The REAL Reason Medical Marijuana is having a hard time Federally

[bentom187]

ok all ya gotta do is stop using the objects they say hold power,wich is MONEY. if you dont respect it honor it they lose power,do things for the people on the side of you without taking it will come back ten fold and that is power. not to mention how emotionally gratified you will feel. the idea is to convince enough people and it starts with you.
dontwait for someone else to fight for social justice there are alot of people who love the status quoe.
i KNOW someones gonna say thats socialisim, well guess who put a negative spin on that?
whoever has radical idealisim and agendas do. the govt calls brown people who live in caves terrorist,they call us infedels, guess why? theres a phycological component to stereotyping people, if you make them sub-human their easier to kill in many peoples mind.

 

[Molson]

Okay... this is wrong. I like to get f'ed up and alter my state of mind. I made a decission a long time ago that alcohol is bad for my well being, even though I love to get drunk. I am perfectly content smoking weed instead of drinking, so I switched, and haven't had a drink in 5 years.

If all of the weed dissappeared, I'd start drinking again. I subsituted weed for alcohol.

You have a point. I was speaking in general terms though. Beer isn't a true economic substitute for wine/liquor - unless you're an alcoholic. Likewise, mj isn't an economic substitute for alcohol - unless, like you said, you're looking to get fucked up.

Non-tokers will not magically switch from beer/wine/liquor to mj even if mj cost pennies - unless of course they're looking to get fucked up.

 

[merlin123]

Very valid points.

No longer the United States of America. It's Corporate America

 

[Weird]

Some interesting views but in my mind some things just dont add up

there is universal truth and relative truth, but use relative truth our of context and the logic is lost

there are some leaks in the logic without having to know to much about past American history so lets address those first

A) how does marijuana fit into this conspiracy if our fore fathers grew it legally and tax free (one of the objectives of succeeding from England in the first place ... taxes) and it wasn't made illegal until after (1937) ww2. Did the executives at the bank and tea company predict the market share and 3 centuries before and hedge their bets to cash it out big now?

B) If this is the case, and the tea company does profit from marijuana it supplies to Americans, since most pot comes from south American, Canadian and American sources how does the tea company profit from prohibition? Why haven't they enforced it earlier?

C) How does drug money get into the hands of the corrupt feds and then passed to the said tea company?

D) How does the said tea company profit form the american prison system? if they control the drug trade it seems like unless someone is manufacturing drugs they are simply imprisoning their customer base and distribution network

E) If they control manufacturing and importing drugs into our country, and our government how do they profit more from a model of prohibition than that of a non-restricted market? they can shut down competition and control supply why limit market share?

F) If they are so good at controlling governments and markets how come they let coffee overtake tea as a commodity without owning a majority market share of global coffee production or making it illegal like the rest of their competition

G) How come they can control America but not the south american drug cartels, or do they have the cartels pretend to be at war so everyone doesnt know they all work for the tea company, cause shit they control the drug trade

 

[Weird]

Why is Marijuana Illegal?

Many people assume that marijuana was made illegal through some kind of process involving scientific, medical, and government hearings; that it was to protect the citizens from what was determined to be a dangerous drug.

The actual story shows a much different picture. Those who voted on the legal fate of this plant never had the facts, but were dependent on information supplied by those who had a specific agenda to deceive lawmakers. You’ll see below that the very first federal vote to prohibit marijuana was based entirely on a documented lie on the floor of the Senate.

You’ll also see that the history of marijuana’s criminalization is filled with:


Racism
Fear
Protection of Corporate Profits
Yellow Journalism
Ignorant, Incompetent, and/or Corrupt Legislators
Personal Career Advancement and Greed


These are the actual reasons marijuana is illegal.


Background

For most of human history, marijuana has been completely legal. It’s not a recently discovered plant, nor is it a long-standing law. Marijuana has been illegal for less than 1% of the time that it’s been in use. Its known uses go back further than 7,000 B.C. and it was legal as recently as when Ronald Reagan was a boy.

The marijuana (hemp) plant, of course, has an incredible number of uses. The earliest known woven fabric was apparently of hemp, and over the centuries the plant was used for food, incense, cloth, rope, and much more. This adds to some of the confusion over its introduction in the United States, as the plant was well known from the early 1600′s, but did not reach public awareness as a recreational drug until the early 1900′s.

America’s first marijuana law was enacted at Jamestown Colony, Virginia in 1619. It was a law “ordering” all farmers to grow Indian hempseed. There were several other “must grow” laws over the next 200 years (you could be jailed for not growing hemp during times of shortage in Virginia between 1763 and 1767), and during most of that time, hemp was legal tender (you could even pay your taxes with hemp — try that today!) Hemp was such a critical crop for a number of purposes (including essential war requirements – rope, etc.) that the government went out of its way to encourage growth.

