Very nice column by Neil Franklin, executive director of LEAP. This is Your Neighborhood on the Drug War
Few people discussing the recent riots and protests in Baltimore have bothered to question why young people would feel angry enough to destroy their own neighborhood. Some have suggested the unrest can be blamed largely on the “breakdown” of the family structure in poor neighborhoods, particularly in poor communities of color, where fathers are frequently absent.
What that suggestion fails to address is why the family structure would be breaking down in the first place. The long and short answer is: The Drug War is tearing these families apart. People who suffer from addictions in poor neighborhoods don’t have access to the kind of treatment options that middle and upper class families do, meaning parents with addictions are less able to be breadwinners and look after their children. These neighborhoods also have markedly fewer job openings, and feeding oneself and their family doesn’t become any less imperative when you’re poor, so selling drugs may be the easiest way to keep everyone fed and a roof overhead, however minimally. […]
Many police departments across the country have unwittingly played into a system of racial prejudice that has unfairly targeted communities of color for drug crimes for decades. There are more black men in the penal system now than there were slaves in 1850, yet we’re bewildered that anyone might get angry enough to burn down pharmacies or smash police cars after finding out yet another unarmed member of their community has died in police custody. […]
Cops are public servants who should be helping victims of violent crimes get justice. Prohibition has only created more violence and made neighborhoods more dangerous. Legalize and regulate drugs from a public health perspective, and put our cops back in charge of solving the nearly 40% of murders and 60% of rape cases that go unsolved.
Each time there’s a tragedy in our city neighborhoods, people are ready to blame the citizen, the cop, the jury, etc., but it’s important that they look at the larger picture — what fosters and fuels situations where such disfunction in our criminal justice system occurs. And one of the biggest offenders is the drug war.
One other area where the drug war destroys families and neighborhoods is immigration law. For forty years it has been a case of ONE strike and you’re out if it’s a controlled substance conviction. ICE officers will tell their target that they are there to take them into custody only and will not discuss anything about the case with them. They will not be read their rights and there is no appeal. Immigration officers have even more power over individuals than the cops do and are equally as responsible for the destruction of marginalized communities. Neil Franklin does an excellent job but I wish more drug reformers would take a look at the way immigration law, like the drug laws, has been used to ride rough-shod over the Constitution, deporting fathers and mothers of U.S. born children without any signs of justice, never mind human decency.
The drug war and immigration, a double whammy for the racists in our midst to use on their victims, and America’s continuing dirty little secret.
Then there is the hidden costs of incarcerating the breadwinner and putting him in prison and his family on government housing and foodstamps for his entire sentence only to kick them off if he is paroled or released.
The man comes out of prison facing the low payscale employment available too him because he has a record and must immediately find a way too house ans feed his family,,,and people wonder why some people revert back to dealing drugs or stealing to furnish for their families.
Of course Congress and state legislatures have no frigging idea because not one of them has ever had to decide between food and medicine for the month.
I honestly believe that a more & more people have started realizing that this is not just an isolate/rare anecdotal example, and that in fact
it really is *a thing*, And that it’s been serious problem with “the system”…
And, they’ve seen the price-tag attached to the “Law and Order” (aka Tough-on-Crime) policy…
I believe it’s also become clear that even if you make prisoners do various manual labor for slave wages, charge them for room & board, engage in (basically) usery = from making the phone calls collect only & working with a 3rd party that surcharges to record/monitor calls, making them rival the cost of old-school long distance calls.
(Someone – will still have to shell out probably taxpayer’s money to enforce their TeeTotaler Mentalities/Views on drugs & forced sobriety.)
Even with things like forcing the inmates to buy stuff from the prison ‘commissary’ at inflated prices, or in some cases family can order them certain things from a limited list of other stuff.
*Like books*, BUT = they must be ordered brand new from the publishers in specific/”original” packaging! Which can still be rejected [effectively] at the whim of a guard, or admins, prison employees or ‘changes to policy…’
The setup turns into “selling their souls to the company store” PDQ = which has unintended effects = more financial burdens to their family/friends.
And expensive health issues due to horrible food Or expensive junkfood/snacks from commissary/cart or what-have-you.
