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Ex-DEA Bosses Lash Out Against Marijuana Legalization in California

With the Prop 19 vote less than a month away and polling strong, it has apparently dawned on the nation's top drug warriors that now might be a good time to start freaking out. Hence, we find nine former DEA administrators complaining in The Wall Street Journal that Attorney General Eric Holder hasn't been busy threatening Californians with a federal crackdown:

…if passed by voters in November, Proposition 19—also known as the Regulate, Control and Tax Cannabis Act of 2010—will be in direct conflict with the Controlled Substances Act (CSA), a federal law that makes the production and sale of marijuana a federal crime. In our federal system, a state law that conflicts with a federal law violates the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution and is void.

We have urged Attorney General Eric Holder to speak out on this issue. If Mr. Holder and his department remain silent, it will send an unfortunate message to the public and to our law-enforcement counterparts overseas and in this country. The Justice Department's continued silence also indicates a willingness to ignore the policy set out by the president in his National Drug Control Strategy.

Yeah, you ignorant hippies, hasn't anyone ever told you that it's illegal to legalize marijuana? If you're wondering how come medical marijuana has been openly sold in storefronts across California ever since the passage of Prop 215 back in 1996, you must be hallucinating, because that never happened.

Seriously though, how ridiculous is it that these desperate drug warriors are deploying the same insultingly stupid distraction tactics that failed them more than a decade ago? They actually want Holder to tell voters that Prop 19 will be "void" even if it passes, as though no one in California has ever heard of a marijuana dispensary. This, in their view, is an argument so strong as to warrant an entire Wall Street Journal op-ed dedicated to it.

For another layer of absurdity, consider that one of the authors, Karen Tandy, presided over the DEA during a dramatic expansion of the medical marijuana industry that she now claims is legally impossible, even though it actually happened in real life while she was in charge of federal drug enforcement. She knows as well as anyone that California can make its own drug laws whether the DEA likes it or not. It's true that she could have prosecuted everyone in sight under federal law, but for a variety of practical and political reasons, that isn't what happened. It's not likely to happen if Prop 19 passes either, at least not unless Obama has a masochistic desire to further alienate his base as we heads towards 2012.

Permission to Reprint: This article is licensed under a modified Creative Commons Attribution license.
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Shame on the wall street

Shame on the wall street journal to publish such crap. Holder should tell the whiny DEA to f-off. :D

Ignore the DEA

Why does anyone even listen to the DEA any more?

They shoot our kids and dogs, and tell us they needed to in order to "save the children".

They put loaded, automatic rifles up to the heads of old, sick women and describe them as "threats".

They launch massive, expensive investigations of teenage pot smokers, whose lives they ruin.

 

Why does anyone listen to these fools any more?  Who takes the advice of people who fail?

Californians Have No Reason to Trust the Federal Government

The subtitle to the Wall Street Journal piece is “Nobody is going to be paying state taxes on marijuana when doing so would be confession to a federal felony”, as if paying state and local marijuana taxes isn’t already happening. 

Millions of dollars of state and federal taxes have been collected in California from medical cannabis sales.  Also, people don’t need to detail a source of income on their tax returns; they’re just required to pay taxes on a stated amount of income, the same way produce farmers in California have been doing for the last 100 years.

California’s economy is still hurting from the time the Bush/Cheney administration conspired with ENRON to empty the state treasury using bogus energy price manipulations.  California’s laws favoring environmental remediation have been attacked by the feds acting in concert with sophomoric corporatists like the Koch brothers from Kansas, who recently financed the anti-environmental Prop 23 that’s up for a vote in California this November.  The federal insults and assaults against Californians go back decades.  For example, efforts by California to convert part of its energy production to wind power in the 80s were totally thwarted by the Reagan administration.  The list goes on.

With so little coherent leadership emanating from D.C., it has become essential that California lead the way on the environment, cannabis legalization and cannabis research, lest California and its citizens perish as victims of the judicial industrial complex. 

California’s passage of Prop 19 will be the greatest fusillade launched against the federal government to date.  It will be fun to watch the fed’s reactions to a Prop 19 win.  More than likely the feds will shoot themselves in both feet.

