The California Narcotics Officers Association sent this bizarre letter to President Obama, asking him to retract his statements comparing marijuana and alcohol.
They start out by establishing their bona fides – for most people that would be showing that they are experts in a particular field through their study or knowledge in some way… but not the CNOA…
It’s dangerous work, as evidenced by the fact that 90 of the names on the California Peace Officers’ Memorial Wall were members of CNOA. Included among those 90 men and women are two of our past CNOA Presidents.
That’s right, we should believe them on marijuana policy discussions because some of their members have died at some point.
But lets get to the heart of their concern:
The California Narcotic Officers’ Association takes strong issue with your comparison of marijuana and alcohol. […] we would suggest that you reevaluate your comparison of alcohol and marijuana, keeping in mind the words of the late South African President Nelson Mandela:
“We should never underestimate the dangers of the drug problem and the high price that it exacts from many countries, including our own. It is a serious threat not only to the moral and intellectual integrity of our nation and other nations. It is a serious threat to the health and well-being of our people.”
What? Talk about a non-sequitur. What do those words of Mandela have to do with the relative dangers of marijuana and alcohol?
They go on to list the standard reefer madness litany of claimed harms, without any mention of the harms of alcohol.
But then we learn that they don’t actually care what the truth is.
Your comments in THE NEW YORKER minimize the dangers of drug use, and by doing so, lessen the impression that drugs are harmful. […] I would never condone or make reference to any substance that could diminish my children’s future success as being “less harmful.”
It doesn’t matter what the facts are. You’re not allowed to say that one thing is less harmful than another, even if it is.
We’re seeing this kind of rhetoric used a lot more as the prohibitionists realize that truthful comparisons don’t work for them. (You also often see a refusal to compare the relative dangers of driving impaired by alcohol and marijuana.)
It makes me wonder if all such comparisons should be considered inappropriate….
– It’s wrong to say that slapping someone is less harmful than shooting them in the head
– It’s wrong to say that taxing people is less harmful than genocide
– It’s wrong to say that eating sugar is less harmful than eating drain cleaner
Life is about comparisons. We make them constantly in the process of everyday choices. Knowledge helps us make better choices (although we still sometimes make bad ones). Labeling a group of choices as “bad” and therefore not comparable is not good policy, does not make our children safer, and is anathema to a free society.
The California Narcotics Officers should be ashamed of their leadership.
Wow… let ’em run I say. Amazing how so many feet can get stuffed into so many mouths and all done with heads up asses… incredible!
ooh… that’s impressive rhetoric, not.
Try this on Steve-O, I’ll raise you one physicist (Dr. John Schwartz, one of the fathers of string theory):
The rest of Stevie’s letter is middle school level hogwash and doesn’t deserve further comment.
Larry Lacey of Oregon is in jail right now for contempt after losing a pot trial that has six kinds of bullshit on it. Those CA cops can rest easy, there’s no jury nullification going on here. But when the local paper leads with “notorious Grants Pass businessman” in the story there’s no doubt which way the wind blows in this region.
Oh I get it….Pete, it’s not a non-sequitor ….Nelson Mandela and Barry Obama are black men, and this other black president says “Drugs are baaaaad!”
A fine piece of logic officer.
I don’t understand why Americans aren’t up in arms over the fact that people this stupid (the CNOA) have the power to destroy their lives.
And I would think that if 90 of my co-workers had so needlessly died that I would be advocating for the abolishment of the laws that caused their deaths, not continuing the insanity.
We can’t be angry with them for being stupid,,the Supreme Court told LE they could limit IQ but only gave them a maximum level..tmk no low IQ limit was mentioned.
OT
No wonder prohibitionists’ lies have lasted so long when this is an example of what purports to be news coverage in the US:
http://www.alternet.org/media/hilarious-and-depressing-video-exposes-how-phony-local-tv-news-has-become
Wow. Just another example of how comedy shows are in many ways more informative than the actual news shows.
Would love to see Conan, Stewart, and Colbert have a joint show!
*sequitUr
Narcotics officers’ modus operandi is dissimulation and betrayal. This memo is a perfect example.
They do have a point. That is, that the White House web site needs to be updated.
California Narcotics Officers Association
Up shit creek without a CNOA paddle.
Medical Marijuana Sponsor Says Police Are Addicted To Drug War Dollars
BrotherhoodofCorruption.com.
CALIFORNIA NARCOTICS OFFICERS ASSOCIATION
PEOPLE AGAINST THE PROPOSITION 5 DECEPTION
PROPOSITION 005: Non-violent Drug Offenders Sentencing, Parole And Rehabilitation
Policing for Profit
* Got SqWAT?
* Forfeiture $quads
* Money Grubbing Dung Worriers
* Kochroach & Aleech
* DAREyl SWAT Gates, LAPDog Perversions.