After all of that & the crap from old bitter teabaggers bitching about stuff like “WHAT? – They have Cable TV!? OMG, Not on my/our tax $$ they won’t!! –
Nvm, that there really isn’t non-cable TV Anymore and they usually have the most basic cheapest selection of channels that are often censored or blocked = So they don’t have the possibility of semi-entertained (God Forbid!)
[snark] Much better for them to be miserable and spending time in career-criminal studies & prison gang survival classes![/snark]
We’ll see if they want to really reform the system or call it “more if a public health approach” & have drug courts leading to involuntary incarceration renamed *Rehabilitation Centers*.
OR, the Pols get setious about actually restoring citizens the Liberty to choose their own vices – Maybe offering people help if/when they truly want it…
If say, they caused actual problems or committed real crimes in pursuit of an out of control habit? Although if they avoid excessive “Sin Taxes” and artificially inflated prices (to *help moderate use*) – Then this shouldn’t be too much of an issue, At least not to the degree it is today.
Chief of Police Yohanan Danino is to establish a team to reexamine the police position on the use of cannabis, possibly paving the way for a change in legislation,
Danino hinted two weeks ago that the “traditional position†of the state and law enforcement agencies should be reconsidered.
Danino plans to consult with the police intelligence and investigations branch to compare the status of cannabis and medical cannabis in Israel with that of other countries.
Based on the findings of the police team, Magal intends to sponsor a bill to legalize marijuana use.
http://www.timesofisrael.com/police-to-explore-decriminalizing-pot/
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Gosh I certainly love the Israelis. I do hope that they’re taking good care of my trees.
The Land of the Free takes it lead from Israel on all foreign policy matters so it might as well follow them on drug reform too.
This is what it costs to provide security for the marijuana industry because the DOJ refuses to move marijuana from Schedule 1 of the Controlled Substance Act so banking regulations can be written and the target painted on legal marijuana businesses by the Federal govt and it’s bureaucrats can be removed.
The DOJ/DEA’s refusal to remove marijuana to a Schedule ranking where banking regulations can be written is endangering legal business owners,customers,innocent bystanders,law enforcement and employees of legal businesses and we the tax payer will have to pay the bill for their reckless endangerment of our own citizens.
http://tinyurl.com/o3a355c
EXCLUSIVE: State’s former homeland security chief now works safeguarding marijuana shipments
“”ALBANY – The state’s former chief of homeland security has a new job safeguarding marijuana shipments, the Daily News has learned.
Michael Balboni, who served as the top homeland security official of former governors Eliot Spitzer and David Paterson, has been hired as a security consultant for pot grower Empire State Compassionate Care.”” ‘snip’
Employee Shot in L.A. Medical Marijuana Dispensary Robbery
DEA Bans Dispensary Security and Armored Cars
From Picking up Cash
Shame on the Drug Worrier Profiteers
Pingback: Race Riots on Drugs | Spirit Wave
Researchers in Canada are claiming victory in the scourge of alleged drug-taking by the little children by providing 3-hours of cognitive training to certain students based on their personalities:
What if it really works this well? What if this becomes the way to keep kids off drugs until they’re old enough to do no harm to themselves and others? If so, several key issues are raised by the University of Montreal’s research findings.
First, the fear mongering employed by Kevin Sabet and others regarding adolescent marijuana use becomes obviously worthless. Drug war profiteers such as D.A.R.E., Partnership for Drug Free Children, SAM, the drug testing industry, the secular and religiously based rehab industry, and so forth, face exclusion or reduced funding due to their inefficacy.
Secondly, success with sensation seekers would mean that for decades the government has targeted and punished certain groups of people, those who include athletes and adventurers, for doing what they were born to do. It would mean the government has destroyed the lives of young people with the curiosity and courage to experiment with drugs, kids having the very same attributes and drives needed for creating the social and scientific progress that produces a healthy and robust nation, and a competent government. Success would expose the government and social leaders to calumny for their oppression and violence in combatting illicit drug use. As we stand today, more people have been killed by the drug laws than were killed by the inquisitions and witch hunts combined—it’s not a small blip on the inhumanity scale, this drug war.
My bets are that the Canadian research won’t see the light of day where prohibitionists are concerned. I predict the ONDCP/DEA, along with Kevin Sabet and his supporting cast of jolly persecutors and corporatists, will completely ignore the Canadian results, along with similar academic research victories, in order to keep the drug terror going and their parasitic jobs intact.