The United States Census of 1850 counted 8,327 hemp “plantations” (minimum 2,000-acre farm) growing cannabis hemp for cloth, canvas and even the cordage used for baling cotton.

The Mexican Connection

In the early 1900s, the western states developed significant tensions regarding the influx of Mexican-Americans. The revolution in Mexico in 1910 spilled over the border, with General Pershing’s army clashing with bandit Pancho Villa. Later in that decade, bad feelings developed between the small farmer and the large farms that used cheaper Mexican labor. Then, the depression came and increased tensions, as jobs and welfare resources became scarce.

One of the “differences” seized upon during this time was the fact that many Mexicans smoked marijuana and had brought the plant with them, and it was through this that California apparently passed the first state marijuana law, outlawing “preparations of hemp, or loco weed.”

However, one of the first state laws outlawing marijuana may have been influenced, not just by Mexicans using the drug, but, oddly enough, because of Mormons using it. Mormons who traveled to Mexico in 1910 came back to Salt Lake City with marijuana. The church’s reaction to this may have contributed to the state’s marijuana law. (Note: the source for this speculation is from articles by Charles Whitebread, Professor of Law at USC Law School in a paper for the Virginia Law Review, and a speech to the California Judges Association (sourced below). Mormon blogger Ardis Parshall disputes this.)

Other states quickly followed suit with marijuana prohibition laws, including Wyoming (1915), Texas (1919), Iowa (1923), Nevada (1923), Oregon (1923), Washington (1923), Arkansas (1923), and Nebraska (1927). These laws tended to be specifically targeted against the Mexican-American population.

When Montana outlawed marijuana in 1927, the Butte Montana Standard reported a legislator’s comment: “When some beet field peon takes a few traces of this stuff… he thinks he has just been elected president of Mexico, so he starts out to execute all his political enemies.” In Texas, a senator said on the floor of the Senate: “All Mexicans are crazy, and this stuff [marijuana] is what makes them crazy.”

Jazz and Assassins

In the eastern states, the “problem” was attributed to a combination of Latin Americans and black jazz musicians. Marijuana and jazz traveled from New Orleans to Chicago, and then to Harlem, where marijuana became an indispensable part of the music scene, even entering the language of the black hits of the time (Louis Armstrong’s “Muggles”, Cab Calloway’s “That Funny Reefer Man”, Fats Waller’s “Viper’s Drag”).

Again, racism was part of the charge against marijuana, as newspapers in 1934 editorialized: “Marihuana influences Negroes to look at white people in the eye, step on white men’s shadows and look at a white woman twice.”

Two other fear-tactic rumors started to spread: one, that Mexicans, Blacks and other foreigners were snaring white children with marijuana; and two, the story of the “assassins.” Early stories of Marco Polo had told of “hasheesh-eaters” or hashashin, from which derived the term “assassin.” In the original stories, these professional killers were given large doses of hashish and brought to the ruler’s garden (to give them a glimpse of the paradise that awaited them upon successful completion of their mission). Then, after the effects of the drug disappeared, the assassin would fulfill his ruler’s wishes with cool, calculating loyalty.

By the 1930s, the story had changed. Dr. A. E. Fossier wrote in the 1931 New Orleans Medical and Surgical Journal: “Under the influence of hashish those fanatics would madly rush at their enemies, and ruthlessly massacre every one within their grasp.” Within a very short time, marijuana started being linked to violent behavior.

Alcohol Prohibition and Federal Approaches to Drug Prohibition

During this time, the United States was also dealing with alcohol prohibition, which lasted from 1919 to 1933. Alcohol prohibition was extremely visible and debated at all levels, while drug laws were passed without the general public’s knowledge. National alcohol prohibition happened through the mechanism of an amendment to the constitution.

Earlier (1914), the Harrison Act was passed, which provided federal tax penalties for opiates and cocaine.

The federal approach is important. It was considered at the time that the federal government did not have the constitutional power to outlaw alcohol or drugs. It is because of this that alcohol prohibition required a constitutional amendment.

At that time in our country’s history, the judiciary regularly placed the tenth amendment in the path of congressional regulation of “local” affairs, and direct regulation of medical practice was considered beyond congressional power under the commerce clause (since then, both provisions have been weakened so far as to have almost no meaning).