The Tribunal of US Drug War Crimes
Ooh, damn, I could get lost on that site for hours way too easily. I don’t want to be angry so early in the week, so I’m just going to read that one page…
Contact: John Lovell
Red, White, and Blue lobbyist John. This is only about money. Self serving money. They have a lot of nerve talking about children. These guys have no scruples in their quest for continued funding. This truly is the home of reefer madness. Vague, unreasoning madness. They have the nerve to quote Mandela about moral and intellectual integrity when they have none. They have pulled out every flawed study and innuendo to avoid the issue while silently playing their race card to make their point. Their depravity knows no bottom or bounds. They are not even smart enough to assess new facts that really are pertinent and relevant to the safety of the children they want the President to cry about. This is a new low.
The California Narcotic Officers’ Association is a non-profit, corporation dedicated to providing high quality training for law enforcement professionals. Like this excretion…
“Many well-intentioned leaders and members of the public have been misled by the well-financed and organized pro-drug legalization lobby into believing there is merit to their argument that smoking marijuana is a safe and effective medicine.
A review of the scientific research, expert medical testimony, and government agency findings shows this to be erroneous. There is no justification for using marijuana as a medicine.”
California police have no interest in setting pot rules
In 2010, as Colorado lawmakers were creating America’s first state-licensed and regulated medical marijuana industry, fellow police officers at a Colorado Drug Investigators Association conference jeered a state law enforcement official assigned to draft the legislation.
Some of the sharpest barbs came from visiting narcotics officers from California.
“I was told that we hadn’t learned anything from California – that you can’t do anything to regulate marijuana,†said Matt Cook, a retired Colorado Springs police officer who became the first director of Colorado’s Marijuana Enforcement Division
Changes perplex officials and users
‘Constant anxiety’
California voters approved the cultivation and use of marijuana for chronically ill patients in 1996. But the loosely worded initiative failed to spell out terms for its production or distribution, or to specify the number of plants patients could grow. That left police and sheriff’s departments responsible for implementing the pesky details.
The 9 Most Loathsome Lobbyists
http://progressive.org/nine_most_loathsome_lobbyists.html
#3 John Lovell
OT (not to take away from Steve-o’s thunder)… made me laugh tonight channel surfing and I saw the Netherlands ahead in the medal count. 🙂 That’s a subtle thud (barely detectable by seismologists) but with rainbows and dancing bears.
Thank dog for the little things!
The California Narcotics Officers Association gives labor unions a bad name, and that is unfortunate.
Survival of the unions in the United States depends in part on how they’re perceived by the public. At the moment, the unions face a bleak task due to constant attacks by the business sector. Perhaps if the AFL-CIO or Teamsters were to provide the CNOA with some online courses in Public Relations 101 the CNOA would stop embarrassing itself, labor unions, and the rest of California.
It is just plain wrong for public sector workers to form unions or expect pensions, if they want a union job or a pension let them work in the private sector, public sector work is supposed to be for the benefit of the public not the union or the employee. Public sector unions and pension funds are the reason so many communities (and their taxpayers) are going broke and don’t have the funds to maintain infrastructure and services.
Wow, mixed emotions on this one. Unions are necessary. Full stop. Employers are powerful, workers are totally at their mercy alone. It is only by unionising that there is any semblance of balance in the situation. Seeing as the government has the most power of any employer, it is even more important to their employees.
As to pensions, they should be abolished. All they are is a ponzi scheme to get the public to pay a bunch of bureaucrats high salaries to pay us back part of what we paid in. No way to get it all back because the administration eats part of it. It also bonds us to employers, which they like, but it makes it impossible to move to a better job. When we retire, the benefits have been so eroded by inflation as to be meaningless. Everyone should fund their own retirement. If it means paying into a fund for their whole life, they get a pension. If they invest themselves, they get the return on the investment. If they spend it all, they get to work until they die.
Primus, in the public sector, the employers are you and I — the taxpayers — NOT the government. Unions MAY be of benefit to employees in the private sector (though I think they have negotiated themselves into a position of negative value in most cases — hubby was a union worker for a very long time then his company went non-union and his pay and bennies actually went up more and remained higher than that of the union employees of other companies, and no more union dues) however I think employees should have the choice to join a union or not rather than being forced to join in order to keep one’s job; but when it comes to the public sector, unions are hazardous to taxpayers’ wallets.
Wonder why the author of that letter to the president didn’t list the most dangerous quality of marijuana, which is that you might be arrested for possessing it.
But he’s right about there being a moral component to drug use. It’s immoral that we punish users of recreational drugs, because we have no reason to do so, especially given that you can go to any corner store and buy the two most dangerous drugs legally: alcohol and tobacco.