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The meter on my bullshit detector is past the red line. Servetus, you might want to check the batteries in your unit. What’s next, taking young school children over to the local penitentiary to be menaced and threatened with forcible sodomy by the inmates if they don’t do as they’re told by the authorities?
Their claim of a 75% reduction in use does seem unbelievable, doesn’t it? Maybe it doesn’t last.
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How about a group of elderly people at the retirement home playing shuffle board and having a great time while enjoying cannabis? I’ll betcha that one would repulse the childrens. …and the prohibitionists wouldn’t even have to lie to do it. No need for research, you can take my word for it, shuffleboard can be jolly good fun when you’re cannabinated. Hey you rotten kids, keep off the grass!
I like cannabis as a verb!
I say we need a full-blown attack of books, bikes, balls, and musical instruments. Drone those fuckers with the tools of art and leisure.
I hope I live long enough to toke up with a LEAP member. Those folks ROCK.
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So here’s another fascinating albeit irrelevant turn of events: The “Charlotte’s Web Medical Access Act of 2015” is an active bill on the Pennsylvania Legislature’s table.
Shhh…the outsiders appear to believe that Charlotte’s Web and Charlotte Figi are one and the same. They have enough trouble differentiating between kiddie diddling and cannabis so let’s not confuse them with facts.
Has there ever been a law named after a strain of cannabis before? The Sour Diesel Purity Act of 2011? The Compassionate Right Turn on Panama Red after Stopping Act of 1991? Does it count if they conflate a human being with a cannabis varietal?
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I think we may be on a journey from the sublime to way the ridiculous and beyond. Every time I try to reassure myself that there are no parallel universes, as least that one can stumble into accidentally and without being aware of doing so, something like this is reported:
Man who blew marijuana smoke in pet chameleon’s mouth acquitted
I can’t believe they didn’t wonder about his name. This has got to be a gag, there’s just no way the media would let that one slide by. “Bruce Blunt”? PETA snitching him out?? Why didn’t they call in Stacy Keach as an expert witness???
Well it’ll be worth a few laughs at next week’s bar-b-que. PETA should stand for People Eating Tasty Animals as it does in the minds of all right thinking patriots!
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Well if it’s a gag the MSM is falling hard.
Do reptiles even have an endo-cannabinoid system?
Hubby has a shirt with that on it.
New research on epigenetic biomarkers for cocaine addiction, showing that once again it’s not just about the dopamine anymore:
The research looks promising for bypassing cocaine cravings, but to the drug enforcement complex, it’s just another means of harm reduction that runs counter to the sophism that illegal drugs must remain harmful in order to prevent people from treating drugs as harmless. The DEA does not give up power. We can expect reactionary responses until the door finally closes on the prohibitches.
Cocaine addiction, craving and relapse
https://www.mcgill.ca/newsroom/channels/news/cocaine-addiction-craving-and-relapse-252998 …
Current treatments might aggravate rather than inhibit
Pharmaceutical rep and booze-hound Pat Kennedy calls for a “Third Way.”
He and Kev in yet another desperate stunt for publicity and Big Pharma dollars.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/05/28/project-sam-medical-marijuana-research_n_7461164.html?utm_hp_ref=politics
After you Pat with the snake oil.
To me, this looks like a real breakthrough; two establishment guys calling on the establishment to increase research on medical efficacy, to support mmj. Not only are they establishment guys, they are the only talking heads still speaking up for the establishment line. For them to make a call like this appears to me to be the death knell of prohibition. This looks big. If the research is done, the case for re-scheduling is enhanced. I can only see this as a positive for the movement toward freedom.
.. it’s a skyam, it’s a skyam, it’s a skyam …
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=an7neQrpc94
Still want to punch her in her fat face.
Why bother? We’re winning. She’s losing. And she knows that inside.
It’s been predicted here that the prohibs would try to sound like the voice of reason when bluster got them nowhere.
You’ll note, I said ‘sound like‘. Like leopards, prohibs don’t change their spots. She’s a perfect example.