Since drugs could not be outlawed at the federal level, the decision was made to use federal taxes as a way around the restriction. In the Harrison Act, legal uses of opiates and cocaine were taxed (supposedly as a revenue need by the federal government, which is the only way it would hold up in the courts), and those who didn’t follow the law found themselves in trouble with the treasury department.

In 1930, a new division in the Treasury Department was established — the Federal Bureau of Narcotics — and Harry J. Anslinger was named director. This, if anything, marked the beginning of the all-out war against marijuana.

Harry J. Anslinger

Anslinger was an extremely ambitious man, and he recognized the Bureau of Narcotics as an amazing career opportunity — a new government agency with the opportunity to define both the problem and the solution. He immediately realized that opiates and cocaine wouldn’t be enough to help build his agency, so he latched on to marijuana and started to work on making it illegal at the federal level.

Anslinger immediately drew upon the themes of racism and violence to draw national attention to the problem he wanted to create. He also promoted and frequently read from “Gore Files” — wild reefer-madness-style exploitation tales of ax murderers on marijuana and sex and… Negroes. Here are some quotes that have been widely attributed to Anslinger and his Gore Files:

“There are 100,000 total marijuana smokers in the US, and most are Negroes, Hispanics, Filipinos, and entertainers. Their Satanic music, jazz, and swing, result from marijuana use. This marijuana causes white women to seek sexual relations with Negroes, entertainers, and any others.”

“…the primary reason to outlaw marijuana is its effect on the degenerate races.”

“Marijuana is an addictive drug which produces in its users insanity, criminality, and death.”

“Reefer makes darkies think they’re as good as white men.”

“Marihuana leads to pacifism and communist brainwashing”

“You smoke a joint and you’re likely to kill your brother.”

“Marijuana is the most violence-causing drug in the history of mankind.”

And he loved to pull out his own version of the “assassin” definition:

“In the year 1090, there was founded in Persia the religious and military order of the Assassins, whose history is one of cruelty, barbarity, and murder, and for good reason: the members were confirmed users of hashish, or marihuana, and it is from the Arabs’ ‘hashashin’ that we have the English word ‘assassin.’”

Yellow Journalism

Harry Anslinger got some additional help from William Randolf Hearst, owner of a huge chain of newspapers. Hearst had lots of reasons to help. First, he hated Mexicans. Second, he had invested heavily in the timber industry to support his newspaper chain and didn’t want to see the development of hemp paper in competition. Third, he had lost 800,000 acres of timberland to Pancho Villa, so he hated Mexicans. Fourth, telling lurid lies about Mexicans (and the devil marijuana weed causing violence) sold newspapers, making him rich.

Some samples from the San Francisco Examiner:

“Marihuana makes fiends of boys in thirty days — Hashish goads users to bloodlust.”

“By the tons it is coming into this country — the deadly, dreadful poison that racks and tears not only the body, but the very heart and soul of every human being who once becomes a slave to it in any of its cruel and devastating forms…. Marihuana is a short cut to the insane asylum. Smoke marihuana cigarettes for a month and what was once your brain will be nothing but a storehouse of horrid specters. Hasheesh makes a murderer who kills for the love of killing out of the mildest mannered man who ever laughed at the idea that any habit could ever get him….”

And other nationwide columns…

“Users of marijuana become STIMULATED as they inhale the drug and are LIKELY TO DO ANYTHING. Most crimes of violence in this section, especially in country districts are laid to users of that drug.”

“Was it marijuana, the new Mexican drug, that nerved the murderous arm of Clara Phillips when she hammered out her victim’s life in Los Angeles?… THREE-FOURTHS OF THE CRIMES of violence in this country today are committed by DOPE SLAVES — that is a matter of cold record.”

Hearst and Anslinger were then supported by Dupont chemical company and various pharmaceutical companies in the effort to outlaw cannabis. Dupont had patented nylon, and wanted hemp removed as competition. The pharmaceutical companies could neither identify nor standardize cannabis dosages, and besides, with cannabis, folks could grow their own medicine and not have to purchase it from large companies.

This all set the stage for…

The Marijuana Tax Act of 1937.

After two years of secret planning, Anslinger brought his plan to Congress — complete with a scrapbook full of sensational Hearst editorials, stories of ax murderers who had supposedly smoked marijuana, and racial slurs.

It was a remarkably short set of hearings.

The one fly in Anslinger’s ointment was the appearance by Dr. William C. Woodward, Legislative Council of the American Medical Association.

Woodward started by slamming Harry Anslinger and the Bureau of Narcotics for distorting earlier AMA statements that had nothing to do with marijuana and making them appear to be AMA endorsement for Anslinger’s view.

