Bill Introduced to End Federal Marijuana Prohibition

Activist Post

Congressman Jared Polis (D-CO) and Congressman Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) today introduced two pieces of legislation to de-federalize marijuana policy and create a framework for the federal taxation of cannabis. Polis’ Ending Federal Marijuana Prohibition Act would remove the Drug Enforcement Agency’s authority over marijuana and allow states to choose whether to allow marijuana for medicinal or recreational use. Blumenauer’s Marijuana Tax Equity Act would create a federal excise tax on marijuana. Together, these bills would provide a system of regulation and taxation for marijuana in states where it is legal.

“This legislation doesn't force any state to legalize marijuana, but Colorado and the 18 other jurisdictions that have chosen to allow marijuana for medical or recreational use deserve the certainty of knowing that federal agents won’t raid state-legal businesses,” said Polis. “Congress should simply allow states to regulate marijuana as they see fit and stop wasting federal tax dollars on the failed drug war.”

Lawmakers to introduce bill to legalize marijuana

A group of US representatives plan to
introduce legislation that will legalize marijuana
© AFP/File Luis Robayo

AFP

WASHINGTON (AFP) - A group of US representatives plan to introduce legislation that will legalize marijuana and allow states to legislate its use, pro-marijuana groups said Wednesday.

The legislation would limit the federal government's role in marijuana enforcement to cross-border or inter-state smuggling, and allow people to legally grow, use or sell marijuana in states where it is legal.

The bill, which is expected to be introduced on Thursday by Republican Representative Ron Paul and Democratic Representative Barney Frank, would be the first ever legislation designed to end the federal ban on marijuana.

Run From the Cure (MUST SEE Documentary)

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Medical Marijuana Becoming Blockbuster Drug

Medical Marijuana/ Wikimedia Commons image

Dr. Mercola

Medical marijuana is now a $1.7-billion market in the U.S. This means that sales of medical marijuana rival the annual revenue generated by Viagra, a $1.9-billion business.

What's more, the medical marijuana market is expected to nearly double in the next five years, and that's just in the 15 U.S. states where the drug is legal. If another 20 states pass medical marijuana laws, which projections show is possible, the market could grow to $8.9 billion by 2016.

According to MSNBC:

"The cannabis industry as a whole -- including the underground black market and medical gray market -- generates anywhere from $18 billion to $35.8 billion a year."

In the video, "Run From the Cure – the Rick Simpson Story," it's suggested that pharmaceutical companies and big business may be withholding a potential cancer cure -- hemp oil -- from the public in the interest of personal profit.

Watch Full video HERE

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The Cost of NYC's Marijuana Possession Arrests in 2010: $75 Million

Marijuana Possession #1 Arrest in NYC, Comprise 15% of All Arrests; City Council Members, Community Groups Held Press Conference at City Hall to Issue Major Report, Discuss Economic and Human Toll of Skyrocketing Arrests.

Jesse Warren Image

Drug Policy Alliance

NEW YORK: A new report released today at City Hall finds that arrests for marijuana possession cost New York City taxpayers approximately $75 million each year. The report, titled "$75 Million A Year", documents the astronomical financial costs of marijuana possession arrests in New York City. Major findings from the report include:

• A single arrest for marijuana possession, including all police and court expenses, costs from $1,000 to $2,000 or more, conservatively estimated.
• In 2010, New York City spent approximately $75 million arresting and jailing people, mostly young people, simply for possessing small amounts of marijuana.
• During Bloomberg’s tenure – from 2002 through 2010 – the NYPD made nearly 350,000 arrests for marijuana possession – costing taxpayers $350 million to $700 million.
• Marijuana possession arrests also have serious human costs and consequences. They create permanent criminal records that can be easily found on the Internet by employers, landlords, schools, credit agencies, licensing boards, and banks.

