugs are equal (good or bad)?
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Ah c’mon CJ, I was berating people for posting misinformation on heroin in the story Pete linked above. linky1 linky2 Regardless, I stand by my boilerplate posted above.
The reason why there’s such a pot bias here is because by and large we’re a bunch of potheads. It’s not uncommon for us to be vocal, opinionated, involved in politics that we perceive affects us directly and sometimes indirectly.
Why is it that you’re the only fan of heroin that I’ve ever been aware of that speaks out on the subject? Instead of berating us, perhaps you should be talking to your friends. I’ve barely got any interest in heroin so if you’re counting on me to argue your case you need to prepare for disappointment.
CJ, you can die from taking too much heroin. You cannot die from taking too much pot.
Ergo, heroin is more dangerous than pot.
Here are a couple things I think I know: heroin overdose could be greatly reduced in a legal marketplace of known purity; prescription Desoxyn users, partly because of their regime of medical care and partly because of higher production standards, have fewer problems than black market meth consumers.
Here in Shasta County, California, you can read daily screeds from “stoners” in the papers pissed that the cops are worried about pot instead of the “real scumbags,” the tweakers.
It’s so much moral superiority, and it works in many ways.
But look at the fact at the head of my post. Look at the usage rates of cannabis versus heroin, and look at the symbolic place of cannabis as a (used up and contradictory, sold out and manufactured) symbol of the counterculture, and I think you’ll have a head start on getting where people are coming from on this.
CJ,
While I agree that all drugs should be sold in a regulated legal fashion, we are going to get there first with cannabis. But what I hope will happen after cannabis legalized is that when the sky does not fall the door will be opened and all the harms of prohibition will be eliminated.
On a side note I came to the realization (many of you may already have had this thought) that the big problem that many people have with medical cannabis is the concept of self medicating (deciding when and how much of a medication to take).
Everyone knows of a family that has a relative who should be institutionalized, but instead is pretty much shut in their room; so long as they’re quiet, and don’t bother anyone else, they’re left alone to engage in their bizarre behavior at their leisure.
So the situation continues…until something major happens. I call this “Crazy Uncle Syndrome”.
People like Leonhart, so long as they play the game, are treated like Crazy Uncles. They can do what they want so long as they don’t raise a stink. But when they do, they get a reminder of their true status. This can go on for years, and in the case of Anlsinger and the FBI’s Hoover, for decades, because Congress doesn’t want to get its’ fingers dirty in the politically un-sexy, foul, disgusting world of drug prohibition.
Just as most people don’t really want to get to know the trash-collector or dog catcher or the street-sweepers or sewer repairman on a first-name basis, few people in Congress want to get too close to the issue, and for the same kind of reasons. That’s Leonhart’s true position in the WARshington social and political circles…and she knows it. But she willingly took the position because she knew she couldn’t hope for anything more.
But now the Crazy Uncle has been in the news an awful lot lately, here and in foreign lands, and not for good reasons. And Congress is taking notice. And after yesterday, I imagine a few more Congresscritters, seeing easy meat, are going to sharpen their knives to get a slice.
I think so also Kap,,I am going heavy on my comments now about our congress arguing over which social services to cut while increasing the WosD budget by 9 billion,,so an idiot like her can spend it,,and she still has a hearing about those laundered cartel funds,,millions of dollars worth,,,and no one arrested,,same as Fast and Furious.
Now if the Repubs in their effort to make sure Obama isn’t re-elected go after another appointee it will drag more mud into this fight for us to sling at them.
(Chuckling) Now that would be something. The Repubs, mainly staunch DrugWarriors (at least in public) would have to speak out against a Bush Too (not a typo) era appointee…engaged in work that helps remove the Republican-despised minorities from the voting rolls, courtesy of drug law offenses. Considering her mixed heritage, she’s essentially assisting in the economic and social marginalization of those representing half her lineage.
Considering that she’s doing it on behalf of another partial African-American, a putative Democrat, and de facto head of that Party, which is now in desperate need of all those lost votes (after allowing for the continuation of the Jim Crow policy that eliminated that now-much-needed support), and you have to wonder how both Leonhart and Obama are able to function at all, the cognitive dissonance combined with the hypocrisy would be be crushing…to anyone with a conscience.