He also reproached the legislature and the Bureau for using the term marijuana in the legislation and not publicizing it as a bill about cannabis or hemp. At this point, marijuana (or marihuana) was a sensationalist word used to refer to Mexicans smoking a drug and had not been connected in most people’s minds to the existing cannabis/hemp plant. Thus, many who had legitimate reasons to oppose the bill weren’t even aware of it.

Woodward went on to state that the AMA was opposed to the legislation and further questioned the approach of the hearings, coming close to outright accusation of misconduct by Anslinger and the committee:

“That there is a certain amount of narcotic addiction of an objectionable character no one will deny. The newspapers have called attention to it so prominently that there must be some grounds for [their] statements [even Woodward was partially taken in by Hearst's propaganda]. It has surprised me, however, that the facts on which these statements have been based have not been brought before this committee by competent primary evidence. We are referred to newspaper publications concerning the prevalence of marihuana addiction. We are told that the use of marihuana causes crime.

But yet no one has been produced from the Bureau of Prisons to show the number of prisoners who have been found addicted to the marihuana habit. An informed inquiry shows that the Bureau of Prisons has no evidence on that point.

You have been told that school children are great users of marihuana cigarettes. No one has been summoned from the Children’s Bureau to show the nature and extent of the habit, among children.

Inquiry of the Children’s Bureau shows that they have had no occasion to investigate it and know nothing particularly of it.

Inquiry of the Office of Education— and they certainly should know something of the prevalence of the habit among the school children of the country, if there is a prevalent habit— indicates that they have had no occasion to investigate and know nothing of it.

Moreover, there is in the Treasury Department itself, the Public Health Service, with its Division of Mental Hygiene. The Division of Mental Hygiene was, in the first place, the Division of Narcotics. It was converted into the Division of Mental Hygiene, I think, about 1930. That particular Bureau has control at the present time of the narcotics farms that were created about 1929 or 1930 and came into operation a few years later. No one has been summoned from that Bureau to give evidence on that point.

Informal inquiry by me indicates that they have had no record of any marihuana of Cannabis addicts who have ever been committed to those farms.

The bureau of Public Health Service has also a division of pharmacology. If you desire evidence as to the pharmacology of Cannabis, that obviously is the place where you can get direct and primary evidence, rather than the indirect hearsay evidence.”

Committee members then proceeded to attack Dr. Woodward, questioning his motives in opposing the legislation. Even the Chairman joined in:

The Chairman: If you want to advise us on legislation, you ought to come here with some constructive proposals, rather than criticism, rather than trying to throw obstacles in the way of something that the Federal Government is trying to do. It has not only an unselfish motive in this, but they have a serious responsibility.

Dr. Woodward: We cannot understand yet, Mr. Chairman, why this bill should have been prepared in secret for 2 years without any intimation, even, to the profession, that it was being prepared.

After some further bantering…

The Chairman: I would like to read a quotation from a recent editorial in the Washington Times:

The marihuana cigarette is one of the most insidious of all forms of dope, largely because of the failure of the public to understand its fatal qualities.

The Nation is almost defenseless against it, having no Federal laws to cope with it and virtually no organized campaign for combating it.

The result is tragic.

School children are the prey of peddlers who infest school neighborhoods.

High school boys and girls buy the destructive weed without knowledge of its capacity of harm, and conscienceless dealers sell it with impunity.

This is a national problem, and it must have national attention.

The fatal marihuana cigarette must be recognized as a deadly drug, and American children must be protected against it.

That is a pretty severe indictment. They say it is a national question and that it requires effective legislation. Of course, in a general way, you have responded to all of these statements; but that indicates very clearly that it is an evil of such magnitude that it is recognized by the press of the country as such.

And that was basically it. Yellow journalism won over medical science.

The committee passed the legislation on. And on the floor of the house, the entire discussion was:

Member from upstate New York: “Mr. Speaker, what is this bill about?”

Speaker Rayburn: “I don’t know. It has something to do with a thing called marihuana. I think it’s a narcotic of some kind.”

“Mr. Speaker, does the American Medical Association support this bill?”

Member on the committee jumps up and says: “Their Doctor Wentworth[sic] came down here. They support this bill 100 percent.”

And on the basis of that lie, on August 2, 1937, marijuana became illegal at the federal level.

The entire coverage in the New York Times: “President Roosevelt signed today a bill to curb traffic in the narcotic, marihuana, through heavy taxes on transactions.”