DEA Enacts Federal Ban On ‘Marijuana-Like’ Herbal Products Sold Over The Counter

Paul Armentano, Deputy Director
NORML

The United States Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) today, as anticipated, exercised its ‘emergency scheduling authority’ to criminally prohibit the possession and sale of chemical agents contained in so-called ‘fake’ herbal marijuana products, commonly sold over the counter under the brand names ‘K2’ and ‘Spice.’ The agency had initially announced its intent to outlaw the chemicals last November.

The specific compounds prohibited under the new DEA ban are: JWH-018, JWH-073, JWH-200, CP-47,497, and cannabicyclohexanol. Each of these compounds is now placed in the same category as heroin under federal law.

“Except as authorized by law, this action makes possessing and selling these chemicals or the products that contain them illegal in the United States,” the DEA stated in a press release. “This emergency action was necessary to prevent an imminent threat to public health and safety.”


The agency says that the federal ban will remain in effect for at least one year while the DEA and the United States Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) "further study whether these chemicals should be permanently controlled."

The chemicals in question are synthetic cannabinoid agonists. Once ingested, they interact with endogenous cannabinoid receptors to elicit certain physical and euphoric effects associated with the ingestion of marijuana. They are added to inert herbs to temporarily induce euphoria in the user.

Though NORML takes no official position regarding the use or regulation of these synthetic products, NORML Deputy Director Paul Armentano issued the following statement:

“The popularity of these products is a predictable outgrowth of criminal marijuana prohibition. As prohibition is apt to do, it has driven the production of a commodity into the hands of unregulated, unknown dealers, driven up the potency of the commodity, and in doing so created a scenario where the consumer is faced with a potentially greater health risks than they would be had they simply had the legal choice to use the product they actually desired, in this case cannabis. 

“Since most manufacturers of these products reside overseas and are not subject to federal laws and regulations, it is unlikely that the DEA’s action – as well as the similar bans in other states – will in any way halt the dissemination, use, or misuse of these products by the public. Most likely, the clamp down will likely only make the situation more dangerous – from both a legal standpoint and from a health standpoint – to the consumer.

Visit NORML to support sane drug policy.

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The Flower: Time to End Marijuana Prohibition (VIDEO)

Youtube: blackmustachecom
The Flower contrasts a utopian society that freely farms and consumes a pleasure giving flower with a society where the same flower is illegal and its consumption is prohibited. The animation is a meditation on the social and economic costs of marijuana prohibition.

Animation by Haik Hoisington
http://www.blackmustache.com

Music & Sound Design by Ion Furjanic
http://lavajumperstudios.bandcamp.com/

You can download the music here:
http://lavajumperstudios.bandcamp.com/album/songs-from-the-flower

Buy 1 Get 2 Free at Botanic Choice Buy 1 Bottle and Get 2 FREE (select items), plus Free Shipping on $25+ Expires 12/31/2010

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Did Eric Holder Kill California's Pot Initiative?

Chris Good
The Atlantic

California voters have sided against legalizing marijuana for recreational use statewide. Should Eric Holder get the credit?

That's what one California Democratic strategist suggested to me on Tuesday night after Proposition 19 had been declared a failure, who cited a blow delivered by Holder in the final week.

Two weeks before Election Day, the attorney general announced that if Prop. 19 passed, the federal government would fight it.

The Department of Justice opposed Prop. 19 and would "vigorously enforce" marijuana's federal illegality in California regardless of whether the measure passed, Holder wrote in an October 15 letter to former DEA administrators, responding to their own letter, which in early September urgedHolder to fight Prop. 19 by suing California to overturn it, should it pass.

This was the most public and direct repudiation of Prop. 19, specifically, that Holder had issued to date. He had previously said marijuana legalization is a bad idea, which the administration's drug czar had said as well, although the Department of Justice had not publicly commented on any aftermath. Federal law enforcers had said that it would remain their goal to uphold the laws, continuing their focus on large-scale trafficking and criminal networks--which is what the Department of Justice, the FBI, and the DEA have traditionally done.

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Pot Prohibition Is the Cornerstone of a Police State

Any law that allows the easy incarceration of any citizen any time those in power want to do it is the ultimate enemy of democracy.

