The Speakeasy Blog
Montana Marijuana Initiative Comes Up Short
A proposed constitutional amendment to legalize marijuana in Montana has failed to gather enough signatures to qualify for the ballot, but voters in Big Sky County will still have the chance to vote on medical marijuana. Chronicle story here.
Book Review: "Marijuana Legalization: What Everyone Needs to Know"
Four academic specialists on drug policy have come together to pen "Marijuana Legalization: What Everyone Needs to Know." It's a pretty handy primer. Chronicle book review here.
Obama's War On Medical Marijuana Just Got Even Uglier
The federal government is moving to shut down the nation's largest and highest-profile medical marijuana dispensary operation, filing papers to seize properties in Oakland and San Jose where Harborside Health Center does business.
Copies of the federal Complaint for Forfeiture were taped to the front doors of the two dispensaries Tuesday, alleging that they were "operating in violation of federal law."Medical marijuana advocates, as well as some state and local officials, decried the action, saying it hurts patients in legitimate need of the drug and breaks repeated promises by President Obama's Justice Department that it was targeting only operations near schools and parks or otherwise in violation of the state's laws. [LA Times]
They're not even pretending it's about state law anymore. Harborside has a permit from the City of Oakland and pays millions in taxes to the state of California. They've been covered extensively in the press, and featured on the Discovery Channel program "Weed Wars". Everyone knows exactly what goes on inside Harborside because we've seen it with our own eyes: they provide high-quality medical cannabis and other services to qualified patients. This is the definition of a legal and well-regulated medical marijuana dispensary.
So how are the feds justifying their attempt to shut down the most responsible business in the industry? They are claiming, I kid you not, that it's just too successful:
I now find the need to consider actions regarding marijuana superstores such as Harborside. The larger the operation, the greater the likelihood that there will be abuse of the state’s medical marijuana laws, and marijuana in the hands of individuals who do not have a demonstrated medical need. – U.S. Attorney Melinda Haag
This is beyond outrageous and it flies in the face of even the most recent excuses put forward by the Attorney General and the President himself when attempting to justify their escalating war on medical marijuana.
By targeting Harborside solely on the basis of its reputation as the nation's "biggest" medical marijuana provider, DOJ forgets something rather important: it's the biggest because it's the best. Harborside is a model of safe, secure, patient-oriented medical marijuana services. It's also a model of legal compliance, and any effort to shut its doors simply obliterates the Attorney General's recent claims that DOJ is merely upholding local laws. He really should stop saying that.
It boggles the mind to imagine what sort of perverted logic is driving Obama's vicious assault on a voting block that helped elect him four years ago. What little the President has said on the matter in recent months is now even more obviously false, and if it isn’t about upholding state laws, then the question of the Administration's true agenda is something about which we can only speculate. It isn't winning him any votes, that's for sure.
Today, anyone who's tried to make excuses for Obama's horrible handling of all this should just stop. Anyone who says this President is secretly a friend of the marijuana reform movement should close their mouth. Anyone who's claimed that "they're only busting bad dispensaries" can cut the crap. This is a war. It's Obama's war. And to my friends who are too afraid of Mitt Romney right now to criticize Obama, I say you're making our President more dangerous by meeting his mistakes with silence.
If you don’t want Obama to destroy medical marijuana in America, this would be a good time to speak up about it.
Pelosi Suggests Movement Post-Election on Medical Marijuana
Nancy Pelosi said Wednesday she may be open to making changes in federal law surrounding medical marijuana. That's her strongest statement yet on the issue. Chronicle story here.
Feds Target California's Highest Profile Dispensary
Federal prosecutors have targeted Harborside Health Center, California's iconic largest dispensary, with an asset forfeiture action. But Harborside isn't just going to roll over and play dead. Chronicle story here.
Chronicle Book Review Essay: Summer Marijuana Reads
We review three books on various aspects of marijuana culture. There's some pretty good stuff there, too. Chronicle review essay here.