Anslinger as precursor to the Drug Czars

Anslinger was essentially the first Drug Czar. Even though the term didn’t exist until William Bennett’s position as director of the White House Office of National Drug Policy, Anslinger acted in a similar fashion. In fact, there are some amazing parallels between Anslinger and the current Drug Czar John Walters. Both had kind of a carte blanche to go around demonizing drugs and drug users. Both had resources and a large public podium for their voice to be heard and to promote their personal agenda. Both lied constantly, often when it was unnecessary. Both were racists. Both had the ear of lawmakers, and both realized that they could persuade legislators and others based on lies, particularly if they could co-opt the media into squelching or downplaying any opposition views.

Anslinger even had the ability to circumvent the First Amendment. He banned the Canadian movie “Drug Addict,” a 1946 documentary that realistically depicted the drug addicts and law enforcement efforts. He even tried to get Canada to ban the movie in their own country, or failing that, to prevent U.S. citizens from seeing the movie in Canada. Canada refused. (Today, Drug Czar John Walters is trying to bully Canada into keeping harsh marijuana laws.)

Anslinger had 37 years to solidify the propaganda and stifle opposition. The lies continued the entire time (although the stories would adjust — the 21 year old Florida boy who killed his family of five got younger each time he told it). In 1961, he looked back at his efforts:

“Much of the most irrational juvenile violence and that has written a new chapter of shame and tragedy is traceable directly to this hemp intoxication. A gang of boys tear the clothes from two school girls and rape the screaming girls, one boy after the other. A sixteen-year-old kills his entire family of five in Florida, a man in Minnesota puts a bullet through the head of a stranger on the road; in Colorado husband tries to shoot his wife, kills her grandmother instead and then kills himself. Every one of these crimes had been proceeded [sic] by the smoking of one or more marijuana “reefers.” As the marijuana situation grew worse, I knew action had to be taken to get the proper legislation passed. By 1937 under my direction, the Bureau launched two important steps First, a legislative plan to seek from Congress a new law that would place marijuana and its distribution directly under federal control. Second, on radio and at major forums, such that presented annually by the New York Herald Tribune, I told the story of this evil weed of the fields and river beds and roadsides. I wrote articles for magazines; our agents gave hundreds of lectures to parents, educators, social and civic leaders. In network broadcasts I reported on the growing list of crimes, including murder and rape. I described the nature of marijuana and its close kinship to hashish. I continued to hammer at the facts.

I believe we did a thorough job, for the public was alerted and the laws to protect them were passed, both nationally and at the state level. We also brought under control the wild growing marijuana in this country. Working with local authorities, we cleaned up hundreds of acres of marijuana and we uprooted plants sprouting along the roadsides.”

After Anslinger

On a break from college in the 70s, I was visiting a church in rural Illinois. There in the literature racks in the back of the church was a lurid pamphlet about the evils of marijuana — all the old reefer madness propaganda about how it caused insanity and murder. I approached the minister and said “You can’t have this in your church. It’s all lies, and the church shouldn’t be about promoting lies.” Fortunately, my dad believed me, and he had the material removed. He didn’t even know how it got there. But without me speaking up, neither he nor the other members of the church had any reason NOT to believe what the pamphlet said. The propaganda machine had been that effective.

The narrative since then has been a continual litany of:

Politicians wanting to appear tough on crime and passing tougher penalties
Constant increases in spending on law enforcement and prisons
Racist application of drug laws
Taxpayer funded propaganda
Stifling of opposition speech
Political contributions from corporations that profit from marijuana being illegal (pharmaceuticals, alcohol, etc.)

… but that’s another whole story.

 

[bentom187]

good post.
another thing is,(unfortunatley) history is written by the victor. if thats us for the past 200+ years then all of our relitives have been lied to for that long and theres no one that old to ask.
kinda tuff to desipher the truth.

 

[Weird]

good post.
another thing is,(unfortunatley) history is written by the victor. if thats us for the past 200+ years then all of our relitives have been lied to for that long and theres no one that old to ask.
kinda tuff to desipher the truth.

so so true

the info i posted is from another site, not something i created but its the story i believe to be true

not that i discount the influence of corruption and greed from groups like the British tea company, but the scope and totality of the corruption

the power greed consolidates collapses, and I believe this to be a limiting factor that has controlled greed from destroying mankind to date

 

[megayields]

Medical green;

Where you on the Alex Jones show recently?