No matter. We’re the majority. We don’t need them. At. All. We don’t even need to debate them. The time for that is past. All we have to do now is just tell the pols to get cannabis re-legalization done. Period. No arguments, no debates, no more ‘Notenoughstudies! Notenoughstidies! TheChildrenTheChildrenTheChildren!’ And that, perforce, means no more face time for these prohibition industry shills.
Which is why they’re trying to jump on OUR bandwagon and take it over.
Behold their version of Plan B. First we get Nutty Nora making noises about there being a need to study cannabis’s medicinal aspects…as if she had just woke up after a 40 sleep and discovered they exist. Her failure to mention all the thousands of studies performed so far for exactly that purpose gets no mention in the Lame/Main Stream Media. Do you think that was accidental?
Now…right on cue, and with unsurprising conformity to script, we now get SAM-the-Sham trying to sound like they were always reformers?
They’re trying to grab the steering wheel of the reform bandwagon they just jumped onto…and they’ll drive it into the nearest ditch or bridge abutment if we’re fool enough to let them.
I say we put Nora Trotsky in the Iowa’s turrets and use her for projectile testing
Sorry, I meant ’40 year sleep’. Which is as long as NIDA has been ‘studying’ cannabis.
Or, they said they were.
Now, if you had someone studying something exhaustively for 40 years (actually, over a hundred, going back to the study of cannabis in Raj India in the 1890’s), and they say they need to study it some more, then you can be forgiven for thinking you’re dealing with someone who is ‘developmentally challenged’
(I mean, c’mon, taking 40 effing years to figure out if something is ‘dangerous’ or not isn’t being mentally ‘slow’? What’s running NIDA, characters from Idiocracy?)
More likely, less excusable motivations were and are at work.
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Which of the following 5 words best describes the collective state of mind among the sycophants of prohibition at this very moment? Pick only one:
A) Denial
B) Anger
C) Bargaining
D) Depression
E) Acceptance
Anyone who answers correctly will be entered in a random drawing and one lucky semanticist will win a date with the red hot Kübler-Ross model of his/her choice!
Kennedy and Sabet must know the NIDA asked the Mississippi farm to produce many more kilos of marijuana for future research purposes. There’s no way to stop it now. The brothers grimm don’t want the public to think they’re anti-science or anti-medicine, so they’re forced to announce they’re totally behind medical research on cannabinoids.
NIDA’s Nora Trotsky said the same about research on cannabinoids. Keeping it with fat pharma. Then rehab the stoners. The third way. Then if they flunk, off to the cages. Oh how they tried to saved them. They gave a choice. Anything but using it as hundreds of millions for thousands of years. They need sheep. Obedient believers following the Neoconstitution by the Neocongress serving the multinational corporate Neoconfederacy with no BoR for human needs, only profits. Treating misery shelving cures and preventing preventions. The Untied State of Anemica.
NIDA Director: Marijuana A ‘Fascinating Target’ For New Medicines
Despite marijuana’s status under U.S. law, the head of the federal drug research institute says there is promise for developing new medicines based on compounds in the plant.
“My view is that the cannabinoids are one of the most fascinating targets we have for the development of medicines. It’s an extremely important area of research,â€
Smoked marijuana is problematic as a medicine,†claims the director. “You don’t want to deliver cancer-causing compounds along with potentially therapeutic compounds.â€
But Dr. Volkow isn’t so sure about relaxing the drug’s status just yet. Despite containing useful ingredients, she says, people who smoke marijuana are also exposing themselves to potential possibilities that could or might even maybe contain carcinogens.
Vaporizers, which are popular among patients in medical marijuana states, provide one way of avoiding the risks of smoking. On the other hand, Dr. Volkow points to isolating specific compounds from the plant as a solution.
“One of the things technology and science allow us to do is investigate and isolate the active ingredients in a plant like marijuana, and then deliver them to the patient in a way that minimizes side effects,†she explains.
Volkow preferred methods of treatment…
Ambien☛Celexa☛Xanax☛Prozac☛Zoloft
delusions,dementia,lack of feeling or emotion,thoughts of killing oneself, confusion, shakiness, lack of emotion,loss of memory,Behavior change similar to drunkenness, convulsions, (seizures), changes in patterns and rhythms of speech,clumsiness or unsteadiness,difficulty with coordination,shakiness and unsteady walk,feeling sad or empty, inability to sit still,difficulty with concentration,drowsiness,mood or behavior changes, very stiff (rigid) muscles, high fever, sweating, confusion, fast or uneven heartbeats, feeling like you might pass out; agitation, hallucinations, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, loss of appetite…
Is The DEA Legalizing THC?