Does anyone know how much we all pay ML? I did a quick search but couldn’t immediately find her salary.
That’s an interesting question, and I’m not sure. There is a database of federal salaries, but I couldn’t find hers specifically in it (The DEA withholds all names in the database).
I did find it interesting (appalling) that there are 3,881 people employed by the DEA who make a base salary over $100,000. That’s just obscene.
$100k in DC isn’t a particularly noteworthy salary.
Hehehe, this story has already been added to Ms. Leonhart’s wiki.
$100K may not be particularly noteworthy in DC, but it’s still obscene that we’re paying that many people that much money to work for the DEA.
Ah, my article about Michele is no longer referenced in her wiki. That’s OK, still shows up on the front page of a google search for her name, even after 9 years. DEA Bad Girl Michele Leonhart. For quite some time, it was the number 1 search result for her name.
Somehow, I doubt that I’m very popular with her.
Damn… we ended up with this hack – because somebody stole her fraking bike “a blue Huffy” as a kid?
IMO, That brings new depths to the term “Unintended Consequences” = Gotta put that on the list of “stuff to do when/if you find a time machine”:
[ ] Make sure this little wytch didn’t get her bike stolen.
[ ] Make sure Watergate Scandal takes down the CSA & DEA along with Nixon.
**To be continued**
DEA BUDGET AT A GLANCE
FY 2013 Budget Request At A Glance
FY 2012 Enacted: $2,035 million (8,304 positions; 4,053 agents)
Current Services Adjustments: +$38.9 million
Program Changes: -$23.0 million
FY 2013 Budget Request: $2,051 million (8,197 positions; 3,958 agents)
Change From FY 2012 Enacted: +$15.9 million (+0.8%) (-107 positions; -95 agents)
http://www.justice.gov/jmd/2013summary/pdf/fy13-dea-bud-summary.pdf
I think it would be most amusing if one had the opportunity to put heroin, crack, meth and weed in 4 separate containers and tell this d-bag you have to use one of them – which one would you pick Michelle? Look up “tool” in the dictionary and I’m pretty sure they will all have this video linked to it…pathetic
Am I the only one that noticed the blatant lie? Congress DID NOT determine that marijuana should be in Schedule 1. That was decided, most recently in response to a years-old petition, by the DEA. The DEA both makes and enforces the drug laws. I think that conflict of interest is what needs to be known by the public.
Something that I hope Mr. Polis’s staff have been made aware of. Perhaps a few friendly phone calls to his office from reformers are in order.
This is a perfect opportunity to provide a teaching moment for Congress, the electorate…and most of all for Leonhart: Lies, like elections, have consequences.
My thoughts exactly Kap.
Rep Polis DC office: (202) 225-2161
Colorado (in Boulder) (303) 484-9596
email: https://polisforms.house.gov/Forms/WriteYourRep/default.aspx
W/ a few exceptions it is obvious that our congress and senate critters are grossly un/mis-educated.
What a douchesicle.
would somebody make sure Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert see this. please…
Rep Polis missed a great opportunity by not quoting judge Young’s statement, from his DEA study, that cannabis is one of the safest therapeutic substances known to man. I think Mz Leanheart got off easy.
Anybody else notice the reaction of the woman behind Michelle, over her right shoulder during the first part of the clip?
And props to Rep Polis. May his endeavor gain the weight and momentum needed, now.
New report connects international aid for drug enforcement to gross human rights violations
http://tinyurl.com/89gp6ak
LONDON, June 21, 2012 /PRNewswire
Millions of dollars in international aid for drug enforcement is spent in countries with extremely poor human rights records resulting in serious abuses, according to a new report by the non-governmental organisation, Harm Reduction International.
Launched in advance of the UN day against drugs, on June 26, the report Partners in Crime: International Funding for Drug Control and Gross Violations of Human Rights ( http://tinyurl.com/d75fve9 ) tracks drug enforcement funding from donor states, often via the United Nations, to countries where executions, arbitrary detention, physical abuse and slave labour are weapons in the war on drugs. ‘snipped’
Dennis Romero disputes the research that demonstrates that youth use has gone down in States with medicinal cannabis patient protection laws. res ipsa loquitur:
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This is how change comes to Washington DC – public ridicule of your position during a Congressional hearing.