Harvey Wasserman
Alternet

The simple truth about America's marijuana prohibition: any law that allows the easy incarceration of any citizen any time those in power want to do it is the ultimate enemy of democracy. With 800,000 annual arrests over an herb used by tens of millions of Americans, it is the cornerstone of a police state.

The newly energized movement to end prohibition in California -- home to more than 10% of the nation -- is one of the few healthy developments in this otherwise horrific election.

To help pass Proposition 19, go here and sign up to make phone calls in these last crucial hours.

Part of the battle has already been won. By all accounts the California campaign has thrust the issue to a new level. The terms of repeal are not perfect. But the acceptance of marijuana use has taken a giant leap forward. When joints are openly lit and smoked on national television, it's clear that sooner rather than later, this travesty will fall.

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RELATED ARTICLE:
Can Legalizing Marijuana Save California, Our Republic?

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Why Pot Legalization Is the Most Important Issue Before Voters This Election Day

Nick Gillespie and Matt Welch
Huffington Post

Forget about what's happening in the partisan battle for control of Congress and statehouses across the country. The single-most important issue that will be decided on November 2 is California's Proposition 19, a ballot initiative that would legalize the cultivation, consumption, and sale of marijuana and allow municipalities to regulate and tax the stuff.

Though limited to voters in a single state, Prop. 19 is the only policy matter on the table with the potential to restructure the lives of virtually all Americans. If Prop. 19 passes, it will force, at long bloody last, an honest reconsideration of failed prohibitionist policies throughout the United States. In fact, given the drug war's influence on our foreign policy in Latin America and central Asia, Prop. 19's reverberations would even be felt far outside our borders.

Despite overt similarities to liquor prohibition in the 1920s, the drug war actually functions more like the Cold War used to. It's an almost-hidden, infrequently debated structuring device that affects every aspect of American politics, culture, and society. Just as Cold War anxieties transformed educational priorities and politicized everything from the Olympics to fluoridated drinking water, the drug war is everywhere with us. The same schools that plead poverty in teaching basic literature or math still all find time and money for D.A.R.E. and other drug-education classes, despite iffy results. Video games, public-service announcements, and even urinal-cake holders in men's rooms still implore us to just say no. Some 40 million workplace drug tests are administered each year, and even legal prescription drugs are getting some employees fired.

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RELATED ARTICLE:
Can Legalizing Marijuana Save California, Our Republic? 

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California Proposition 19: A Giant Leap Toward Ending the Fraudulent War on Drugs

Ethan Jacobs, J.D. -- Activist Post 

Contributing Writer

Introduction:

This November 2nd, Californian’s have an opportunity to vote yes on Proposition 19, which if passed, would set an important precedent for abolishing the fraudulent war on drugs. The war on drugs is a hypocritical fraud because hundreds of thousands of low level street marijuana dealers are arrested each year, while the global elite’s agents within the CIA and other government agencies continue to manage the international drug trade of narcotics. There are also many important social and economical reasons for supporting Proposition 19.

Proposition 19

If approved by voters, Proposition 19 will allow people 21 years old or older to possess, cultivate, or transport marijuana for personal use. Local governments will have the ability to regulate and tax commercial production and sale of marijuana. Proposition 19 prohibits people from possessing marijuana on school grounds, using it in public, smoking while minors are present, or providing it to anyone under 21 years old. Like with alcohol, driving while intoxicated is strictly prohibited.i

It is estimated that Proposition 19 will provide state and local governments with tens of millions of dollars of savings on the cost of incarcerating and supervising marijuana offenders. Additionally, state and local governments will are expected to gain millions of dollars in sales tax revenue.ii

The Global Elite & Government Drug Trafficking

The global elite and governments they control have been running the international drug trade for hundreds if not thousands of years.