 

[LittleAmsterdam]

I've never been a big fan of the FDA and believe white salt, white sugar, and white flour will do more harm than MMJ

 

[bentom187]

after posting before on pshycotronic devices,in the healing with sound thread. you have to know that the FCC makes devices operate on specific frequencies for a reason,they can make you suseptible to ideas ,less resistant to opposition among other things such as subliminable messages wich can be broadcast over a simple phone conversation.
think about the devices we are glued too all day theres no escape,if you dont have them somone around you will and ya cant stop the radiowaves.
so if you are all actually woundering what causes such lathargey in people its just that.

these electronic devices eliminate the desire to think for ourselves and the lack of motivation to do it, cause all the entertainment in the world can be force fed to you through the boob tube and computer. i see the irony of how we all here for a good reason but ,the downside is we arnt out living life at the same time,its all work then go home and receive your govt broadcasts for the evening then do it again tommorow. theres areason you dont like it,it goes against every natural cell in your body to be worked to death slowly or quicky. disclaimer i have no tinfoil stocks,so im not trying just to make you paranoid.
these devices also inerfere with you natural bioelectric field ,we have them because a large percentage of our body is conductive, and the interference causes many health
problems ,mixxing up signals in every cell of your body.
not sure what you can do but just stay away from ereas that are heavily trafficed.

 

[medicalgreen]

Medical green;

Where you on the Alex Jones show recently?

Hi Megayields,
It's funny you asked that. No, I have never been.

 

[mean mr.mustard]

The real reason is Big Pharma is a little pussy

 

[medicalgreen]

Some interesting views but in my mind some things just dont add up

there is universal truth and relative truth, but use relative truth our of context and the logic is lost

there are some leaks in the logic without having to know to much about past American history so lets address those first

A) how does marijuana fit into this conspiracy if our fore fathers grew it legally and tax free (one of the objectives of succeeding from England in the first place ... taxes) and it wasn't made illegal until after (1937) ww2. Did the executives at the bank and tea company predict the market share and 3 centuries before and hedge their bets to cash it out big now?

[Throughout history, Masons have done what is in their interest at the time. The Tea Company became Washington DC, literally. The plans and agenda changed slightly, that's all.]

B) If this is the case, and the tea company does profit from marijuana it supplies to Americans, since most pot comes from south American, Canadian and American sources how does the tea company profit from prohibition? Why haven't they enforced it earlier?

[The BEIC, Wash. DC, is interconnected to the large globalist banks, and the reason banks were created was not to store your money, it was to launder drug money from opium trade in the Orient. They sell it to you as a way to store your money, but it's how they exchange gold for opium worldwide. Cannabis makes them more money obviously, under control, than it would for them, in our control]

C) How does drug money get into the hands of the corrupt feds and then passed to the said tea company?

[The Feds are the Tea Company, like I said before]

D) How does the said tea company profit form the american prison system? if they control the drug trade it seems like unless someone is manufacturing drugs they are simply imprisoning their customer base and distribution network.

[That's where they manufacture the slaves for the corporations to make things at .50 an hour instead of $10.00. It's their slave force, simple.]

E) If they control manufacturing and importing drugs into our country, and our government how do they profit more from a model of prohibition than that of a non-restricted market? they can shut down competition and control supply why limit market share?

[Marijuana is much more consumed than you realize, my friend]

F) If they are so good at controlling governments and markets how come they let coffee overtake tea as a commodity without owning a majority market share of global coffee production or making it illegal like the rest of their competition.

[They have no excuse to regulate coffee, like they do cannabis. By ancient precedent, cannabis helps expand the mind, coffee just helps you get going. Without coffee, there would be no American or international work force.]

G) How come they can control America but not the south american drug cartels, or do they have the cartels pretend to be at war so everyone doesnt know they all work for the tea company, cause shit they control the drug trade

[Exactly!!!]

See my responses above.

 

[Iraganji]

I've never been a big fan of the FDA and believe white salt, white sugar, and white flour will do more harm than MMJ

I feel the same way. I'll go so far as to say MMJ is absolutely harmless as well.

The food and drug administration should not be one organization first off. Their RDA is the bare minimum, and more is better to keep healthy. They are feeding us excess acids, resulting in a need for their dentists, doctors, drugs, treatments and surgeries.
The general population is in no better health than the pent up cattle suffering acidosis from eating grain.

Cannabis and good food is real medicine. Doctors treatments and drugs are a real shame.

Replace all your sodium chloride with real sea salt friends.

 

[DiscoBiscuit]

The real reason is... money. Who gets it and how much. The current system is working just fine for the powers that be.

In America, wholesale reform will come by way of profits before benevolence.

 

[dankitydank]

Considering MOST marijuana in this country is shitty mexican weed, if things did become properly regulated, the "major cartels" would not just shrug their shoulders and say that was a good run......Let's be honest, TONS and TONS of weed (among other drugs and nefarious things) comes across/over/under/around that southern border everyday. Someone along the way is being paid off......and if they did manage to regulate so well everybody bought from storefronts, their would be serious hell to pay....look at ciudad juarez.