So, in other words, if a pharmaceutical product contains THC extracted from the marijuana plant, that would be a legal commodity. But if you or I possessed THC extracted from the marijuana plant, that would remain an illegal commodity.
Wait, it gets even more absurd.
Since the cannabis plant itself will remain illegal under federal law, then from whom precisely could Big Pharma legally obtain their soon-to-be legal THC extracts? There’s only one answer: The federal government’s lone legally licensed marijuana cultivator, The University of Mississippi at Oxford, which already has the licensing agreements with the pharmaceutical industry in hand.
Seattle to shut down dozens of medical marijuana dispensaries
Primus…. here’s the smoking gun, even though Kev and Pat aren’t saying it:
“While calling full legalization of marijuana “dangerous,” Kevin Sabet, president and CEO of SAM, also said that “there are so many things the government could do to offer the seriously ill experimental medications” and help to further marijuana research to potentially unlock its medical potential, without legalizing the plant.”
In among the weasel words Sabet is proposing “unlocking the medical potential.” I believe this means handing over the supply of medical cannabis to organisations like G.W. Pharmaceuticals who will supply it at huge mark up compared to the black market. Criminal drugs will therefore continue to supply the majority of cannabis consumed by undercutting the legal suppliers.
And I tend to agree. The prohibs and their allies in Congress are of the mistaken belief that the old system of special interests trumping expressed political will on the part of the electorate can maintain on an issue as popular as this one is.
With over half (I’d say more like 70%) of Americans wanting cannabis legal again, the prohibs are trying to run for cover and sound like reformers, while at the same time keep prohibition running with CBD-only laws. They’re trying to split the movement and weaken it with these tactics.
Let your Congresscritters know you are neither fooled or amused at this latest tactic. Let them know we know.
It really is this simple: just tell your representatives that you want cannabis legal again, but not on SAM’s or any other prohib org’s terms.They have no choice but to accede to the politically expressed will of the people.
The pols can’t take their marching orders (as usual) from the prohib special interests in the face of obvious public numbers. Any attempt to do so will show how corrupt the game is, and at this stage, they can’t afford that, anymore. The mask hiding their very obvious benefit at the public’s expense would be irrevocably ripped from their faces, and they’d be exposed for what they are. And they know it. That’s why they are trying to sound like us.
Too late, guys, too late. We smelled your game before we saw you, and we saw you coming a mile away.
Yep, I was also going to quote that paragraph fro Kev-Kev – but i kempt reading/skimming saw it had already been covered…
This, is absolutely no change on Kev-Kev & Patty K’s part, OR on Nora’s part either (that article with her talking about essentially isolating specific cannabinoids = aka Targeting it for “New Medicines” is from April 2014… and we’ve made more progress since then!)
The last time I saw/heard her she was mostly trying to get out of the metaphorical firing-line, and desperate to avoid the blame for blocking medical marijuana research = Specifically because of the catch-22 of not studying a plant they can’t reproduce exactly 100% the same with every batch – and therefor it wasn’t suitable as a “medicine”.
Just because they can’t create it to pharmaceutical standards
I had a little more to add but didn’t finish my though completely & edit it fast enough after I accidentally hit enter with the stylus…
But – I’m pretty sure y’all got the gist of it, its well covered territory ’round here’… The only thing I have to mention is Kev-Kev’s use of “to the seriously ill” = f*ck h*m & his *seriously ill* litmus test!
The SOB seems to think he runs the damn country…
hold tight
http://tinyurl.com/The-Skyam-Falls
A hint of common sense from the prohibs but will these research programs (if they materialize) be biased toward the negative as usual when funded by people with a stake in the prohibition game.
Still good news with a sprinkling of cautious optimism .
Project CBD responds to Kev-Kev: http://www.projectcbd.org/news/project-cbd-responds-to-sams-cbdisinformation-2/
Still see Neil Franklin on CNN with no mention of Him being a
LEAP Board Member or what LEAP is.