Medical Marijuana Update
Last week's middle of the week holiday made things fairly quiet on the medical marijuana front, but it looks like Massachusetts voters will have a chance to join the ranks of the medical marijuana states in November, and other efforts are underway in some surprising places. Chronicle update here.
Narc Scandal Front and Center in Florida Sheriff Race [FEATURE]
Scandal in the Pinellas County, Florida, Sheriff's Office over its efforts to bust indoor marijuana growers is providing plenty of fodder for the sheriff's challengers this campaign season. Chronicle feature story here.
This Week's Corrupt Cops Stories
A former Missouri sheriff heads to federal prison, a former Kansas City cop is headed there, too, and a former South Carolina deputy is looking at drug charges. Chronicle story here.
Obama Signs Synthetic Drug Ban Bill
"Bath salts" and "fake weed" are now banned on federal law after President Obama signed into law the FDA safety bill to which the bans were attached. Chronicle story here.
A Comically Dishonest Defense of the Drug War
Seriously, just take for example this one item from Sabet's list of things he likes about the drug war:
Intervention: If individuals do start to use drugs, we know that brief interventions (by doctors, coaches, parents, faith leaders, or others) do a pretty good job at stopping the progression of use from non-dependence to addiction.
Others!? Really, Kevin? By "others" did you by any chance mean "cops with machine guns, battering rams, drug sniffing dogs, and flash bang grenades? Cause if you wanna talk about intervention…well that's who's been intervening. When the government hears you might have MARIJUANA in your basement, they don't send a "faith leader" to talk to you about it.
You can try to paint over prohibition, but you'll need a whole hell of a lot of spackle to stuff the bullet holes. The drug war isn't just a big counseling program, it's a bloody f#%king mess and everybody knows that's what it is because we get our news from watching the damn news, not from reading Kevin Sabet for breakfast.
Pretending our drug policy is all about treatment and prevention might feel good to the professional spokespeople who get paid to say so, but it doesn't work in a world that's watching as a war unfolds before us. All that happy crap about helping people is great and good, but we're also watching every day as the drug war destroys lives right in front of our faces and we want to know what's being done about that. Talking about treatment isn’t an acceptable answer to our questions about the continuing destruction that's being done with the billions of dollars that aren't spent on treatment.
After all, if you can't acknowledge the very worst about the drug war when defending it, you aren't really defending it at all. If responsible adults don't get roughed up and arrested for taking drugs in Kevin Sabet's essays and speeches, then it stands to reason that responsible adults shouldn’t have to get roughed up and arrested for taking drugs in real life either.
Follow Scott Morgan on Twitter: www.twitter.com/drugblogger
Did You Know? Facts About Switzerland's Heroin Maintenance Programs, on DrugWarFacts.org
DrugWarFacts.org, a publication of Common Sense for Drug Policy, is an in-depth compilation of key facts, stats and quotes on the full range of drug policy issues, excerpted from expert publications on the subjects. The Chronicle is running a series of info items from DrugWarFacts.org -- check out this week's installment here.
Massachusetts Medical Marijuana Initiative Makes Ballot
It looks like Massachusetts has a good shot at becoming the 18th medical marijuana state. An initiative there has qualified for the ballot. Chronicle story here.
Arkansas Medical Marijuana Signatures Handed In
Arkansas proponents for a medical marijuana initiative met a critical deadline last week, but still have thousands of signatures to gather if they're going to make the November ballot. Chronicle story here.
Singapore to Relax Death Penalty for Some Drug Traffickers
Hard-line Singapore has announced it is modifying its mandatory death sentence for drug traffickers. It's just a small change, but it may save a few lives, and serve as a signal for other drug death penalty states. Chronicle story here.
Drug War Snapshot: Ocean City, Maryland
The police in Ocean City, Maryland, are on a mission to maximize marijuana arrests, and they're doing quite well at it. Factor that in to your vacation plans. Chronicle story here.
Drug War Snapshot: Nueces County, Texas
In Corpus Christi, police have been arresting a thousand people a year on drug charges. That's the single largest reason people make it to felony court in Nueces County. Chronicle story here.