Giordano

Research links stock prices to pot legalization

Google Alerts sent me this news item yesterday. Thought I'd share ...

SUMMARY: The mounting reports of drug-related violence in Mexico have many citizens and travelers on high alert. Researchers at The Socionomics Institute warn that the war on drugs won't let up anytime soon. Not only will the drug wars in Mexicogive Prohibition-era violence in the U.S. a run for its money, researchers at the Georgia think tank say it’s likely to signal the end of marijuana prohibition in Mexico and the U.S.   

---PRESS RELEASE---

Why Marijuana Will Soon Be Legalized

October 4, 2010 - Gainesville, GA --- Marijuana will be decriminalized just as alcohol was in the 1930s, according to a free report now available from The Socionomics Institute. Much like 1930s gangsters in Chicago, Mexico's drug cartels are fighting to the death – literally – over territory and distribution routes. And the conflict is inching ever-closer to the border. The mounting reports of drug-related violence have many citizens and travelers on high alert.

Researchers at The Socionomics Institute warn that the drug wars in Mexico won't let up anytime soon. “As mood falls and the death toll among Americans rises, the public will become open to what may seem like radical ideas about how best to deal with marijuana use in society,” researcher Euan Wilson writes. As with prohibition, legalization will be viewed as the quickest way to end the war on drugs.

The Socionomics Institute studies social behavior as it relates to the financial markets. The Georgia-based think tank uses the financial markets and other indicators of social mood to forecast monumental changes in society.

In this case, Wilson finds that social mood governs society's tolerance for recreational drugs. Optimism and a rising social mood produces marijuana prohibition; a falling mood produces tolerance and relaxed regulation of illegal substances such as alcohol and marijuana.

Wilson looks back over 90 years, providing four charts of the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the Mexican Bolsa Index to show how bull markets and bear markets correlate with toleration and restriction of marijuana and alcohol, as well as with drug-related violence. Follow this link to download the free report on marijuana prohibition.

more info: http://www.socionomics.net/ezine/soc/marijuana-prohibition-drug-wars-in-mexico-the-war-on-drugs.aspx

update

so here it is, 10/26/2010 and still no decriminalization or legalization of marijuana for recreational or medical purposes respectfully here in Gainesville GA. but hey, maybe enough voters will make their voice heard and will change this irrational policy once and for all

Feds void state law.

What provision of the United States Constitution gives the federal government the right to tell a state that they must have criminal laws against anything?

undrgrndgirl's picture

actually...given its less than four weeks off

i'm surprised there hasn't been more "freaking out" by the prohibitionists...though i still fully expect to hear  some horrid murder story attributed to cannabis - though any extenuating circumstances will be left out...on a better note, i saw my first yes on 19 bumper sticker on a car in traffic today :)

Here WE gO AGAIN

Small time cannabis arrest`s account for 20% of local court cases. That`s 20% of their yearly budget. Of course Law Enforcement is against Cannabis Legalization.

Get rid of the DEA?

Once California Passes prop 19, (Which it will) It will soon spread eastward. The federal government does not seem to be letting up on the federal laws at all. I say we all come together as a country and just get rid of the DEA, Screw there 70% money loss from the legalization of marijuana. I don't care how many law enforcement officers lose there job over marijuana being legalized. We allowed this to happen for over 70 years and it is time to end prohibition once and for all.

They put loaded, automatic

They put loaded, automatic rifles up to the heads of old, sick women and describe them as threats. They launch massive, expensive investigations of teenage pot smokers, whose lives they ruin. 

The phrase too little too

The phrase too little too late comes to mind. The DEA has lost face accross this country, esp. in Cali. It is an institution whose years are quickly becoming numbered.

BAAAAAAAAW! Would the DEA

BAAAAAAAAW! Would the DEA like some cheese with their whine?

Are you kidding me

First off it should be legal, second the Author of this article NEEDS to find other work.  This piece sounds like it was written by a drunk brit. I am curious how far up his arse his head was when he wrote this?????

 

I a guessing pretty far.

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