I suspect that’s more CNN’s issue than LEAP’s
Seeing as how the host won’t mention LEAP, it is up to the speaker to mention it as often as possible, until the host gets the hint.
There’s a reason for this, he’s there as a former Baltimore LEO…
And depending on the day/topic, along with the show/host/other guests – he will avoid the topic at times, because it would undermine his credibility if he brings it up every time he talks with them.
I saw him on Morning Joe the day after the fires & whatnot, and he tried to “go there ” when asked about what all he thought was behind the incident.
He tried to reference the drug war – in that it had separated the community & the Police, destroyed the relationship between a normal cop & the citizens, etc.
AND, it didn’t go over to well, the people in the conversation weren’t ready to make that “Leap” from what happened the day before and the fact that people won’t call the cops around there because they’d expect to get frisked = or worse, and we know that’s largely due to the drug war.
Some news-people just aren’t going to take their show down that “Conversational Path” even if they may know full well what he was getting at.
That wasn’t the conversation they were looking to have that day.
Trust me though – Neil has been representing LEAP = when appropriate, or if he thinks it’s close enough to get his pint across without indignation from skeptical newscastWho are really only talking to him, because he was a cop in Baltimore and he trained other cops there in Baltimore years ago – before he retired and started doing the LEAP thing.
Take the most non toxic, beneficial plant on earth and convince everyone it is dangerous. Patent and sell the chemicals in it, ban the plant except by only the bravest of corporations. Corporate and government homegrow’s only. That was the plan.
This is taking corporate personhood too far.
Remove it from your nasty schedules and let it grow free, the way it was before you messed with it, Mr. Federal Government. Its not dangerous and never was. Its a legendary lie of biblical proportions.
That is why this seems so confusing in government circles. They all want in on a piece of the action that they created, action that wasn’t there in the first place.
For our own good, of course.
There is no way to replace a scam as good as this one was.
And the scam continues as long as marijuana is scheduled at all.
Pete is right. People are ready to blame the citizen, the cop, the jury, etc., but it’s important that they look at the larger picture. The drug war and the prohibition of drugs lines up in the front of the line if you are looking for a cause.
Blame the DEA and the war on drugs. Blame the agency leading the charge on continuing prohibition in America instead of regulating and controlling it all.
I say take marijuana out of the cursed DEA schedules and let these slackers find real jobs with some value besides the suppression of minorities and destruction of the American constitution.
Washington needs to act and do more this time than just revving up the smoke screens.
https://youtu.be/m0C2OA9VwWw
The DEA in action:
http://tinyurl.com/om8hn6q
Neil Franklin: How Martin O’Malley Helped Create the Baltimore Riots
https://youtu.be/dCpXbibPDAg
YES! (Thank you TC for finding this, I couldn’t ask for a better run-down of the situation…) It also has some very important details that I hadn’t seen/heard = well laid out for relatively easy comprehension by the general public.
That’s a perfect example of how you do this & better yet = it was published by Reason on May 8th – 10 days after the initial riot.
It’s an amazing job of reporting on the semi-recent history of policing in Baltimore – and just how badly Martin O’Malley fubar’ed the whole damn thing while he was in charge there.
This could prove very useful – especially since this clown O’Malley decided running for president sounded like a good idea! Given all the *zero tolerance* crap he tried to pull off = (?)
IDK where he thinks there’s room to run – on that legacy & in some nonexistent space between Hillary & Bernie on this issue.
Is he going to stick with “zero tolerance”, “tough on crime” stances?
Didn’t sound like it, in his announcement he spouted just short of half of Hillary’s & half of Bernie’s talking points… And he flubbed up almost all of them while he was at it.
IF he has a speech writer, they be taken out back and put out of his/their/our misery.
http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/news/patients-cant-sell-medical-pot-appeals-court-rules-7363907
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The Arizona Court of Appeals must be staffed with political flunkies. This is the second truly brain dead ruling from them in very recent memory. Gosh, it was just not that long ago that they ruled that the AMMA doesn’t protect patients from being convicted under Arizona’s “zero intelligence” DUI-m laws. Why is that brain dead? Because the Arizona Supreme Court has already ruled that it does. The Arizona Supreme Court has already accepted the appeal of that inexplicable piece of stupidity.