The same thing happened back when Tail Gunner Joe was accusing just about everyone of being a communist. Then he was ridiculed in Congress “Have you no sense of decency?” – look it up. His influence dissapeared over night.
Just like Leonhart’s will. Bye bye, Michele.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQQaX2h1plo&feature=player_detailpage
Crime Continues to Decline Though Uncertainty Remains As to Why:
http://tinyurl.com/792za6a
“Modern medicine and the increasing availability of drugs like marijuana might also partly explain the drop in crime. An increase in marijuana use amongst high school students has coincided with the current trend of declining crime. And marijuana can hardly be considered a drug the simple use of which is associated with violence and crime.”
Last time I asked I was told “not yet”. Are we seeing the imminent end of drug prohibition (especially regarding cannabis)? It sure seems like it. I would normally put this off as something I only notice because I’m paying attention to it often, but drug policy has really gone mainstream lately. I watched the first part of the whole hearing and a representative from Michigan was wondering if there would be another hearing, as these q&a sessions were limited to five minutes per person. Luckily, Leonhart’s pathetic responses quickly ensured that there would be another hearing. And this is after Eric Holder catching heat for the Fast&Furious operation. Gil doesn’t do much of ANYTHING, so he probably doesn’t have anything to worry about. Am I supposed to believe that their superior is squeaky clean too?
As the cost of buying these hearings off goes up,,it comes directly from the pockets of the corporations and special interests groups,,the cost too tax payers are rising also(see more funding requests soon for the countries in South America),,and these committees are the ones trying to figure out how to sell America that continuing to fight this never ending war is more important than putting Americans back to work or aid to families that can’t find the work congress isn’t creating.
In short,,the ONDCP and the entire drug war machine are the lowest hanging fruit on the vine,,if you are truly looking for failed policies that need to be abandoned.
Chris, a wise old man once said, “it ain’t over ’til it’s over” but damn if it doesn’t feel like it’s the bottom of the 9th and we’ve got all the steroids.
Don’t forget this one:
http://pot.tv/video/2012/06/21/Congressman-DEA-Head-Does-Meth-and-Heroin-Cause-More-Deaths-Marijuana
Immediately following Polis, Steve Cohen grills her some more!
Many thanks. That should be added to the original post.
How difficult do y’all think it would be to get Michele Leonhart to admit that alcohol (a legal drug) is more harmful and addictive than marijauna?
The more times I watch this video, the more impressed I am with Jarid Polis’s questioning of ML, and the way he leads her step by step to his conclusion, namely that it would make sense to look at medical cannabis as an alternative to highly addictive prescription opiates, her declared “Number One Priority.”
And then a quite wilted little Michelle spouts out that she is willing to look at anything that would “reduced addiction.” No doubt sotto voce and fingers crossed, “except for that damned merrywanna!”
The DEA knows, WITHOUT A DOUBT, exactly how harmful cannabis is. Someone email Jared Polis these documents:
http://goo.gl/aFe0l
http://goo.gl/oBkJd
http://goo.gl/TVKsO
The lead headline at huffpo right now is “IS SHE HIGH” in giant letters over Michelle’s face.
Apparently I was not the only stoner that could recognize a high bitch when I see one.
There’s an even more incompetent performance by leonhart, when grilled by Rep Steve Cohen on you tube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n0ujs8mRkWM&feature=youtu.be
And to think she’s being paid hundreds of thousands a year.
I gasped when she said, in reply to a question what she thinks about a Navy SEAL, emaciated and dying, using cannabis to be able to eat, that it’s “between him and his doctor.”
WTF?!?!
The federal government doubles down, again and again, on “cannabis is not medicine.”
The DEA head goes to Congress and says it’s between a person and her doctor.
So I guess Leonhart is prolly on her way to free Dale Schafer and Mollie Fry as we speak, eh?
Ms. Leonhart apparently missed the day of school where “less” and “more” are covered:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=giXUZZp3KqU
(Ernie and Bert explain it in this video.)
Some sort of campaign is needed to help her with these difficult concepts.
Ahahahahahahahahaha.