Support America. Buy Homegrown.

 

[DiscoBiscuit]

[SIZE=-1]Weekend Edition
May 13 - 15, 2011[/SIZE]​

[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif][SIZE=+1]Activists Feel Betrayed, But ...[/SIZE][/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif][SIZE=+2]Obama Never Promised You a Pot Garden[/SIZE][/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif][SIZE=+1]By FRED GARDNER[/SIZE][/FONT]
Drug-policy-reform advocates are complaining bitterly that they have been double-crossed by Barack Obama. "What's Behind the Obama Administration's About Face Regarding Medical Marijuana?" asked Paul Armentano of NORML in the Huffington Post May 5.


"Obama's Sudden, Senseless Assault on Medical Marijuana," was the headline on a piece by Scott Morgan, associate editor of Stopthedrugwar.org. According to Morgan, "Recent months have brought about what can only be described as the rapid collapse of the Obama Administration's support for medical marijuana."


This is way wrong. There is nothing "sudden" or unprecedented about the DEA raids and other oppressive measures emanating from the Department of Justice. And neither Obama nor the DOJ ever expressed unambiguous support for medical marijuana. It was the reform honchos themselves who misread and misrepresented Administration policy. How could they? And why did they?


On Counterpunch we characterized Obama's approach as "fakes left, goes right" from the start. We provided a chronology of Administration actions and statements regarding marijuana, that is worth reading in its entirety if you promise to come back.


Two days after Obama's inauguration, DEA agents raided a South Lake Tahoe cannabis dispensary run by a wheelchair-bound activist named Ken Estes. They took five pounds of herb and a few thousand dollars. "A typical rip-and-run," is how Estes described it.


There was a certain poetic injustice to Ken Estes being the feds' first target of the Obama era. A working-class dude with courage enhanced by his disability, Estes used to run a dispensary in Berkeley. When the city gave him the boot for being located too near a school, the three other dispensary owners did not come to his defense. They tsk-tsked about Estes' operation being "too loose," in contrast to their own fine, upstanding establishments. To paraphrase Pastor Niemoller, "When they came for Ken Estes..."
On Feb. 3, 2009, DEA squads raided four dispensaries in the Los Angeles area. On Feb. 11 DEA agents participated in a raid on the MendoHealing Co-op's grow in Fort Bragg. JeanMarie Todd, who was detained, reported: "I saw two DEA agents amongst the sheriff's deputies, so I said, 'I thought Obama had called off these raids.' A deputy replied, 'We haven't gotten the message.'"


Like Ken Estes, MendoHealing's David Moore got zero support from the leaders of the medical cannabis industry in Northern California. He had once offended them by lowering prices at the MendoHealing dispensary in San Francisco. So, "When they came for David Moore..."


On Feb. 25 Attorney General Attorney Eric Holder and Acting DEA Administrator Michele Leonhart held a press conference to bemoan drug-related violence in Mexico. The presence of Leonhart indicated that the new Administration was going to continue fighting the War on Drugs in the same old ways. (Holder had the perfect pretext for replacing her that week. Rachel Maddow had revealed that Leonhart spent $123,000 of public funds on a charter flight to Colombia instead of using a plane from DEA's huge fleet.)


Ignoring the significance of the Administration keeping Leonhart at DEA, the reform honchos seized on Holder's vague, meaningless response to an unexpected question about the raids on medical marijuana providers, to claim that he opposed them! The Marijuana Policy Project posted a video clip headlined "Holder Says 'No More DEA Raids' in Press Conference." But Holder never spoke those words! The phonies at MPP just made it up!


At another press conference March 18 Holder told reporters that Justice Department "policy is to go after those people who violate both federal and state law. To the extent that people do that and try to use medical marijuana laws as a shield for activity that is not designed to comport with what the intention was of the state law, those are the organizations, the people, that we will target.



And that is consistent with what the president said during the campaign.


Reform leaders again claimed a big win and some reporters fell for it. "Today's comments clearly represent a change in policy out of Washington," Ethan Nadelmann of the Drug Policy Alliance told the Los Angeles Times. The New York Times ran a piece headlined "Dispensers of Marijuana Find Relief in Policy Shift" that quoted Nadelmann (son of a rabbi) saying that the feds now recognize state medical marijuana laws as "kosher."