The East India Company was an early English corporation that was formed initially for pursuing trade with the East Indies, but that ended up trading mainly with the Indian subcontinent and China. The Company was granted an English Royal Charter, under the name Governor and Company of Merchants of London Trading into the East Indies, by Queen Elizabeth I on December 31, 1600. The East India Company traded mainly in cotton, silk, indigo dye, saltpetre, tea, and opium:

In the eighteenth century, Britain had a huge trade deficit with Qing Dynasty China and so in 1773, the Company created a British monopoly on opium buying in Bengal. As the opium trade was illegal in China, Company ships could not carry opium to China. So the opium produced in Bengal was sold in Calcutta on condition that it be sent to China.…Despite the Chinese ban on opium imports, reaffirmed in 1799, it was smuggled into China from Bengal by traffickers and agency houses in amounts averaging 900 tons a year. The proceeds from drug-runners at Lintin Island were paid into the Company’s factory at Canton and by 1825, most of the money needed to buy tea in China was raised by the illegal opium trade. In 1838, with opium smuggling approaching 1,400 tons a year, the Chinese imposed a death penalty on opium smuggling and sent a new governor, Lin Zexu, to curb smuggling. This resulted in the First Opium War (1839–1842). The British seized Hong Kong and opened the Chinese market to British drug traffickers.iv

Nothing has changed in regard to the opium trade. US Marines currently guard the poppy seeds of Afghanistan, which are used to produce opium and sold on the world market. Fox News recently interviewed a commanding officer who openly admitted that the Marines provide the opium growers with “security and resources."

Black Ops & Black Market Profits

In an article titled Your Government Dealing Drugs, former Navy Seal and Governor of Minnesota, Jesse Venutra, shed light on the CIA’s involvement in the U.S. heroin epidemic of the 50s and 60s. “Almost from the moment of their founding in 1947, the CIA was giving covert support to organized drug trafficers in Europe and the Far East, and eventually the Middle East and Latin America.”vi Ventura’s article details how drugs funded Reagan’s war in Nicaragua, drug dealing in connection to the Iran Contra Affair, and the CIA’s involvement with Colonel Manuel Noriega of Panama. He continues, “It’s a proven fact that the CIA’s into drugs…It’s because they can get money to operate with and not have to account to Congress for what they’re doing… But doesn’t it really beg for a massive investigation and trials and a whole lot of people going to jail? This includes the big banks that allow the dirty money to be laundered through them.”

In his book, Called to Serve, Colonel James ‘Bo’ Gritz, a Green Beret and Vietnam veteran, also provides evidence of CIA drug dealing. “Manuel Noriega was paid $250,000 per-year as a CIA retainer…The CIA and Israeli Mossad were running cocaine from Columbia to Albert Air Force Base at Panama City.”

Robert “Tosh” Plumlee worked as an undercover CIA pilot and operative during the Ronald Reagan Administration’s “Drug War,” flying arms to Nicaragua, and the Contras and cocaineback to the United States.  Plumlee reported illegal shipments guns and drugs to Congress. He said that he flew into the former El Toro Marine Base, California, a number of times, inunmarked C-130s in the early morning hours.

In the event proposition 19 passes, the global elite and government drug dealers they sponsor will have to compete with marijuana, a plant that can grow practically anywhere inexpensively. This competition of recreational drugs could significantly reduce the drug trade income obtained by the global elite through the trafficking of narcotics.

Setting the Captives Free

The War on Drugs has been a necessary component of incrementally transforming the United States towards a police state. In 2007, the Department of Justice reported that there were 1,841,182 drug arrests in the United States, meaning that there were more drug abuse arrests than any other category of offenses.  Marijuana arrests accounted for 47.4% of the drug abuse arrests. Therefore, approximately 872,720 persons were arrested for marijuana offenses. Eighty-nine percent of these arrests were for possession.xii

Kevin Zees of Common Sense for Drug Policy writes:

…the United States with 5 percent of the world’s population has 25% of the world’s prisoners. One in 31 Americans is either behind bars, on probation or on parole…This mass “criminal” population in the land of the free: shows something is terribly wrong. What drives a system that results in 7 million Americans behind bars, on probation or parole? No doubt, the driving force is the war on drugs, and marijuana is the driving force of the drug war with a marijuana arrest every 38 seconds…xiii

Clearly the passage of Proposition 19 and legalization of marijuana would be a substantial victory for reducing the prison population and furthering inpidual freedom.