I’ve been saying for well over a decade that because the prohibs have gotten their own way for so long, due to the ‘quarantine’ aspect of the subject (no pol wants to get too close to the issue, as they might get its’ dirt, moral and otherwise, on their careers) that DrugWarriors are intellectually soft when it comes to actually defending their policies.
This is partly due to ‘drug control’ policy not being a ‘sexy’ career path. It’s a political backwater, a dead end, a place where the least competent could have a refuge that most pols won’t look into (for fear of getting it’s ‘ickiness’ on their careers) …and so the Crazy Uncles get to play around as much as they like, so long as they don’t make too much noise.
And because of that, the prohibs have gotten intellectually ‘fat, dumb and happy’, and thus cannot defend their positions…which are fundamentally indefensible from any angle, no matter how you slice it.
(That’s why they have to hire BS artists like Sabet. Drones whose only value is in how intricately they can spin their sophistries, while attempting to deflect attention from drug prohibition’s obvious failures…in essence a more genteel manner of asking whether you’ll believe them our your own lyin’ eyes. )
Well, that can only go on for so long before the inevitable: the Crazy Uncles attract attention, for all the worst of reasons. They do something really, really stupid, so stupid that the pols simply cannot sweep it under rug. Like the attacks on the dispensaries. They’ve provoked the necessity to check on the inmates to their nuthouse, after having neglected it for so long.
Now, the door to the Crazy Uncles’ room has been opened…and normal people are getting to see what’s been going on inside…and who’s doing it. And they’re seeing what their money has been going to for all this time…like incompetent, barely intelligible, highly-paid civil servants who can’t give a straight answer to save their lives.
If this continues, and I believe it will, this issue will finally have the moxie it needs on Capitol Hill to launch the long delayed national debates on drug prohibition. It’s ‘perfect storm’ time: a rotten, moribund economy, a recent, unexplainable increase in funding for prohibs when people need that money for sustenance, the long-awaited generational shift bringing millions of tokers to the voting polls, etc.
And as far as pols go? Pols are a lot like sharks; they’re opportunistic feeders. In this hearing, blood has been drawn, and everyone who knows anything about sharks when they sense blood in the water is that they’ll come from miles away to enjoy a feeding frenzy. Pols who didn’t seem interested before will decide that it’s ‘free lunch’ time, and decide to get a slice, themselves. A DrugWar supporting pol will have a hard time trying to defend Little Ms. Clueless after her severely lackluster performance. It would endanger their own political standing.
This has been a major gift to our side, but as I said, it was inevitable. This is that DrugWar Russian Roulette that I mentioned a while ago. Previous Administrations have dodged the bullet, but this time the round is in the chamber and the muzzle’s to the Obama Administration’s head. Leonhart may have just pulled the trigger, and the hammer is falling in slow motion.
I understand the concept of ML operating under the same obligation of the Drug Czar to do anything necessary to keep schedule 1 drugs illegal,,does this include lies and false statistics and the anecdotal evidence that we,the people have been spoon fed when the drug warriors are speaking to congress?
I went to the committee site to listen and if they do not have further investigations,,I cannot even estimate what that will cost the special interests groups keeping prohibition in place.
7K+ comments at HuffPo and climbing. In just 72 hours. This issue has to be the most commented thread on the site.
7747 comments,@ 7.16 AM, Pacific. Huh, If I leave one, do you think anybody will see it?
Seriously. This is pretty amazing to watch. Almost eight thousand comments. I’m still getting used to the fact that a drug law piece will draw more comments than any other topic, but I’m still used to three hunnert or so…..7747??? Just …wow. We’re winning…
I didn’t have the heart,,I read a few and my rant about the drug war machine has already been published once at HuffPo,,but it is so refreshing to see the anger there,,as it ramps up even more because we are now the majority,not the minority we have been since this insanity began,this war against my generation and any free thinking offspring we produced.
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I saw one recently that broke 25,000 comments so 7,965 (as of now) is impressive, but not even close to the most commented. On the other hand the comments column referred to above was about an O/T subject and was polarizing with a great percentage of the comments being accurately described as either “tastes great” or “less filling.” While I haven’t read all of the comments it appears that approaching 100% can be described as “what a stupid bitch” with a few nutcakes doing their best to not let the facts get in the way of their opinion. But gosh, in this case the drug war apologists look really, really stupid.