Drug War Snapshot: Volusia County, Florida
The criminal justice system in Volusia County, Florida, is running largely on the drug war if last Friday's jail bookings are any indication. Chronicle story here.
Oregon Marijuana Initiative Hands in Final Signatures
Oregon's OCTA marijuana legalization initiative has handed in a final 57,000 signatures. It needs 32,000 of them to be valid to make the November ballot. But election officials invalidated almost half of earlier signatures, so it's still nail-biting time for proponents. Chronicle story here.
Georgia Puts Welfare Drug Testing on Hold
Georgia's governor was quick to sign a welfare drug testing bill into law, but now he wants to wait for a legal challenge to a similar law in Florida before implementing that law that was supposed to go into effect July 1. Chronicle story here.
Mexico President-Elect Wants Drug Legalization Talks
Mexico's next president has joined the ever growing chorus of Latin American leaders calling for a serious discussion of drug legalization, even as he announced he would continue to fight the drug war in Mexico. Chronicle story here.
Mexico's Drug War Version 2.0 [FEATURE]
Mexico's president-elect is going to rejigger the way the country prosecutes its war on the drug cartels, but no radical changes are apparent. Chronicle feature story here.
Puerto Rico Narcotics Officer Killed in Ambush
A Puerto Rican narcotics officer becomes the year's 29th drug war fatality after being ambushed in his vehicle Tuesday night. Chronicle story here.
Did You Know? Federal Expenditures on the Drug War, from DrugWarFacts.org
DrugWarFacts.org, a publication of Common Sense for Drug Policy, is an in-depth compilation of key facts, stats and quotes on the full range of drug policy issues, excerpted from expert publications on the subjects. The Chronicle is running a series of info items from DrugWarFacts.org -- check out the latest here.
Will Obama Be Better on Drug Policy in His Second Term?
According to ongoing discussions with Obama aides and associates, if the president wins a second term, he plans to tackle another American war that has so far been successful only in perpetuating more misery: the four decades of The Drug War. [GQ]
That's just the first sentence of many, but we can stop right here because I think there's been a huge misunderstanding. Marc Ambinder seems to think that Obama's people talking about reforming drug policies is a meaningful event, but alas it is anything but that.
Not so many weeks ago I watched with my own eyes as Obama's drug czar draped himself in the flag of reform at an event that was designed to placate pre-election frustration among progressives with regards to Obama's absolute failure to fix a single aspect of the massive war on drugs. The Obama Administration will tell anyone willing to listen that they are thinking creatively about solutions to our swollen criminal justice catastrophe, and it's hardly the sort of "exclusive" breaking news Ambinder breathlessly brings us.
In fact, the real story is the exact opposite of what was reported here. Obama isn't trying to win political points by pretending to support the war on drugs until after the election, at which point he will begin implementing important reforms. He's actually trying to win political points by pretending not to support the war drugs until after the election, at which point he can continue waging the drug war worse than ever.
You see, the drug war is really rather unpopular these days. You score more political points by attacking it than by propping it up, which is exactly why these "aides and associates" of Obama's have no problem telling their friends in the mainstream press about the President's bold post-election plans for fixing flaws in our drug policy. They're just saying this stuff because they know people want to hear it.
The most inaccurate statement you can make about Obama's approach to drugs is that he's trying to look tougher than he actually is. In reality, this administration speaks routinely of backing away from harsh policies, while simultaneously deploying the same drug war demolition tactics we've endured for decades.
If anyone in the press is looking for a good story about Obama's approach to drugs, I'd recommend looking into the massive facade of false promises that's already unraveling in front of us, rather than regurgitating further rumors of future reform.
Follow Scott Morgan on Twitter: www.twitter.com/drugblogger
(This article was published by StoptheDrugWar.org's lobbying arm, the Drug Reform Coordination Network, which also shares the cost of maintaining this web site. DRCNet Foundation takes no positions on candidates for public office, in compliance with section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code, and does not pay for reporting that could be interpreted or misinterpreted as doing so.)