Will Law Enforcement Comply With the Passage of Proposition 19?

In the event that Proposition 19 passes, Attorney General Eric Holder Jr., and Los Angels County Sheriff Lee Baca, announced that their agencies will act contrary to the will of California voters by continuing to enforce federal laws that prohibit marijuana activities.xiv Holder did not give specific reasons for his decision but alluded to the reluctance of the federal government to enforce drug laws differently in different states.xv

However, the police and the courts depend on the cooperation of communities to keep order. Law enforcement agents will lack legitimacy if they are enforcing a law the majority opposes. As with alcohol prohibition, marijuana laws will be repealed once large urban areas refuse to enforce them. xvi

Conclusion

Passage of California Proposition 19 and the legalization of marijuana would be a major victory for inpidual freedom and a blow to the police state. The war on drugs is a miserable failure; hundreds of thousands of low-level marijuana arrests are made each year while the global elite and their government puppets continue to traffic narcotics, making billions in off-the-books profits. Legalizing marijuana will reduce prison costs while increasing sales tax revenue for state and local government.

i Ballot Pedia. “California Proposition 19, the Marijuana Legalization Initiative (2010).”

ii Ibid.

iii Invisible Empire: A New World Order Defined. Dir. Jason Bermas. 2010. DVD.

online at

iv Wikipedia. “East India Company.” October 24, 2010

v Fox and Friends of Fox News Network. April 10, 2010. Posted on Youtube.com: Fox News – We Tolerate The Cultivation of Opium Poppies. 

vi TruTv. “Your Government Dealing Drugs.” By Jesse Ventura and Dick Russell.

Note: This article was condensed and excerpted from American Conspiracies by Jesse Ventura and Dick Russell with permission of Skyhorse Publishing, Inc. New York, NY.

vii Ibid.

viii James Gritz. Called to Serve. Lazarus Pub Company. October 1991.

ix Bo Gritz. Behind the Looking Glass (The Bush Dynasty). < http://www.bogritz.com>

x Wikipedia. “William Robert Plumlee.” October 24, 2010

< http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Robert_Plumlee>

xi Salem-News. Former CIA Pilot Tells of Guns and Drugs Shipments.” March 8, 2010.

By Robert O’Dowd and Tim King. < http://www.salem-news.com/articles/march082010/plumlee-sabow-ro-tk.php?

xii The Social Medicine Portal. “Record Marijuana Arrests Feed The Prison Industrial Complex.”

xiii Global Research. “Enforcing the Marijuana Laws in America? When the Majority say marijuana should not be a crime, the law looses it legitimacy.” October 19, 2010. By Kevin Zeese, President of Common Sense for Drug Policy (www.csdp.org). < http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=21511>

xiv U.S. Will Enforce Marijuana Laws, State Vote Aside. New York Times. By Adam Nagourney. October 15, 2010.

< http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/16/us/16pot.html>

xv Ibid.

xvi Global Research. Ibid.

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Cops Under Pressure To Deny They Support Legalizing Marijuana

Lucia Graves
Huffington Post

During California gubernatorial debates last week, Meg Whitman was asked about her position on Proposition 19 and marijuana legalization and said: "Every single law enforcement official in this entire state is against Proposition 19."

Former San Jose Chief of Police Joseph McNamara disagrees.

"She's absolutely wrong," said McNamara. "A lot of police officers both retired and on duty are in favor of passing it because they realize that the 'war on drugs' has failed and is going to fail."

For example, McNamara noted, hundreds have joined the advocacy group Law Enforcement Against Prohibition.

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Can Legalizing Marijuana Save California, Our Republic?

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