Yeah, I think I’m suffering from paradigm shift shock. For so many reasons.
“…in this case the drug war apologists look really, really stupid.
And that’s just what they are deathly afraid of, and have been from the beginning. Having the outward appearance match the inward incompetency. Or as my old Marine Da would say, “Bulldog mouth, puppydog @$$”.
It’s why they’ve literally run away from debates, as did Barry McCaffery many years ago when some UK drug law reformers tried to have a conversation with him. Ran down a London alley like he was ‘Jack’ and the ‘Bobbies’ were in pursuit…
They know that the only thing they have going for them is to hide behind the cachet of their fancy (taxpayer-supplied) offices and GS salaries and impressive-sounding titles and hope that the appearance of being an expert because they have a Gub’mint position will be sufficient to deflect the really hard questions that have needed asking for the past 40 years.
Put them on the spot, like Rep. Polis has, and this is what happens. They cave. They really, truly cannot put up a good fight on an even playing field not habitually, institutionally tilted in their favor. Up to now, all they’ve ever had to field were softballs. Now, it’s hardballs, and the head of the DEA is getting battered and bruised in something that should have been a cakewalk. Which is making the Obama Administration look grossly incompetent and worthy of derision for keeping this Bush Too (not a typo) holdover. Even worse for all prohibitionists, she’s making all of them look bad at the same time.
For. if the ‘general’ appears an incompetent buffoon, can the foot soldiers be any better?
I have been waiting for what happened on Wednesday for soooo long, as I knew it would have a cascading, catalytic effect. Fence-sitters will look at this and realize policy is in the hands of idiots, and demand that someone competent be put in charge. But then it will become evident to all but the dimmest bulbs in the box that hiring all the competent people in the world cannot make drug prohibition work. The realizations will come rolling down in the public’s mind like an avalanche that the entire enterprise has been for naught, and it’s time to pull the plug. Which is why the prohibs have dodged debating us as long as they have; doing so is equivalent to pressing the auto-destruct button.
8,232 as of 1800 hours EST, and climbing. And it would appear that a great many of those commenting are the hoped-for fence-sitters, because the content of many of the comments betray a certain level of honest ignorance about the issue at hand, and are more concerned about Leonhart’s unbelievable conduct.
This is the audience we wanted to attract, and it’s working.
This will have repercussion in ways that cannot be measured yet. What will the Repubs do? They can’t say anything (unless they want their most stupid members to throw out some socially conservative red meat to appease the knuckledragging crowd) because of her being a Bush Too (not a typo) holdover, and Bush Too for a lot of Repubs is their version of a John Kennedy…mythologically speaking, of course.
Given that the majority of legislation regarding drug prohibition has historically come from Repubs, and Lil’ Miss Clueless has been viciously attacking the MMJ people under Obama’s direction even more than the DEA did under Bush Too, they certainly cannot accuse the Obama Administration of being slackers. But attack LCM/ML, and they attack their own previous DrugWar efforts. She carries the taint of both Administrations, a taint that carries the reek of failure writ large.
A lot of people who never gave two sh*ts and a damn about the issue have had a wake up call, and are coming into contact with many well-informed drug law reformers, and information is being dispersed very rapidly.
As a line from an old movie put it, “Truth is a virus.” Like a virus, it spreads as far and as fast as the hosts that carry it. Our host is the ‘Net. The videos are spreading like wildfire across the Web. I’ll bet the phones are ringing off the hook at the White House, with people demanding to know why she couldn’t give a an obvious straight answer. Things are going to get real interesting, next week.
Apparently, Leonhart does not realize the inherent, and gross error of her logic. “All schedule 1 drugs are addictive.” This, seemingly harmless statement, is rather circular. Are drugs placed under schedule 1 because they are inherently addictive, or are drugs addictive because they are schedule 1? I think Leonhart, either willingly or ignorantly, fails to acknowledge the fundamental difference between these two markedly different logical arguments.
In either case, it is unacceptable. All Leonhart has displayed in this hearing is that the DEA is run by incompetent individuals who do not consult good science when implementing their policies.
What a shame that our tax-dollars are used toward such a misapplication of federal resources.