Exactly 6 months later:
Feds Tell Their Employees to Stay Away from Marijuana,
Even in States That Have Legalized
The federal government wants to be clear with its federal employees that might live in states that have reformed their marijuana laws: Marijuana remains illegal, so don’t use it. In guidance issued this week from Katherine Archuleta, director of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, to the heads of all federal departments and agencies, Archuleta says in no uncertain terms that marijuana use for the more than 4.1 million federal employees across the nation is banned.
I doubt Congress will authorize the extra funding necessary for Fed agencies to engage in the massive amount of piss-testing required to enforce this.
This is Uncle Sam trying to snarl and bite while not wearing dentures.
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Not just funding but they’d have to get the SCOTUS to overturn itself.
I really thought the regulars here would have known that outside of “safety” sensitive positions that governments can’t search employees’ urine for unauthorized metabolites without reasonable suspicion that the employee is “under the influence” while on the job.
No wise ass comments about supervisors just pretending that everyone is in a “safety” sensitive position. The SCOTUS most certainly understands the meaning of the phrase “de facto.”
kaptin, around here people call it political chest beating and most people know that it’s just more hot air. Katherine Archuleta is just plain lying.
Nora Volkow must be um having intercourse with Pfizer while writing this, I cannot believe what I am reading:
http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMra1402309
That was a year ago. The winds of change? Or the same plan in sheeps clothes? Just where is Nora coming from now?
Big pharma rules in Washington, I am afraid.
I said they’d try to hijack the movement. And here they are. They think they can camouflage themselves as us, and ‘fool’ Congress (with prohib Congressional ‘help’) into thinking they are us. They are trying to position themselves as the only voice of reform that Congress will listen to…while still being prohibs.
They fool only those they can, which, fortunately, are becoming fewer by the day.
No supporting laws they support. They’re trying to split the movement that way, and diffuse its impact politically. We see their game. Chess move anticipated, and checked.
SAM’s donors don’t want much exposure. Tough. Kevvie gets reeeeeeal touchy about being asked who his donors are. Get specific: how much of that money came from government ‘grants’?
Now is the time to go on the offensive on talk shows and point out how they’re parasites sucking down tax dollars and benefiting personally. And SAM’s membership is almost exclusively those who benefit directly from that arrangement.
And it won’t hurt to point out that a certain spokesman for SAM was not a ‘senior drug policy advisor’ to two Administrations but was nothing but a mouthpiece peddling the very same BS on our dime and our time.
You have to ask: how much of the 1.3 Billion dollar waste of the ONDCP’s lame-o ‘ad campaign was Kevvie responsible for? That question needs to be asked often, much more often.
There is another group that is connected to Kevin Sabet and Betty and Mel Sembler, Parents Opposed to Pot
IMHO, they are all ONDCP cut-outs, like what the boys at Langley do when they want to hide covert operations.
I would wager that none of them can say they don’t get those taxpayer-funded ‘grants’…which, recall, is our money being used by government cat’s-paws to further its agenda at our expense and its benefit…it, and its equally parasitical friends.
But the truth is they are concentrating themselves for easy identification and later political removal. Kind of like putting all the trash in one can…before you burn it.
All the worst prohibs, the bottom-feeder foot soldiers (such as LindaT) and the royalty (DuPont and his ilk) all together in one easily identifiable gaggle.
One big, steaming pile of hypocritical, self-serving, foaming authoritarians. Whose attitude, well, let DuPont illustrate that, with his own words.
All we have to do is what I just did. Just point to them and say that this is actually typical of prohibs, not an aberration. They are their own worst enemies.
Every time they open their mouths, they damn themselves even deeper into a waiting Perdition of their own making. And payback will be a snarling, hungry (female dog).
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Gee whiz Wally, it could be worse. They could have hired someone who’s competent to do the job. In the dynamics of the collapse of any madness of crowds mania it’s mandatory that there are chumps left holding the bag when the dust settles.
Repeat after me: With enemies like Kevin Sabet and Nora Volkow, we just don’t need any friends. Heck, if anyone wants to chip in I’d be up for sending them both a bouquet of flowers and a card expressing our heartfelt gratitude for being such prize worthy morons and for volunteering to be the mandatory bagholders. The job sucks but somebody has to do it.
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Are there really people who pay money to read that regurgitated rubbish?