On March 23, US District Court Judge in California, George Wu, postponed the sentencing of Charles Lynch —a Morro Bay dispensary operator who by all accounts had sought to comply with state law— and asked the US Attorney to provide a written statement elucidating Administration policy. A definitive response came from H. Marshall Jarrrett, director of the office that oversees all U.S. Attorneys:

"In response to your request, the Office of the Deputy Attorney General reviewed the facts of this case to determine whether the prosecution of Mr. Lynch comports with the Department of Justice's policies with respect to marijuana prosecutions. Based on the facts of this case, the Office of the Deputy Attorney General concurs with your office that the investigation, prosecution, and conviction of Mr. Lynch are entirely consistent with Department policies as well as public statements made by the Attorney General. Accordingly, you should seek to proceed with the sentencing recommendations which your office has filed with the court."
​

Our piece about the Jarrett letter in Counterpunch April 21 was headlined "No More Ambiguity: Obama's DOJ Backs Prosecution of Medical Marijuana Providers." It began: "It's official —under Barack Obama, the Department of Justice will not restrain federal prosecutors targeting medical marijuana providers. Any lingering hopes that the new Administration would implement change in this area were blasted April 17 when U.S. Attorney Thomas O'Brien forwarded to District Judge George Wu a letter from DOJ clarifying ObamAdmin policy..."


The Administration gave drug-policy reformers another occasion to cheer (but not a real reason to cheer) in October '09 when David Ogden, the second-highest official at DOJ, issued a formal "Memorandum for Selected United States Attorneys on Investigations and Prosecutions in States Authorizing the Medical Use of Marijuana."


We reported at the time that the Ogden memo "restated the mixed messages Attorney General Eric Holder had sent out verbally." But to this day —at least through May 5, when Paul Armentano cited it— reformers contend that the toothless memo was meant to restrain U.S. attorneys like Joe Russoniello (who had been advising his counterparts that all dispensaries are illegal under state law because profits are being made).


The Ogden memo made it clear than any dispensary was, as Russoniello put it, "fair game" for the DEA. "Prosecution of commercial enterprises that unlawfully market and sell marijuana for profit continues to be an enforcement priority of the Department," wrote Ogden. How can law enforcement determine if a given business is making a profit without raiding the premises, seizing their books and computers, their cash on hand, and their herb? We slugged our report, "With wins like this…"


Why did the pro-cannabis reformers misinterpret and misrepresent Obama Administration policy so consistently and for so long? Why did Ethan Nadelmann afix his "kosher" seal to Obama's baloney? Wishful thinking is not a good enough excuse. Political leaders owe the rank-and-file accurate information and analysis. Obviously it is advantageous for fund-raising purposes to report success, and this was certainly a factor. But it wasn't just their own interests that the reform honchos were advancing with false claims of Administration support.


Above all, the honchos were serving the interests of Cannabis-industry entrepreneurs eager to attract customers and investors. Starting in the fall of 2008, the line "Obama is going to let it happen," induced countless thousands of people to visit pro-cannabis doctors and then their local dispensaries. The most successful California dispensary operators developed franchising ventures and pitched investors, using Obama's alleged hands-off approach as part of their pitch. "Money that was sitting on the sidelines came in after the election," is how one of them summarized the boom that continued through 2009 and well into 2010.


It peaked that fall when Eric Holder warned that if California voters passed a legalization initiative, the feds would "vigorously enforce" federal law to block its implementation. Holder's threat turned the tide against Prop 19, making it seem like a futile and costly gesture of defiance instead of a practical source of revenue for the insolvent state. In the same period, federal threats forced Oakland to back away from (ecologically disasterous) plans for four big industrial grow ops.


What's happening in recent months —the threatening letters from US attorneys to state officials, the tax audits of dispensaries, banks refusing to handle dispensary accounts, etc.— is an escalation, not a change of policy. It's a surge, to use the term the Drug Warriors undoubtedly used when they planned it. And you can bet they did plan it —that there were meetings involving DEA, and Joe Califano's Prohibitionist think tank at Columbia University, and strategists from Johnson & Johnson, just as there had been after Prop 215 passed in '96... It's got all the earmarks of an orchestrated campaign.


That's the story reform-minded, Beltway-based journalists ought to be investigating instead of whining about being misled by Barack Obama.

Chopped Liver
Finer than pate
And yet there is no way
To win
We're after the same
Gourmet cred
On a slice of bread
An underrated spread
Chopped Liver, that's me.
​

Fred ("Chopped Liver") Gardner is a journalist who covers the medical marijuana movement/industry for Counterpunch and the Anderson Valley Advertiser. He can be reached at fred@plebesite.com

 

[supermanlives]

oooooohbummer

 

[outinit]

Medicalgreen, you got that right!!!

 

[crazybear]

I think there are a lot of people that deal that really don't want it legal! Then you have the people that have been lied to propaganda & never realize how wrong the bullshit is!